Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 09/05/2005 21:34, kwrandolph wrote:

> ...
>
> Secondly, wasn't Ur of the Chaldeas a different city than Ur of the 
> Sumerians? I thought that was a reference found among the Ebla 
> tablets. Correct me if I am mistaken, but my understanding is that Ur 
> of the Chaldeans was a city to the north east of Ebla whose ruins have 
> yet to be found, while Ur of the Sumerians was to the south east.
Many scholars have suggested that Ur of the Chaldees is to be identified 
with the modern city of Şanlıurfa or Urfa (formerly known as Edessa), in 
southern Turkey, which is not far from Haran, and suitably north east of 
Ebla. The oldest known name of this city was something like Ur - the 
Syriac form is Ourhoï, according to 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edessa%2C_Mesopotamia. In fact according to 
the same page "Due to similarity of names, folk mythology in Islam 
connects Edessa with Ur as the abode of Abraham", but there may be more 
to it than the similarity of names (and the supposed derivation from the 
name Chosroes may be incorrect).

This suggestion puts a rather different complexion on Terah's move from 
Ur to Haran in Genesis 11:31: if it is correct, he only completed a very 
small part of his intended journey.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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