New Theory: Terah the Aramean: A Different Ur of Turkey Making Haran Accessible to Canaan' Part X

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                     

 

Terah, who died at age 205, was father of Abraham who was born in 1948 BCE,

They traveled from Ur of the Chaldees toward Canaan and on the way stopped at Haran where they settled down and Terah died there.  It was where Haran, Abraham's brother lived.  Terah made idols; was a devout idolator but son Abraham challenged his beliefs one day when an idol fell over and Abe said that another idol had pushed it over.  Abraham took Haran's son, Lot, and they continued the goal of going to Canaan.  

To those of us obsessed with where Abraham's beginnings were, we thought we knew where Ur of the Chaldees/Kasdim was; nearby the Euphrates River.  We are relying on the tale Moses had written down as this information is found in Genesis 11. (Abraham was born in 1948 BCE; a man of the 2nd millennium BCE) Then Professor Gary Rendsburg reminds us that Joshua (Moses was born in 1391 BCE, so Joshua was born c1366 BCE; 582 years after Moses' rendition of the oral history which is nothing compared to the years our patriarchs had lived) tells a different rendition of Abraham's beginnings in that:  "Your forefathers---Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor---always dwelt beyond the (Euphrates) River and they served gods of others.  But I (G-d is speaking) took your forefather, Abraham, from beyond the River and led him throughout all the land of Canaan....

Assur could be another Ur;  It's on the Tigris River.  All discussion of Ur has been thought to be on Euphrates River but the name was never mentioned.  Aššur (/ˈæsʊər/; Sumerian: 𒀭𒊹𒆠 AN.ŠAR₂^KI, Assyrian cuneiform:  Aš-šur^KI, "City of God Aššur";^[1][2] Syriac: ܐܫܘܪ‎ Āšūr; Old Persian 𐎠𐎰𐎢𐎼 Aθur, Persian: آشور‎: Āšūr; Hebrew: אַשּׁוּר‎: Aššûr, Arabic: اشور‎), also known as Ashur and Qal'at Sherqat, was the capital of the Old Assyrian Empire (2025–1750 BCE-Abraham's period), the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC), and for a time, of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–608 BC).

Assur

 The remains of the city lie on the western bank of the Tigris River, north of the confluence with its tributary, the Little Zab, in what is now Iraq, more precisely in the al-Shirqat District of the Saladin Governorate.  U.S. Soldiers from Crazy Horse Troop, 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment provide security for the Provincial Reconstruction Team and representatives of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization visiting the ancient city of Ashur, the site is now known as Qalat Shergat, Iraq, Nov. 21 2008. Ashur is one of three areas in Iraq that is a World Heritage site.

In the Bible, when the phrase ‘beyond the River’ appears without further designation, it refers to the Euphrates River (but does not name it).  But the Sumerian city of Ur is not “beyond the Euphrates,” but rather on the Euphrates, and on its western side, thus not “beyond” it from the perspective of Israel. In theory, Joshua 24 could be referring to Ḥarran, which is north of the Euphrates River, but recall that this city was simply a way-station, as it were, on the journey from Ur-Kasdim to Canaan.

Haran is usually identified with Harran, now a village of Şanlıurfa, Turkey. Since the 1950s, archeological excavations of Harran have been conducted, which have yielded insufficient discoveries about the site's pre-medieval history or of its supposed Patriarchal era. The earliest records of Harran come from the Ebla tablets, c. 2300 BC. Harran's name is said to be from Akkadian ḫarrānum (fem.), "road"; ḫarrānātum (pl.).  Could this be saying something like it's on the road from Ur to Canaan?  The Ebla tablets are a collection of as many as 1,800 complete clay tablets, 4,700 fragments, and many thousands of minor chips found in the palace archives of the ancient city of Ebla, Syria. 

Haran was where Abraham's brother, Haran lived and the spot was then named Haran which no doubt became a town. (Haran or Aran is a man in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. He died in Ur of Chaldees, was a son of Terah, and brother of Abraham. Through his son Lot, Haran was the ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonites, and through his daughter Milcah he was ancestral to the Aramaeans.) Haran died in Ur of the Chaldees,  was the father of Lot, Abraham's nephew who accompanied Abraham to Canaan since his father, Haran, had passed away.  Abraham had intended to just stop by, perhaps, and pick up Lot, but had stayed on for many years, leaving when he was already 75 years of age; young for those days, no doubt.

                                                 

   "In light of all this", writes Rendsburg, "Sumerian Ur cannot be the referent, as it is on the same side of the Euphrates as Canaan. A journey from Ur to Canaan would not pass through Ḥarran. We know the trade-routes. Anyone travelling from Ur of Sumer to Ḥarran would first have traveled upstream on the Euphrates, since no one would travel due west from Ur in southern Mesopotamia through the Arabian desert; even with camels the journey would be too arduous and too dangerous to allow such a crossing.                           

If Teraḥ and family left Ur-Kasdim to travel to Canaan, but stopped en route in Ḥarran, then the location of Ur-Kasdim should be to the north of Ḥarran.  Considering these data points, a more attractive suggestion is that Abraham’s hometown is the city of Ur in northern Mesopotamia = modern-day Urfa in southeastern Turkey, 44 km north of Ḥarran. "About 12 km (7 mi) northeast of the city is the famous Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe, the world's oldest-known temple, which was founded in the 10th millennium BCE. The area was part of a network of the first human settlements where the agricultural revolution took place. Because of its association with Jewish, Christian, and Islamic history, and a legend according to which it was the hometown of Abraham, Urfa is nicknamed as the "City of Prophets."

Urfa, officially known as Şanlıurfa (pronounced [ʃanˈɫɯuɾfa]; Arabic: الرها‎, romanized: alruha; Kurdish: Riha; Armenian: Ուռհա, romanized: Uṙha; Syriac: ܐܘܪܗܝ‎, romanized: Ūrhāi and known in ancient times as Edessa), is a city with a population of over 2 million residents in southeastern Turkey, and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province.

Most likely, this city is the one mentioned as Ura in cuneiform tablets from Ugarit (14th–13th centuries B.C.E.), where it is associated with the Hittite realm. A journey from Urfa to Canaan would indeed pass directly through Ḥarran.  I have been finding names repeated with people; why not with places?  Yet the bible so clearly defines Ur as Ur of the Chaldees(Kasdim).  

                                                     

 For example, George Bush (1796‒1859 in Norwich, Vermont died September 19, 1859), a leading biblical scholar of the day, pastor, abolitionist, academic and advocate for the restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land. A member of the Bush family, he is a distant relative of both President George H. W. Bush and President George W. Bush.noted regarding biblical Ur-Kasdim:

As to the city here mentioned, some difficulty has been experienced by commentators in fixing its site, but in the East it is generally identified with the present town of Orfah in Upper Mesopotamia Two days’ journey east of the Euphrates, sixty-seven miles north-east of Beer. The Jews, according to Mr. Wolff, still call the place by the name in the text, אור כשדים Oor Kasdim, or Ur of the Chaldees, and it is a place of pilgrimage as the birth-place of Abraham, in whose honour the Moslems have a fine mosque in the court of which is a lake teeming with fish which are held sacred to the patriarch’ and not permitted to be caught.

Notably, the names of Teraḥ’s father, Naḥor, and his grandfather Serug are actually the names of cities in the general region of Urfa: a) Naḫur, known from Akkadian sources (even if its precise location in upper Mesopotamia is unknown), and b) Serug, well known from later Syriac sources, whose name persists in modern Turkish Suruç, 46 km southwest of Urfa. 

  Urfa lies below Gaziantep, and is not near the Euphrates. Perhaps originally, the Arameans settled in the Turkish spot but had followed the Euphrates down to Ur Kasdim and established that place.    

Now we have discovered a northern Ur in Turkey and a southern Ur in Iraq.  Rendsburg reminds us again, "Further support for the claim that Abraham’s hometown of Ur should be located in northern Mesopotamia comes from the Aramean connection. Deuteronomy 26:5 describes Israel’s ancestors as wandering Arameans: אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי “A wandering Aramean was my father”. The Aramean heartland is located in northern Mesopotamia. In fact, the Bible refers to the region in which Urfa is found as Aram Naharaim, lit. ‘Aram of the Two Rivers’ (Gen 24:10, etc.), namely the Tigris and the Euphrates. (It was the servant of Abraham of his old age who made his way to Aram Naharaim to the city of Nahor (named for grandfather of Abraham).)  Genesis 22:21‒22 juxtaposes Aram and Chesed (~ Chaldea) as scions of the family of Naḥor, suggesting their location in northern Mesopotamia in close proximity to one another.  This NE area of Mesopotamia is the land of origin of Abraham and nearly all the names of his ancestors, like Serug, Nahor and Terah, correspond to place-names in this region.  

Aram refers to the Arameans who were a group of Semitic tribes that had  invaded the Fertile Crescent in the 2nd half of  the 2nd millennium BCE (Abraham's birth period) and roamed between the Persian Gulf and the Amanus Mountains.  Gen:22 says that Aram and Israel had a common ancestry and  our patriarchs were of Aramaic origin and maintained ties of marriage with the tribes of Aram.  Akkadian sources of the 12th cent. BCE had political importance and had independent Aramean states and princedoms like Aram-Damascus; Aram Naharaim, Aram-Zobah in Syria and Mesopotamia.  

From the time the tale was first told about the Arameans and where they came from to Joshua was hundreds of years, and Ur's locale was worded slightly differently.  The thing to do now is check bones found in both areas to see who has the most J1 (Y haplotypes-DNA).  Archaologist Woolsey may have led us down the wrong path in his discovery of the southern Ur so near the Euphrates, or maybe not.  

Resource:

                         Professor Gary Rendsburg

Gary A. Rendsburg (born 1954) is a professor of biblical studies, Hebrew language, and ancient Judaism at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.^[1] He holds the rank of Distinguished Professor and serves as the Blanche and Irving Laurie Chair of Jewish History at Rutgers University (2004–present), with positions in the Department of Jewish Studies ^[2] and the Department of History.^[3]

Prior to teaching at Rutgers, Rendsburg taught for 18 years at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. (1986-2004) and for six years at Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y. (1980-1986).  Rendsburg received his B.A. degree in English and Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1975), and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Hebrew Studies from New York University (1977, 1980).  

I had moved to Israel in 1980 to teach English.  This is a man I would love to meet as we have much in common-the interest in where Abraham was born and all his ancestors and more; how the Torah was written, the myriads of questions I've tried to find answers. 

With my theory of using base 12 and ot base 10, Terah, said to have died at age 205,  would have only been 17 and 1 month old when he died.  Abraham died at 950 years which turned out to be 79 years and 2 months at death.  There's a big difference in death age here.  

https://www.thetorah.com/article/ur-kasdim-where-is-abrahams-birthplace

Prof. Gary Rendsburg serves as the Blanche and Irving Laurie Professor of Jewish History in the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University. His Ph.D. and M.A. are from N.Y.U. Rendsburg is the author of seven books and about 190 articles; his most recent book is How the Bible Is Written.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_A._Rendsburg