Ur of the Chaldees: Where was it? A Jewish Perspective

This video explores where the potential location of Ur of the Chaldees was according to Jewish tradition. Since the Woolley expedition in the 1920s it has been assumed by most scholars that the city of Ur and the biblical Ur of the Chaldees were synonymous. We will explore alternative sites.
#Abraham #Bible # OldTestament
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I own no rights to copyrighted films and photos, and am using them for educational purposes as defined by fair use laws.
Images:
Description
English: Part of Dead Sea Scroll number 28a (1Q28a) from Qumran Cave 1. From Qumran (Khirbet Qumran or Wadi Qumran), West Bank of the Jordan River, near the Dead Sea, modern-day State of Israel. The Jordan Museum, Amman, Jordan Hashimite Kingdom.
Date 28 January 2018, 15:41:11
Source Own work
Author Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg)
Description British Museum page
English: Sumerian Cylinder Seal of King Ur-Nammu
Date 7 February 2005
Author Steve Harris

Description Apadana Hall, 5th century BC carving of Persian and Median soldiers in traditional costume (Medians are wearing rounded hats and boots)
Source Own work
Author Arad
Description
Türkçe: Bu Sümer uygarlığı döneminde antik Mezopotamya şehir devletlerinin bir haritasıdır.
English: This is a map of the city states of ancient Mesopotamia during the Sumerian civilization.
Date 2 February 2019
Source
No machine-readable author provided. Zunkir assumed (based on copyright claims).

File:Ur3.JPG
Author Hedda Gabler
Description
English: Harran beehive houses
Date 18 June 2012, 07:22:03
Source Own work
Author Zhengan
Description
English: The Hittite Empire, approximate extent of the maximum area of the Hittite rule (light green) and the Hittite rule ca. 1350-1300 BC (green line)
Date 17 September 2013, 20:52:36
Source
This map for the information
Author
derivative work: Ikonact
Description
Tablet on display at the Oriental Institute, with the caption:

Hittite Cuneiform Tablet:
Cultic Festival Script
Baked clay
Hattusha
Late Bronze Age (14th century BC?)
A6007
Description
العربية: أنقاض مدينة أور الأثرية في محافظة ذي قار جنوب العراق
English: Ruins in the Town of Ur, Southern Iraq
Español: Ruinas de la ciuad de Ur con el Zigurat de Ur-Nammu al fondo a las afueras de Nasiriyah.
Ruins
Date 20 June 2006
Source Flickr
Author M.Lubinski from Iraq,USA.
Description Euphrates river
Date Taken on 23 September 2009
Author Alen Ištoković
Description
English: Map of the main cities of Lower Mesopotamia during the Early Dynastic period, with the approximate course of the rivers and the ancient shoreline of the Gulf.
Français : Carte des principales villes de la Basse Mésopotamie durant la période des Dynasties Archaïques, avec le tracé approximatif des fleuves et l'ancien trait de côte du Golfe.
Date 28 September 2010, 12:00 (UTC)
Source
Author
Description Picture of the Şanlıurfa/Urfa skyline.
Date 5 July 2006, 21:51:36
Source Flickr: Şanlıurfa
Author Damien Halleux Radermecker
Description
English: Balikli Göl, Şanlıurfa, Turkey
Français : Balikli Göl, Şanlıurfa, Turquie
Date 24 May 2014
Source Own work
Author Bernard Gagnon
Description
English: Harran beehive houses
Date 18 June 2012, 07:22:03
Source Own work
Author Zhengan
Description
English: A fishing boat in the Euphrates southern Iraq
العربية: قارب صيد محلي في نهر الفرات جنوب العراق في ذي قار
Date 28 December 2015, 09:33:17
Source Own work
Author Aziz1005
Description
English: Euphrates River
Date 21 June 2012, 04:59:31
Source Own work
Author Zhengan

[WilfredMueller-zuve]

I agree with you totally. . Abraham s relatives where Syrian Gen 25:20, 28:5-10, 31:20-25. Also the towns in the area, are Suruc, Harran, Til-turahi (Ruin of Tara)

[focalfusion]

Awesome. I've just visited Urfa (Sanliurfa). It feels right that Abraham was born and lived in Urfa. Then moved to Haran.

[wdsalih]

Ibrahim Al-Khalil was born in Iraq🇮🇶
In Ur, southern Iraq
Ur is the oldest city in the world
The name Iraq is derived from the name Uruk
Burial of Ibrahim Al-Khalil in Palestine🇵🇸 in the city of Nablus
There are also prophets buried in Iraq
Like Khidr and Daniel from the prophets of the Children of Israel
There is also the tomb of the Prophet Yunus
There are the graves of the grandchildren of the Messenger of God, Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets, and his last grandson, the Mahdi, who disappeared into the Euphrates River.

[ian_b]

"So old man, where did Abraham come from?"

"Er..."

*writes that down*

[JJBrown-lwdv]

Great explanation of why Woolley was way off, and Sanliurfa is by far the most likely birthplace of Abraham. However, you may want to reconsider Abraham's birth order. In the Patriarchal lineage, the designation of the firstborn is so important, not only because the firstborn must take responsibility for the family but also because he must carry the priesthood of God for the father's descendants. But in the Old Testament, the son designated as "Firstborn" is very often NOT actually the son who is born first. Going backwards, this was true in every case after Terah: Note Ephraim, Joseph, Jacob, Isaac, and even Abraham were all designated Firstborns who were not born first. Terah began having children at the age of 70, and lists Abraham first, but Abraham was clearly younger, by 60 years, than Haran. Abraham was actually born when Terah was 130. This confusion is why the O.T. timelines are often about 60 years off after Abraham.

Also in the 1970's a huge library of clay records was discovered at the ancient ruins of Ebla in Northern Syria, not too far south of Turkey. Many of these cuneifrom records were written in Nahor and Abraham's day. One of the tablets discussing trade referred to a city called Ur of Haran. This is obviously Sanliurfa. Just Google "Ur of Haran". and "Ebla" and you'll find the references to it.

[mver]

I think it's very possible that Abraham came from Ur in Mesopotamia.
Ur and Haran share the same city deity : the moon god Sin/Nanna.
Sarai = Sarratu = the title of Sin's wife.
Laban = Full white moon
Milcah = Sin's daughter.
Terah could be possibly yerah, which means moon.

The Talmud also has a story about abraham worshipping the moon. But then after witnessing it making place for the sun and vice versa realises that there must something higher that controls both the moon and sun and drops his former faith

I also think he went initially as a high priest of Sin to the holy land to start a colony for the temple cult of Sín or as some kind of ambassador. That is why he is literally traveling with an army strong enough to kill a coalition of local kings. He must have travelled pretty grandiose. That is why he was afraid they spotted and take Sarah (otherwise a nobody).

The group splits between Sin worshippers and the ones that accept his new god. This is the story of Isaac and Ishmael. The Ishmaelites lose and are banished towards the deserts.
Ishmaelism evolved into Islam. Muhammad said multiple times he is a descendant of Ishmael. And in Islam the moon is hugely important. Ramadan for example works on moon stances. His only wonder had to do with the moon etc. Even the Kaaba stone is a "moon" stone. A meteorite. Which was placed there by Abraham himself according to Muhammad.

The Islamic story of Isaac and Ishmael might've been the story as told by the Ishmaelites. A tradition now lost. A henotheistic Sin-Abrahamic offshoot tradition that circumcised and had dietary laws.

[craggyislsnd]

Great job navigating your way to enlightenment. Also I'd like to enlighten you a little bit more that Mount Nemrut(Nimrod) is due north from both Urfa(Sanliurfa) & Harran. The tower that stands today in Harran, whilst not the original, should also cast aspersion on the tower of Babel location.

[FATBOY]

Abraham's Ur was in Turkey near the Syrian boarder.

[davkaldani]

Kardu, kartu is the name of modern Georgians. Georgians call themselves kart-veli which means karduan. It is neighboring Armenia and Cutha (quta - as it is pronounced) could be the then capital of Georgia quta-isi (mentioned in the myth of argonauts). and yes You can find people with family names Kaldani. Of course I am not asserting anything, just too many familiar ethnonyms and toponyms. 😊

[walt]

The story goes, Abram left the city of Ur, who's city god was Nanna the moon god, who the Babylonians would call Sin, and it was the Lord of that city that sent him Abram, not Abraham, (the ram not the ham) on his way. Abram was reborn Abraham much later.

[polruca]

Abraham Ur is Urkesh, Urkasdim is Urkesh - dim

[EndodoNYirnyir]

THIS IS THE GREAT EXAMPLE OF: "SOMETIMES The most dangerous place is the safest place" ON EARTH QUOTE... LIL DID CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM KNOW, FATHER ABARAHAM A.K.A (47) IBRAHIM MIGRATED FROM THIS AREA WANDERING AROUND.

[guidefortheperplexed]

There's a tradition in Turkey that Abraham's birthplace was near the Gobleki. He may have moved to Ur after the Tower of Babel incident

[geoffreybslater]

Read Reginald Fessenden "The Deluged Civilization of the Caucasus Isthmus" It was in SE Turkey

[jdschauss]

Şanlıurfa makes the most sense. Also, the word "Ur" itself just means "city." Each great kingdom would have had its Ur.

[bobertjones]

If "Ur" could mean "fire, " then, is there a possible link with Zoroastrians who keep the sacred fire burning as a part of their faith? They were also noted for monotheism before Abraham.

[bitkower]

I have a simpler and more realistic solution. Much of Bereshit (Genesis), especially all the parts that take place before Abraham and mirror Mesopotamian mythology, i.e. the flood story, the Adam & Chava (Eve) story were added to the Jewish canon during the Babylonian exile, which was during the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which was ruled by the Chaldeans. This was towards the end of the life of the city of Ur, which was thousands of years old at the time. Ur is called Ur Kasdim in Bereshit because it was Chaldean when the story was written down, not because it was Chaldean when Abraham lived there. If Abraham was a real person, he would have lived roughly around 1800 BCE, during the Old Babylonian Empire, especially remembered for it's most famous ruler Hammurabi, whose code was definitely an influence on the legal code in the Torah. Hammurabi and his Old Babylonian Empire were not ancestral natives of Mesopotamia, they were Amorites who conquered Mesopotamia and Egypt around the same time, coming from the area around Haran. Unlike the non-Semitic speaking Sumerians and East Semitic speaking Akkadians who previously ruled Mesopotamian, the Amorites were a west Semitic speaking people. Their language was more closely related to Aramean and Cannanite languages, and of course Hebrew is the sole surviving Cannanite language. Not long after the time of Hammurabi and Abraham, the Amorites were chased out of Mesopotamia and headed back along the same well known trade route they took to get there and went back to the Amorite homeland in what is today southern Turkey and northern Syria. It actually makes sense that Abraham could have lived in Ur as one of the many west Semitic Amorites of Hammurabi's Old Babylonian Empire, then moved back to the Amorite homeland around Haran before then following the other major trade route from Haran south towards Egypt. During the Second Intermediate Period between Egypt's Middle and New Kingdoms, northern Egypt was taken over by Amorites in the 14th dynasty and then Canaanite Hyksos in the 15th dynasty, before being chased out by the native Egyptian 17th dynasty which reunified Egypt under native rule. It was during this time that we find the first extrabiblical references to a nation of Israel, who coalesced from various tribal groupings in the relative safety of the Judaean mountains, away from the Mediterranean coast where Egypt's New Kingdom was conquering and fighting the Indo-European speaking Hittites over the in between lands of the Levant. Partly this was to secure their northern border to prevent Levantine Cannanite peoples from reconquering Egypt. This was in the same era as Amorite rule in Mesopotamia, so it makes perfect sense that Abraham could have gone from Amorite controlled Mesopotamia and to the Amorite homeland around Haran to Amorite controlled Egypt, only for his descendents to be pushed out of Egypt back into the Levant when native Egyptians reunified Egypt. To whatever extent any of this was remembered in the oral tradition that remained when the Judahite aristocracy and priestly castes were exiled to Chaldean Babylon, where they found Ur still existing, barely. We know this is when most of those stories from Bereshit were written down. It makes perfect sense that they called it Ur Kasdim because it was Chaldean ruled when they were there in exile, not because it was Chaldean ruled when Abraham lived there. There's no need for all these overly complicated hypotheses based on the midaeval writings of Rabbis with an incomplete understanding of ancient history besides what they had access to cobbled together from various sources in the Torah. Btw, the idea that Ur couldn't be in Mesopotamia because getting to Haran between Ur and what later came to be Judaea isn't a straight line is silly. Humans never traveled in straight lines until modern roads were built. Humans always followed easy to follow trade routes following rivers and other natural paths. There's no straight path from Ur to Judaea because it's all desert. Of course they followed an already ancient trade route following the Euphrates northwest to near Haran and then another more coastal path south to Judaea. Abraham wasn't inventing these paths, he was following routes that had already existed for thousands of years. Ur was already more than 2000 years old during the Hammurabi's Old Babylonian Empire that Abraham would have lived in.

[oscarernestoroberts]

In a nutshell, URFA in Turkey was UR ?

[mir]

1:57
In pashto language the word for Fire is Ur.
Maybe there is a link somewhere

[yaruqadishi]

Shinar is NOT sumer at all in the least. That's 1 generation ago error. Shinar is placed in area of babylon or babel and north of akkad in southern assyria and babylonia region. Far outside sumer and alien to sumer as well way so as well as alien to akkad too.