Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 19.50 19/01/00 +0200, Jonathan D. Safren wrote:
>
>
>Ian Hutchesson wrote:
>> I don't think this theory is actually dealing with the text, Jonathan. We
>> are told that Abraham was to set off from Ur of the Chaldeans and go to the
>> land of Canaan, but when he came to Haran, they settled there. The
>> narrative is written ot indicate that Ur was a long way from Haran, which
>> is in line with the Ur that we all know and not some northern Ur which may
>> have been known to the writer. The first part of the chapter (11) is set in
>> southern Mesopotamia.
>
>You are most definitely right that the text is written to indicate that Ur
- and
>Harran - are a long way off from Canaan.

But I say further that Ur and Harran are far apart, otherwise the
expectations of the narrative are not met. One travelling a long way will
stop a good stretch of the way to the ultimate destination, but if your Ur
were in the neighbourhood of Harran then the narrative in this part would
have little sense.

>But remember, they didn't fly in jet planes in those days. Upper
mesopotamia, for
>the writer's purposes, was the same as Southern Mesopotamia - a long, long
way off.

Yet Upper Mespotamia was not a long way off regarding Harran. Your
suggestion seems to be perverting the text's literary intent. One doesn't
start of say from Jerusalem heading for Harran and stop off for a long rest
in Bethel. It serves no literary purpose saying that one was told to go
somewhere only to be sidetracked on a few kilometres away.

>And the fact that the first part of the chapter is set in Southern
Mesopotamia
>doesn't mean a thing. The last part of the chapter mentions  Serug =
Serugi near the
>Balih Valley; 2 Nahors=Nahur on the Upper Habur or Til Nahiri on the Balih
or Nihriya,
>also in Upper Mesopotamia; and Terah = Til Turahi, in the Balih River Valley.

You may make a case for the inheritance of some names in a particular zone,
but this is irrelevant to your case regarding this not southern
Mesopotamian Ur.

>No, Ian, you can't get around it, you'll have to leave off that
old-fashioned theory
>identifying Ur Kasdim with Sumerian Ur

Unfortunately, no we can't leave it off. Ur, once Sumerian, was still an
important city in the Chaldean era, when it was Ur of the Chaldeans -- both
Ur and Harran were important to them as centres of worship of the moon god,
Sin. Because of its importance it could not but be known

Are you suggesting that the ancient readers of the particular passage
understood that in this case your hypothesized Ur, not of the Chaldeans who
were in Chaldea, but of the Chaldeans who weren't in Chaldea (at least yet,
or were they?), was not the famous Ur of southern Mesopotamia which was
Chaldean when the exiles went to Babylon?

>, which has nothing to support it but the
>similarity of the names - and THERE WERE OTHER CITIES NAMED UR!!! 

Please don't shout. I heard you the first time. Ur, that which we know as
Ur of the Chaldeans, was their centre since before 800 BCE (when do the
Assyrians first use mat/kasdim?). There is no mention of them anywhere
before that time to my knowledge, strange, if they had somehow migrated
through the more civilized zones of the time from places north. Liverani
explains this fact with the hypothesis that the Chaldeans came from the
south, from Arabia. This of course would explain Nabonidus's favour for the
city of Teiman in Arabia where he spent most of his reign. Before your idea
can be taken seriously, you need to establish a connection between the
Chaldeans and some other Ur than the one they are historically known to
have been connected to.

>(Which is why the author affixes the denominative Kasdim).

This is only your interpretation of the facts, an interpretation that flies
in the face of the more obvious. That is that Ur is the one the readers
would have known when connected to the Chaldeans, ie the one in southern
Mesopotamia. What I see is you manipulating a text that doesn't suit your
understanding, when there are no indications in the text to justify your
position. The Kasdim are known in the OT/HB and the reader, as I understand
from the context, would not have any problem with the term and, used in the
context of Ur, would place the city conceptually in the mind of the reader.
Was Nehemiah referring to the same place when he mentions Ur of the
Chaldeans? Obviously a second temple work would understand Ur of the
Chaldeans as we understand Ur of the Chaldeans, ie the city that was
located in Chaldean heartland.

>  I think I've marshalled enough evidence, both on this list and on the
ANE list, both
>from the Bible and from the ANE, in favor of a northern location, 

Your list of cities appears as I said above irrelevant. The linguistics was
interesting, though the sound change doesn't seem a direct one, ie when
phonemes change it is almost invariably only one feature modified at a time
(how many features from /s/ to /l/?). 

>so please let's stop
>wasting bandwidth and boring people with unnecessary rehashing. 

(Sorry, but when people start talking about bandwidth, it usually means
that they are abusing it. And I'm not asking you to rehash. But I am asking
you to deal with the )

>Let's simply agree to disagree, as is done in scholarly and other circles.
>And if you really think it necessary, I can always repost those letters.
Prof. Lemche
>agrees.

I have read them all, Jonathan, so please, not on my account.


Cheers,


Ian



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