Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Tory Thorpe <torythrp AT yahoo.com>]

On Nov 5, 2007, at 11:25 AM, jason silber wrote:

> JIm,
>
> Did anyone raise the issue that Ur Kasdim didnt exist during the  
> time Avram
> was supposed to have lived?
> and that since Ur was a major sophisiticated city during Babylonian  
> exile it
> is plausible that the editors of the tanakh in the 6 century BCE  
> inserted an
> Ur background to abraham to lend an air of sophistcation to Avraham  
> and his
> descendents?
> Uzi

The southern city of Ur did exist that far back. You mean "Chaldeans"  
did not exist that far back. No documentation about them before the  
first millennium BCE is known and they did not become a ruling caste  
until the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. This may support Gen. 11:28 and  
15:7 being glossed in the 6th century, but then why not Ur of the  
Kassites (Kasdim)? Maybe a case can be argued that the Hebrew kasdim  
is not a variant of kaldu (before the shift -sd to -ld in Akkadian)  
but is derived from Kassu/Kassat/Kassitu.

Tory Thorpe