Ur of Kasdim (Chaldees): Which One ? Part XIII

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

The question remains as to exactly which spot is the Ur Kasdim that was written about by Moses in the Torah?  It seems that many researchers have different opinions about just where Ur was.  

Hebrew Bible

Ur Kaśdim is mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible, at Genesis 11:28, Genesis 11:31, Genesis 15:7, and Nehemiah 9:7.

The distinction "Kaśdim" is usually rendered in English as "of the Chaldees." In Genesis, the name is found in 11:28, 11:31 and 15:7. Although not explicitly stated in the Tanakh, it is generally understood to be the birthplace of Abraham. Genesis 11:27–28 names it as the birthplace of Abraham's brother Haran, and the point of departure of Terah's household, including his son Abram.

In Genesis 12:1, after Abram and his father Terah have left Ur Kaśdim for the city of Haran (probably Harran), God instructs Abram to leave his native land (Hebrew moledet). The traditional Jewish understanding of the word moledet is "birthplace" (e.g. in the Judaica Press translation). Similarly, in Genesis 24:4–10, Abraham instructs his servant to bring a wife for Isaac from his moledet, and the servant departs for Haran.   

Then we would expect that Haran is on the way to Canaan, for Terah and son Abraham would also stop there to pick up Abraham's nephew, Lot since Lot's father had died and would now live with Abraham. 

                                                 

  Haran was not only a place to travel to, but it was also the name of Abraham's brother who was the father of Lot, Abe's nephew.  He lived and died in Ur of the Chaldees (Gen. 11: 26-31).  Haran was a trading town of people of the  moon cult (like many others) .  Assyrian inscriptions mention a Habiru (Hebrew settlement in the vicinity which may be where Terah had lived during his stay there.  Some Jews lived there in the 12th century CE. 

Upper Mesopotamia

Jewish scholarship identifies Abraham's birthplace as somewhere in Upper Mesopotamia. This view was particularly noted by Nachmanides (Ramban).  Nevertheless, this interpretation of moledet as meaning "birthplace" is not universal. Many Pentateuchal translations, from the Septuagint to some modern English versions, render moledet as "kindred" or "family".

My Webster's NewWorld Hebrew Dictionary defines "moledet" as homeland;  land of birth.  eretz moledet:  land of birth.  

Writing in the 4th century CE, Ammianus Marcellinus in his Rerum Gestarum Libri (chapter VIII) mentions a castle named Ur which lay between Hatra and Nisibis. A. T. Clay understood this as an identification of Ur Kaśdim, although Marcellinus makes no explicit claim in this regard. In her Travels (chapter XX), Egeria, recording travels dated to the early 380s AD, mentions Hur lying five stations from Nisibis on the way to Persia, apparently the same location, and she does identify it with Ur Kaśdim. However, the castle in question was only founded during the time of the second Persian Empire (224–651)

                                                                           

      Did they walk or ride camels?  The wheel had been invented.  Did they use vehicles?  

Talmud-We have 2 (Babylonian and Palestinian), records of academic discussion judicial administration of Jewish Law...

The Talmud associated Ur with Warka (today identified as Uruk).

                                              

A trip of 577 miles without mountains to climb  would take how 

long to walk?  While your body is made for walking, the distance you can achieve at an average walking pace of 3.1 miles per hour depends on whether you have trained for it or not. A trained walker can walk a 26.2-mile marathon in eight hours or less, or walk 20 to 30 miles in a day. On the other hand, a camel  can carry large loads for up to 25 miles a day. Some cultures judge a person's wealth based on the number of camels they own.  At this rate, they could take only 23 days or say, a month to get to Haran. 

To go from Ontario, Oregon on the border of Idaho to Portland is 400 miles.  (I can drive it in about 6 hrs, and that's going over mountains, as well. ) This is more  like driving to San Jose, California from Portland.  

According to T.G. Pinches and A.T. Clay, some Talmudic and medieval Arabic writers identified Ur of the Chaldees with the Sumerian city of Uruk, called Erech in the Bible and Warka in Arabic. Both scholars reject the equation. Talmud Yoma 10a identifies Erech with a place called "Urichus", and no tradition exists equating Ur Kaśdim with Urichus or Erech/Uruk.

Uruk (/ˈʊrʊk/;^[1] Sumerian: Cuneiform: 𒀕𒆠, unug^ki,^[2] Akkadian: 𒌷𒀕 or 𒌷𒀔 Uruk (^URUUNUG); Arabic: وركاء or أوروك‎, Warkāʼ or Auruk; Aramaic/Hebrew: אֶרֶךְ‎ ʼÉreḵ; Ancient Greek: Ὀρχόη, romanized: Orkhóē, Ὀρέχ Orékh, Ὠρύγεια Ōrúgeia) was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates 30 km (19 mi) east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.^[3]

Uruk is the type site for the Uruk period. Uruk played a leading role in the early urbanization of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC. By the final phase of the Uruk period around 3100 BCE, the city may have had 40,000 residents, with 80,000-90,000 people living in its environs, making it the largest urban area in the world at the time. The legendary king Gilgamesh, according to the chronology presented in the Sumerian king list, ruled Uruk in the 27th century BC. The city lost its prime importance around 2000 BC in the context of the struggle of Babylonia against Elam, but it remained inhabited throughout the Seleucid (312–63 BC) and Parthian (227 BC to 224 AD) periods until it was finally abandoned shortly before or after the Islamic conquest of 633–638.

William Kennett Loftus visited the site of Uruk in 1849, identifying it as "Erech", known as "the second city of Nimrod", and led the first excavations from 1850 to 1854.

The Arabic name of Babylonia, which eventually became the name of the present-day country, al-ʿIrāq, is thought to derive from the name Uruk via Aramaic (Erech) and possibly via Middle Persian (Erāq) transmission. In Sumerian, the word uru could mean "city, town, village, district".

Notice how the 2 places of Ur and Uruk are confused?  No wonder 

our biblical home of Abraham is listed as Ur Kasdim. 

                                                   

   Ur Kaśdim (Hebrew: אוּר כַּשְׂדִּים‎ ʾur kasdim), commonly translated as Ur of the Chaldeans, is a city mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the birthplace of the Israelite and Ismaelite patriarch Abraham. In 1862, Henry Rawlinson identified Ur Kaśdim with Tell el-Muqayyar, near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq.  In 1927, Leonard Woolley excavated the site and identified it as a Sumerian archaeological site where the Chaldeans were to settle around the 9th century BCE.  Recent archaeology work has continued to focus on the location in Nasiriyah, where the ancient Ziggurat of Ur is located.

Other sites traditionally thought to be Abraham's birthplace are in the vicinity of the city of Edessa (Şanlıurfa in modern south eastern Turkey). Traditional Jewish and Muslim authorities, such as Maimonides and Josephus, placed Ur Kaśdim at various Upper Mesopotamian or at other southeast Anatolian sites such as Urkesh, Urartu, Urfa or Kutha.

                                             

Chaldeans (Kasdim in Hebrew) , a Semitic Tribe who migrated to southern Babylonia and overthrew Assyria in the 7th century BCE. Abraham was born in 1948 BCE of the 2nd millennium.   

                                         

The Chaldeans

 The Sumerians {now called Chaldeans}, who inhabited the coastal area of Sumer near the Persian Gulf, had never been entirely pacified by the Assyrians.   The Sumerians were one of the most advanced civilizations of antiquity, and historians are quite at a loss to explain their origins.

Marduk-apla-iddina II (the biblical Merodach-Baladan - "Marduk has given me an Heir") (reigned 722 B.C. – 710 B.C.)( 703 B.C. – 702 B.C.) was a Chaldean prince who usurped the Babylonian throne in 721 B.C. He maintained Babylonian independence in the face of Assyrian military supremacy for more than a decade. Sargon II suppressed the allies of Marduk-apla-iddina II in Aram and Israel, and eventually drove him from Babylon in 710 B.C. After the death of Sargon II, Marduk-apla-iddina II returned from Elam and ignited all the Arameans in Babylon into rebellion. He was able to enter Babylon and be declared king again. Nine months later he was defeated near Kish, but escaped to Elam. He died in exile a couple of years later. 

722-721 BCE was the time the Assyrians were in Israel invading and capturing the best of 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel and taking them away with them.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur_of_the_Chaldees

http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/sumer_Iraq_4a.htm

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/a/arabian-camel/#:~:text=They%20can%20carry%20large%20loads,world's%20camels%20are%20domestic%20animals.