When King Belshazzar hallucinated on ergot
A thought experiment on the events of Daniel Chapter 5
Daniel chapter 5 is not necessarily one of the big hitters of the Old Testament. Rather Daniels most famous escapade is of course his time in the lions den. But the miraculous event described in Daniel chapter 5, is surprisingly, one of the many miracles that modern science is keen to offer an alternative explanation for. Today then, I will ask you to consider whether science has anything of value to say in Biblical interpretation and understanding. Moreover, I hope this thought experiment presents you the opportunity to consider how you respond as you read of interpretations that differ to your own…
Is their a place for Science in Biblical interpretation
Asking whether a passage of Scripture aligns or contradicts current scientific thought may not always be appropriate. However, it is valuable to ask this question across more pages of our Bibles than one might think; certainly it is a reasonable question asked by non-believers when they read of reality deifying miracles across scripture.
Whether or not you personally consider scientific consensus when you read Gods word, millions of people living in todays world do, almost instinctively. They may not think they are testing biblical claims against science but doubting miracles because “that’s not what normally happens” is a mental short cut made possible because we are used to a culture that readily refutes Biblical claims on scientific grounds.
So, while the the Christian believes the Bible to be the greatest authority, the atheist or agnostic does not take this authority as a given. They then have no reason to to accept the biblical claims that sometimes quite blatantly contradict scientific consensus.
Many apologists have devised a clever solution here. You have no doubt heard it said “The Bible is not a science textbook”. Despite it’s cut through, that line doesn’t hold for the majority of todays audiences. Consider when Dinesh D'Souza credits the bible with correctly knowing the universe has a beginning rather than being eternal. Many Christians are similarly quick to celebrate the Bible as getting science right before even the scientists had figured it out… However popular sceptic Alex O’Connor responds to that line by listing off instances when the Bible gets science “wrong” and D’Souza retreats behind “The Bible is not a science textbook”.
O’Conner rightly jumps into a critique of D’Souza who was quick to celebrate when the Bible gets some science right, and then in the places it gets it wrong hides behind the “not a textbook” line1. This is a cutting lesson, that Christians must not “move the goal posts” to better accommodate for when the Bible gets it “wrong”.
What we ought to do then, is when people apply scientific thinking to the Bible, never jump to a reactionary refute, or worse, retreat. Rather, we walk it through, considering how this alternative view require us to alter our interpretation. Asking ourselves, how does the new information affect my reading of this passage? The answer to such a question could be quite revelationary.
What happened 2,500 years ago
In Daniel chapter 5, the Babylonian King Belshazzar is having a party, a festival in fact is occurring throughout all Babylon (possibly even something akin to a new years festival).2
King Belshazzar orders the vessels looted from the temple in Jerusalem be brought into the banquet hall so they might be used as chalices. We read on, as the night continues and the king and his guests drink more and more wine…
“the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote.”
- (Daniel 5:5, ESV)
This of course is a shocking event, the king turns all shades of pale and his limbs give way. He immediately summons a great deal of wise men, astrologers and the like but none can decipher what the hand had written on the wall. The king then goes through another bought of symptoms, he is alarmed and “his colour changes”.
The queen bursts in dramatically, and reminds the king of Daniel who was once “Chief over the magicians”. Daniel is summoned, interprets the writing and is rewarded greatly for doing so, but later that same night Babylon is seized by the Persians and Belshazzar is killed.
What insight does science offer?
Some scholars have revisited this passage with our modern understandings of hallucinations either through a rare condition linked to alcoholism; alcoholic hallucinosis3 or, ergot-contaminated alcohol.4
Understand that by exploring the ergot hypothesis, we are doing our due diligence in exploring how modern scientific knowledge might press into the text. So before dismissing it outright, consider what this alternative interpretation reveals about your assumptions when you read your Bible.
Ergot is the collective name for the a pathogenic fungi from the genus Claviceps. Ergot spores typically infect cereal like rye or barley. The life cycle of the spore mimics a pollen grain. Instead of a pollen grain being fed by the plant, the ergot spore destroys the ovary and its mycelium connects to the vascular tissue of the stem. Ultimately the fungus is fed as if it where a fertilised seed.
These ergot kernels contains high concentrations of two compounds. Namely, lysergic acid and “ergotamine” which, to skip over quite a lot of complex organic chemistry, is a combination of molecules similar to that in LSD. The history of humanities consumption of alcohol and the history of ergot poisoning are deeply intertwined like the mycelium of a fungus, with unintentional consumption of this LSD-like-mixture in contaminated alcohol recorded as early as ~600BC5.
The suggestion then is that Belshazzar’s booze is seriously contaminated with ergot. With this in mind lets look again at the symptoms from Daniel 5…
6 Then the king's colour changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.
Daniel 5:6 ESV
If we now consider those symptoms alongside this description of ergot poisoning from an academic article, with some specific focus on the impact mentally as well as on the limbs and extremities,
…experience muscle spasms, fever and hallucinations and the victims may appear dazed, be unable to speak, become manic, or have other forms of paralysis or tremors, and suffer other distorted perceptions.
…violent burning, absent peripheral pulses and shooting pain of the poorly vascularized distal organs, such as the fingers and toes…6
Collectively then it is quite the story of correlating symptoms between Belshazzar’s limbs giving way and the muscle spasms of ergotism. Even more obvious is the hallucinations of ergotism and Belshazzar’s phantom hand.
This rationalisation of the miracle relies on two parts of scripture. Firstly we are only explicitly told that the king see’s the hand and secondly the physical symptoms the king displays. But if this was all a fungus fuelled hallucination, what then?
Miracle no more?
At this point you are likely having one of two reactions. Some readers may be wide-eyed and nervous that we are about to put God in a box and attribute a miraculous act to a fungus. You might feel this analysis robs God of his power or argue that reducing this to a fungus-induced frenzy makes the miracle meaningless. While I understand the urge to try and rule out the ergot hypothesis, there is an alternate.
The alternative reaction is one of wonder, jaw dropped, eyes wide in the realisation that God would chose to bring about changes to Belshazzar’s perception of reality with a created mechanism. In this view of events the whole of creation is so inseparably at Gods mercy that the growth of fungal spores in the field many months before Belshazzar’s feast is decisively under Gods authority, the brewer’s rushed work and failure to clean out his fermenting vessels as the Babylonian empire collapses is not merely one mans failing but divine intention precisely so that the LSD like compounds concentrate with each brewers batch in preparation for the upcoming festival. Over each step in the lead up to Belshazzar’s feast the LORD reigns decisive and intentional even guiding the chalice to Belshazzar’s lips.
If we consider the disembodied hand to be an ergot induced hallucination then our Bible has scientific backing and in this instance describes for us an explainable phenomenon. If the hand appeared miraculously with no altered consciousness of Belshazzar apparent then we must accept the Bible is claiming the occurrence of the purely supernatural, something that can not be proven or assessed through the investigation of man.
When your interpretation is challenged
Like me you are probably thinking “but the Bible claims the occurrence of supernatural events all the time! You don’t need to harmonise the Bible with Science.”
You would be right.
It is paramount to assert the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a real historical event is something the Bible makes no apology for, it is not merely an illustration or an explainable phenomena. As a result the believer must be willing to let Scripture trump science and leave us in awe of supernatural miracles…
But honed into Daniel chapter 5, I consider it acceptable to settle on one of two conclusions. Either we might conclude that our scientific understanding and philosophical principles ought to be up held and perhaps we should accept a more modern understanding of this event. Seeing the king as hallucinating while drunk, drugged, or poisoned doesn’t suggest God is not active or present. In fact the Calvinistic view assigns wonderous intentional precise planning in the hand of God. Further, the failure of the wise men of the court to interpret writing in their native language tracks better if it is a hallucination that they cannot even see, yet, like the emperors new clothes, none would contradict their ruler. This then makes Gods role more necessary in interpreting the writing through Daniel. Science doesn’t push God out of this miracle rather it suggests a God who created physical laws within his creation, uses these same laws to his advantage and purposes when interacting with the creation.
However, we might instead feel persuaded by the nature of the text in front of us that we are reading of a deity who choses to act outside of our laws of nature, who acts with such purpose and intent he can pierce the very fabric of our reality and in a supernatural way with a disembodied yet very physical hand write upon the walls of an ancient kings citadel and scramble the minds of wise men so that no interpretation can be brought until Daniel is in position.
Both of the above interpretations of the chapter seem plausible, yet neither can exclusively claim legitimacy. So, which interpretation should you align with?
Who’s Right? Who Cares?
If we step back a little, we might find that pushing at the seams of our knowledge and asking who’s right and who’s wrong gives us very little in the way of beneficial knowledge.
Both interpretations glorify God. Both see God pronounce judgement on Belshazzar and Babylon. Both see Daniel accredit the interpretation to God and ultimately see Daniel honoured. Perhaps most importantly, both interpretations place the story in real history, and so affirm the face value truth of the event rather than reducing it to a mere story it in mind of a philosopher trying to teach us a moral.
If then we consider either interpretation as valid we can look past “who is right” and see the much more important question peering out from behind the “How” of the miracle. This ability to, at times, arrest ourselves from declaring our interpretation as exclusively accurate is essential work each must do in their own heart because when we declare ourselves the intellectual victor we close the door to new learning.
In stories like this, when we move away from debates on the “How” and pivot to the “Why” we might just start asking the question that the author and the Spirit wanted us to consider all along.
In Daniel chapter 5, rather than debating the impact of ergot or the method God uses to shape reality we might find a more urgent lesson when we ask, why record this event in the Bible? A deeper lesson is lurking under the story’s face value, but that is your work for today.
Perhaps start by asking what caused God to act in this story? Consider the seriousness of defiling what has been anointed for God. Then maybe reflect on what in this present age is anointed for God, maybe you’ll even be honest enough to think through whether or not you have defiled it yourself.
At the bottom of all this lies something God takes so seriously that his intervention may cut across the laws of nature, or directly through them.
Alex O’Connor - How Did The Bible Know That? (This is a rough watch folks D’Souza does not go a good job making the case for the Bible)
Ergot poisoning: History, causes, symptoms, and more (medicalnewstoday.com)
An academic paper which cites a description on an Assyrian tablet of a ‘noxious pustule in the ear of grain’ Ergot: from witchcraft to biotechnology
Excerpt from the paper: “Convulsive ergotism: epidemics of the serotonin syndrome?”