Yigal Levin asks:
But really how old is the tradition? When is it first attested? I
have never really looked into it, and would be glad to hear from
someone who has.
I write:
I remember this coming up a few years ago (somewhere out of mind). As
I recall, the answer was that this tradition is only attested after
the city came into Turkish hands. That's early second millennium.
This is the city formerly known as Edessa, the intellectual center of
Syriac Christianity. There's not a hint of the connection of
Abraham's with the place during Christian times.
I suspect the Urfa/Urhai and variant "ur" sounding names are
corruptions of the Callirhoe, the nearby river. But that's just a
guess.
Regards,
Kevin P. Edgecomb
Berkeley, California
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