Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.ac.il>]

Ian Hutchesson wrote:

> At 19.25 30/05/00 +0200, John Ronning responding to Walter wrote:

>
> >Another example - Ur-kasdim:
> >(1) the "bait" - let's consider whether archaeology sheds
> >light on the historicity (or otherwise) of the call of
> >Abram.
> >(2) the "switch" - we'll say that Ur-kasdim of the Bible is
> >the famous Ur in Southern Babylonia (even though ALL of the
> >internal evidence of the Bible puts Ur-kasdim in Northern
> >Mesopotamia near Haran, and the southern Ur is never called
> >"Ur-Kasdim")
> >(3) the "sell job" - there were no Kasdim in southern
> >Babylonia until 1000 years after Abraham supposedly existed,
> >so genesis is anachronistic.
> >
> >Like I said, some may use such bait and switch techniques
> >deliberately, others simply through shoddy scholarship.
>
> We've been through this waltz before, John, and the only thing we find is
> people like John sending ad hominems about shoddy scholarship. You are
> deliberately misrepresenting scholarship [..]. Why do people continue to
> make the connection between Ur of the Chaldees and the Ur of Babylonia?
> It's in the archives.

You're right, Ian, we've been through this before, both here and, with NPL, 
on ANE.
I never made any claims about shoddy scholarship, so that accusation is 
unfair. What I
did say is that you are ignoring Biblical and extra=Biblical evidence for the 
northern
location of Ur, and that there is absolutely no evidence, Biblical or 
extra-Biblical,
for a southern identification of Ur.
I also wrote that those who continue to insist on a southern identification 
of Ur are
doing so because this is a linchpin of their assumption of the lateness and
nonauthenticity of the Patriarchal Narratives, and without a southern Ur, 
their whole
house of cards collapses.
The Patriarchal Narratives may be legend, but they point to a Northern 
Mesopotamian
origin of the Patriarchs.
Strangely enough, there may even be support from a recent Y-chromosome study 
of Jewish
populations and host populations which indicates that, by Y-chromosome 
makeup, Jews of
all origins are closest to Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Non-Jewish 
Iraqis were
not in the sample, so fnal conclusions will have to wait.
Sincerely,
--
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
Beit Berl Post Office 44905
Israel