Vidqun,
" it is clear that during the latter years of Nabonidus’s reign, while the latter made his headquarters at Teima in Arabia, Belshazzar ruled as his viceroy, with all the authority of the king. "
Actually, citations I have seen say that Nabonidus returned from Teima in 544 BC.
[ Beaulieu 1989:149-205. On Tayma's importance for trade: C. Edens and G. Bawden, "History of Tayma' and Hejazi trade during the first millennium B.C.", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 32 (1989:48-103)]
And here from the Nabonidus Cylinder from Ur, a building dedication circa 540 BC.
i.1-4]Nabonidus, king of Babylon, caretaker of Esagila and Ezida, worshiper of the great gods, I:…
" ...As for me, Nabonidus, king of Babylon, save me from sinning against your great godhead and grant me as a present a life long of days, and as for Belshazzar, the eldest son - my offspring - instill reverence for your great godhead in his heart and may he not commit any cultic mistake, may he be sated with a life of plenitude."
Doesn't sound like a king in abdication to me. Just a king pre-occupied with building and restoring temples.
In the Nabonidus chronicle events in his reign are chronicled according to the year of his reign dating in our terms from ( 556 to 539 BC). In the original language he is referred to as Nabu.
In the 6th year ( 550/549) it records that Astyages marched against Cyrus ( roughly, Kurashar Anshanan) and that his army revolted.
In the several years following it records the presence of Nabu in Teima and the death of his centenarian mother. (She is Assyrian rather than Chaldean/Akkadian). Mourning is announced for months with names similar to those in the Hebrew calendar.
The 17th year (539/538 BC) is thick with entries. Nabu is at Borshippa and then confronting Cyrus and his army at Opis.
The seventeenth year (539/538): ... N]abu [came] from Borsippa for the procession of Bel. Bel came out.]
8 [... B]el came out. They performed the Akitu festival as in normal times. In the month [...]
9 [...] [... the gods] of Marad, Zababa, and the gods of Kish, Ninlil [and the gods of]
10 [x] šá kurAkkadîki Hursagkalamma entered Babylon. Until the end of the month Ululu the gods of Akkad [...]
11 from everywhere were entering Babylon. The gods of Borsippa, Cuthah,
12 and Sippar did not enter (Babylon). When13 Cyrus did13 battle at Opis on the [bank of]
13 the Tigris against the army of Akkad, the people of Akkad
14 retreated. He carried off the plunder (and) slaughtered the people. On the fourteenth day Sippar was captured without a battle.
15 Nabonidus fled. On the sixteenth day, Ugbaru, governor of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus, without battle
16 they entered Babylon. Afterwards, after Nabonidus retreated, he was captured in Babylon. Until the end of the month, the shield-(bearing troops)
17 from Gutium surrounded the gates of Esagil. (But) interruption (of rites) in Esagil or the (other) temples
18 there was not, and no date (for a performance) was missed. On the third day of the month Arahsamna, Cyrus entered Babylon.
19 The harû-vessels were filled before him. There was peace in the city while Cyrus, (his) greeting to
20 Babylon in its entirety spoke. Gubaru, his district officer, appointed the district officers in Babylon.
21 From the month Kislimu to the month Addaru, the gods of Akkad which Nabonidus had brought to Babylon
22 returned to their places. On the night of the eleventh of the month Arahsamna, Ugbaru died. In the mon[th Addaru]
23 ] the king's wife died. From the twenty-seventh of the month Addaru to the third of the month Nisannu [there was] (an official) mourning period in Akkad.
That’s the account of the Nabonidus Cylinder. Now here is some of the account of the Cyrus Cylinder.
Cyrus takes Babylon
[15-19] He [Marduk] ordered him to go to his city Babylon. He set him on the road to Babylon and like a companion and a friend, he went at his side. His vast army, whose number, like water of the river, cannot be known, marched at his side fully armed. He made him enter his city Babylon without fighting or battle; he saved Babylon from hardship. He delivered Nabonidus, the king who did not revere him, into his hands. All the people of Babylon, all the land of Sumer and Akkad, princes and governors, bowed to him and kissed his feet. They rejoiced at his kingship and their faces shone. Lord by whose aid the dead were revived and who had all been redeemed from hardship and difficulty, they greeted him with gladness and praised his name.
[20-22a] I am Cyrus, king of the world, great king, mighty king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters, the son of Cambyses, great king, king of Anšan, grandson of Cyrus, great king, king of Anšan, descendant of Teispes, great king, king of Anšan, of an eternal line of kingship, whose rule Bêl and Nabu [not Nabonidus, obviously] love, whose kingship they desire for their hearts' pleasure.
[22b-28] When I entered Babylon in a peaceful manner, I took up my lordly abode in the royal palace amidst rejoicing and happiness. Marduk, the great lord, established as his fate for me a magnanimous heart of one who loves Babylon, and I daily attended to his worship. My vast army marched into Babylon in peace; I did not permit anyone to frighten the people of Sumer and Akkad. I sought the welfare of the city of Babylon and all its sacred centers. As for the citizens of Babylon, [...] upon whom Nabonidus imposed a corvée which was not the gods' wish and not befitting them, I relieved their wariness and freed them from their service. Marduk, the great lord, rejoiced over my good deeds. He sent gracious blessing upon me, Cyrus, the king who worships him, and upon Cambyses, the son who is my offspring, and upon all my army, and in peace, before him, we moved around in friendship.
End of Cyrus extract.
This proclamation bears striking resemblance to what appears in Ezra and what appears in Isaiah, chapters 45 to 47. While Cyrus takes a multi-cultural approach with respect to gods, the OT texts assume that he is talking about their God alone. The description in Isaiah most likely written early in the days of the siege when confidence in Cyrus was already high. That would be the latest. Or, we could believe that Isaiah wrote it and it headed off to Babylon along with the rest of extant Hebrew scriptures. That poses obvious problems, and especially in the case of Daniel summoned to Belshazzar’s feast to tell what the morrow might bring. Because his prediction had little connection to the historical record and was delivered to the supposed son of Nebuchadnezzar – king.
So we have Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Hebrew accounts of the fall of Babylon in 539 in one column – and then we have Daniel and Josephus in another. Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities provide much less independent research or knowledge to the account in comparison to the Jewish Wars. In the latter he is practically our sole source, but in the former he mostly paraphrases what is already available in Hebrew and Greek texts with periodic anecdotes. In the case of Daniel Josephus surmises that he ended up like Ashpenaz, the chief eunuch. But he enlightens us less on mid eastern history than he does in the Jewish Wars. Moreover, considering that Daniel purports to be an inside view of Babylonian priest castes, it does not carry away an iota of information about their chief occupations, by no means in the manner that the Greeks did in developing their Ptolemaic astronomy from Babylonian records.
So, we have four sources that give us a different account of Babylon’s fall to an invading army – and they all seem to have a better provenance and coherence ( save perhaps Isaiah) than the account given in Daniel. Daniel’s narrative testimony shifts from language to language, person to person and drops off in mid chapter. ..
And then, of course, going back to Daniel's internal structure, it contradicts itself with the later chapters (13-14) telling of Daniel's activities in Babylon during the time of Cyrus. Excluded in some Bibles, yes. Yet these tales are much less phantasmagorical than the baseline of 12 chapters. Ditto with the Book of Wisdom by Ben Sirach who enumerates the prophets and never mentions Daniel - because circa 200 BC he never heard of him. And the TaNaKh is straight-forward enough when it includes the book - under Writings.
But it is vigorously defended like the proponents of the Ptolemaic cosmology with articles adding the equivalents of new and more complicated epicycles such as Belshazzar was related to Nebuchadnezzar by way of his mother or that satraps were somehow a notion of Nebuchadnazzar’s court – and so forth.
WHY?
If we can accept all these vague explanations for anachronisms and ignorance presented by the book’s author and editors, we will somehow be more likely to accept every new and preposterous interpretation handed down to us by radio preachers and others about what the text really means. We will be ready to accept its primacy over any other element of Christian faith and the prominence it gives to its dogged advocates.