8.
“Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein” (Dan. v, 1, 2).
“In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace” (5).
“And this is the writing that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN” (25).
“In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans [Babylon] slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom” (30, 31).
As a dramatic piece of fiction Belshazzar’s Feast is good; as a chapter of ancient history it is bad. Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar; neither was he king of Babylon. Darius the Mede did not take the kingdom.
9.
“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)... And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David), to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child” (Luke ii, 1–5).