Regular readers of this blog will have noticed that I haven’t posted nearly as much in the past few months as I have previously. Part of the reason for this is because I’m taking several courses this semester with workloads that take up a large proportion of my time. One of these courses is NEJS 113a (“Biblical Aramaic in Context”). The first five weeks of the course were a fast-paced introduction to the grammar of Aramaic, a West Semitic language closely related to Hebrew that was the most widely spoken vernacular language in Mesopotamia and the Levant from around the seventh century BCE to around the third century CE and was also the primary language of administration and public life in the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Currently, we are reading the Book of Daniel chapters 3, 6, and 7 in the original Aramaic and, later in the semester, we will be reading Aramaic texts from inscriptions and papyri.
In doing my readings for this course, I’ve been reminded of what I have long thought is possibly the most poorly-conceived law in all of ancient literature: a supposed Achaemenid law that held that no one—not even the king himself—could ever revoke or alter any decree that had been made in his name for any reason under any circumstances. The law is definitely made up; there’s no attestation of it anywhere in any Persian or Greek sources. Nonetheless, it manages to cause all kinds of trouble as a plot device the Books of Esther and Daniel.
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