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  • From: "Walter R. Mattfeld" <mattfeld12 AT charter.net>
  • To: "b-hebrew List" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Ur of the Chaldees
  • Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 06:03:42 -0400

Karl has argued that Abraham was a Semite and spoke a Semitic language, ergo he was _not_ a Sumerian from Ur of Lower Mesopotamia, but of Urfa (modern Edessa) in Northern Syria not far from biblical Haran, a site in some Islamic traditions associated with him.

The "problem" with Karl's reasoning is that he is apparently _unaware_ that quite early on, by the time Abraham flourished, Ur had become infiltrated by Semites. So, in Abraham's days, Semites _did_ live at Ur in Lower Mesopotamia !

The late Professor Kramer, an authority on Sumer, regarding a Semitic population _in_ Sumer by the 4th millennium BCE, which became _predominant_ by ca. 2900 BCE, long before Abraham's birth ca. 2100 BCE using the biblical chronology (the Ubaidians or Proto-Euphrateans build Sumer's first villages ca. 4900 BCE):

"The Ubaidians, however, did not long remain the sole and dominant power in ancient Sumer. Immediately to the west of Sumer lies the Syrian desert and the Arabian peninsula, the home of the Semitc nomads from time immemorial. As the Ubaidian settlers thrived and prospered, some of these Semitic hordes began to infiltrate their settlements both as peaceful immigrants and as warlike conquerors...even the oldest Sumerian inscriptions contain a number of Semitic loanwords, and the Sumerian pantheon contains not a few deities which are Semitic in origin...Finally, the first dynasty of Sumer whose existence can be historically attested at least to some extent, the so-called First Dynasty of Kish, which according to the ancients themselves followed immediately upon the subsidence of the Flood [dated 2900 BCE at Shurupakk], begins with a whole group of rulers bearing Semitic names...all in all it seems not unreasonable to conjecture that the Semites followed the Proto-Euphrateans into Sumer and that as a result of the cross-fertilization of their two cultures, there came into being the first high civilization in Sumer, one in which the Semitic element was probably predominant." (p. 42. "History: Heroes, Kings, and Ensi's." Samuel Noah Kramer. _The Sumerians, Their History, Culture, and Character_. Chicago. The University of Chicago Press. 1963. reprint 1972)


Here's what Leick (an Assyriologist and Anthropologist) has to say on the subject of Semitic religious concepts fused with Sumerian:

"What we define here as Babylonian myths are a number of texts which were written Akkadian during the second millennium BC...Most of these compositions, however, are preserved on tablets that were found in the great Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian archives, notably those of Nineveh, Uruk, _Ur_ and Babylon. We know from colophon entries and other reports that the majority of the texts were copies of older material...The oldest editions of some texts date from the Old Babylonian period...The Babylonians inherited the culture and religious structures of the Sumerians. The scribes of the Old Babylonian period copied and translated a number of Sumerian mythological texts...But there is also much that owes more to Syrian and Amorite concepts than Sumerian tradition." (pp. 23-24. "Babylonian Mythology." Gwendolyn Leick. A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology. London & New York. Routledge. 1991, 1996, 1997. ISBN 0-415-19811-9 pbk)

Conclusions:

Karl "errs" in thinking that because Abraham spoke a Semitic language that ergo he could not be of Ur in Sumer, because that location spoke a non-Semitic language. As noted by Kramer the Semites had become the _dominant ruling class_ of Sumer at least 800 years _before_ the birth of Abraham. So a Semitic-speaking Abraham would have had no problems in 2100-2000 BCE, with Sumer's "Semitic" population.

Regards, Walter
Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed.
mattfeld12 AT charter.net
www.bibleorigins.net









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