Nadene Goldfoot
Abraham was from Ur of the Chaldees and was born in about 1948 BCE. The Torah made this distinction, not just from Ur. Unlike the East Semitic Akkadian-speaking Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians, whose ancestors had been established in Mesopotamia since at least the 30th century BCE (3000 BCE), the Chaldeans were not a native Mesopotamian people, but were late 10th or early 9th century BCE West Semitic Levantine migrants to the southeastern corner of the region, who had played no part in the previous 3,000 years or so of Sumero-Akkadian and Assyro-Babylonian Mesopotamian civilization and history.
Abraham was born in Ur in the 2nd millennium, which is figured at about 1948 BCE, before the invasion of the Chaldeans. Therefore, was he a native of the land that was later taken over by the Chaldeans or had they arrived sooner than the records show? He was a unique man; strong in his feelings that there was only ONE G-d in the universe, differing from the polytheistic people he knew, and he was mentally and physically strong in that he fought a battle to save Lot, his nephew. He had been a fighter in his younger days.
When I did research for a previous article, I discovered that Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Hispanus in 139 BCE had expelled the astrologers, the Chaldeans and Jews from Rome. I was shocked as I knew that Jews were not to deal in that sort of thing. I wanted to know who the Chaldeans were.
"The Northern forces overwhelmed the Southern kings of the Jordan plain, driving some of them into the asphalt or tar pits that littered the valley. Those who escaped fled to the mountains, including the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. These two cities were then spoiled of their goods and provisions and some of their citizens were captured. Among the captives was Abraham's nephew, Lot.
When word reached Abraham while he was staying in moreh with Aner and Eshcol, he immediately mounted a rescue operation, arming 318 of his trained servants, who went in pursuit of the enemy armies that were returning to their homelands. They caught up with them in the city of Dan, flanking the enemy on multiple sides during a night raid. The attack ran its course as far as Hobah, north of Damascus, where he defeated Chedorlaomer and his forces. Abram recovered all the goods and the captives (including Lot).
Here are the dates of centuries of previous historical episodes of the land.
- c. 2350 BC: End of the Early Dynastic III period in Mesopotamia.
- c. 2340 BC–2180 BC: Akkadian Empire. (in Babylonian period, northern region of the valley between Euphrates and Tigris containing Babylon, Sipper, etc.) (residence of Sargon the Great, a later king of Assyria 721-712 BCE).
- c. 2334 BC–2279 BC: Semitic chieftain Sargon of Akkad's conquest of Sumer and Mesopotamia. His empire is thought to have included most of Mesopotamia, parts of the Levant, besides incursions into Hurrite and Elamite territory, ruling from his (archaeologically as yet unidentified) capital, Akkad .
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". Why bother when the city of Ur was there at the time of Moses and continue to be a city as it is situated at such a great cite and was and is differentiated as "Ur of the Chaldees".
During a period of weakness in the East Semitic-speaking kingdom of Babylonia, new tribes of West Semitic-speaking migrants arrived in the region from the Levant between the 11th and 9th centuries BCE. The earliest waves consisted of Suteans and Arameans, followed a century or so later by the Kaldu, a group who became known later as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. These migrations did not affect the powerful kingdom of Assyria in the northern half of Mesopotamia, which repelled these incursions.
The very first written historical attestation of the existence of Chaldeans occurs in 852 BCE, in the annals of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III, who mentions invading the southeastern extremes of Babylonia and subjugating one Mushallim-Marduk, the chief of the Amukani tribe and overall leader of the Kaldu tribes, together with capturing the town of Baqani, extracting tribute from Adini, chief of the Bet-Dakkuri, another Chaldean tribe.
Not to be confused with the Kassites, The Kassites were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1595 BC and until c. 1155 BC (middle chronology). The endonym of the Kassites was probably Galzu, although they have also been referred to by the names Kaššu, Kassi, Kasi or Kashi.
The ancient Chaldeans seem to have migrated into Mesopotamia sometime between c. 940–860 BCE, a century or so after other new Semitic arrivals, the Arameans and the Suteans, appeared in Babylonia, c. 1100 BCE. They first appear in written record in the annals of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III during the 850s BCE. This was a period of weakness in Babylonia, and its ineffectual native kings were unable to prevent new waves of semi-nomadic foreign peoples from invading and settling in the land.
Though belonging to the same West Semitic speaking ethnic group and migrating from the same Levantine regions as the earlier arriving Aramaeans, they are to be differentiated; the Assyrian king Sennacherib, for example, carefully distinguishes them in his inscriptions.
The Chaldeans were able to keep their identity despite the dominant Assyro-Babylonian culture although some were not able to, as was the case for the earlier Amorites, Kassites and Suteans before them by the time Babylon fell in 539 BCE.
In the Hebrew Bible, the prophet Abraham is stated to have originally come from "Ur of the Chaldees" (Ur Kaśdim). This is about 1,000 years before the Chaldeans arrived at Ur.
Ancient Chaldeans originally spoke a West Semitic language similar to ancient Aramaic language. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III introduced an Eastern Aramaic dialect as the lingua franca of his empire in the mid-8th century BCE. Modern scholars concluded that the Aramaic dialect used in the Hebrew Bible (Biblical Aramaic) was not related with the ancient Chaldeans and their language.
The subjugation of the Chaldean tribes by the Assyrian king appears to have been an aside, as they were not at that time a powerful force or a threat to the native Babylonian king.
Important Kaldu regions in southeastern Babylonia were Bit-Yâkin (the original area the Chaldeans settled in on the Persian Gulf), Bet-Dakuri, Bet-Adini, Bet-Amukkani, and Bet-Shilani.
Chaldean leaders had by this time already adopted Assyro-Babylonian names, religion, language, and customs, indicating that they had become Akkadianized to a great degree.
The Chaldeans remained quietly ruled by the native Babylonians (who were in turn subjugated by their Assyrian relations) for the next seventy-two years, only coming to historical prominence for the first time in Babylonia in 780 BCE, when a previously unknown Chaldean named Marduk-apla-usur usurped the throne from the native Babylonian king Marduk-bel-zeri (790–780 BCE). The latter was a vassal of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser IV (783–773 BCE), who was otherwise occupied quelling a civil war in Assyria at the time.
This was to set a precedent for all future Chaldean aspirations on Babylon during the Neo Assyrian Empire; always too weak to confront a strong Assyria alone and directly, the Chaldeans awaited periods when Assyrian kings were distracted elsewhere in their vast empire, or engaged in internal conflicts, then, in alliance with other powers stronger than themselves (usually Elam), they made a bid for control over Babylonia.
King Nabonassar
The Chaldean rule proved short-lived. A native Babylonian king named Nabonassar (748–734 BCE) defeated and overthrew the Chaldean usurpers in 748 BCE, restored indigenous rule, and successfully stabilised Babylonia.
The Chaldeans once more faded into obscurity for the next three decades. During this time both the Babylonians and the Chaldean and Aramean migrant groups who had settled in the land once more fell completely under the yoke of the powerful Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BCE), a ruler who introduced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of his empire. The Assyrian king at first made Nabonassar and his successor native Babylonian kings Nabu-nadin-zeri, Nabu-suma-ukin II and Nabu-mukin-zeri his subjects, but decided to rule Babylonia directly from 729 BCE.
He was followed by Shalmaneser V (727–722 BCE), who also ruled Babylon in person.
An estimated 500,000 Chaldeans/Assyrians reside throughout
It would be very interesting if a DNA were to see if they had any matching genes to our Jewish population, especially of the Cohens to see if there is a connection. Intrigued by the genetic similarities between the two populations, geneticist Ariella Oppenheim of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who collaborated on the earlier study, focused on Arab and Jewish men. Her team examined the Y chromosomes of 119 Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews and 143 Israeli and Palestinian Arabs. Many of the Jewish subjects were descended from ancestors who presumably originated in the Levant but dispersed throughout the world before returning to Israel in the past few generations; most of the Arab subjects could trace their ancestry to men who had lived in the region for centuries or longer. The Y chromosomes of many of the men had key segments of DNA that were so similar that they clustered into just three of many groups known as haplogroups. Other short segments of DNA called microsatellites were similar enough to reveal that the men must have had common ancestors within the past several thousand years. The study, reported here at a Human Origins and Disease conference, will appear in an upcoming issue of Human Genetics.
Account from a DNA test taker, Lawrence Goriel (Yousif Goriel, MD) from November 24, 2014 | Oak Park, MI: In Chaldean (Babylonian) history, however, there is an event. After the Assyrian Empire began its decline, Nebuchadnezzar II captured Jerusalem (597 BCE) . This event is found in both the Babylonian and Jewish accounts. The Chaldean King deported a large population of affluent Jews from Jerusalem to Babylon, the number is estimated around 10,000. This is a large population for the world during the 6th century BC and an important historical event, which is evidently recorded in my DNA. This was likely done to replenish the population and economy of Babylon due to years of wars with Assyria and other invading forces, and would explain my 5% Jewish ancestry. The percentages are also in line with historical sequence, as this event occurred before Greek and Roman influence and would theoretically be less evident in the DNA, as seen in these results. Theoretically, a 50% mix which occurred 2,000 years ago would dwindle to a minute percentage (ex: 5%) whereas a 50% mix which occurred 500 years ago would be 4 times more (ex: 20%) evident in the DNA. To my astonishment, we have seen exactly that in my DNA. 5% Jewish which came before the 10% Italian/Greek and the 85% Iraqi which is present all throughout my lineage.
His conclusion: In this situation, I gave the DNA analysts as little information as possible about me other than my name. These results showed 85% ancestry in the middle east with the 15% coming from well documented historical events which occurred exclusively in Babylon. The shockingly accurate correlation with my DNA and the history of Babylon during Antiquity is proof that the modern day Chaldeans are indeed the Chaldeans of Antiquity. This experience was a very enlightening one and the beginning of our Ancestry.com DNA Challenge. I would like to challenge all members of the Chaldean, Assyrian and Syriac communities to submit your DNA sample to Ancestry.com and show us your results. I would love to know what stories your DNA will tell us about our history.
I still don't know for sure if Abraham was from the Chaldeans or was a native of the Babylonian Empire. I'll bet on being a native Babylonian. I believe that Abraham was born before the Chaldeans entered Ur. What do you think? After all, he was born in Ur of the Chaldees.
Thank you, Lawrence Goriel for taking the DNA test and writing your conclusion.
Resource:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaldea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassites#:~:text=The%20Kassites%20(%2F%CB%88k%C3%A6,%2C%20Kassi%2C%20Kasi%20or%20Kashi.
https://www.science.org/content/article/jews-and-arabs-share-recent-ancestry
https://gustavoaugustobardo.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/chaldean-dna-analysis-e28093-lawrence-goriel.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people
Book: UR 'Of The Chaldees' by Sir Leonard Woolley's Excavations at Ur by PRS Moorey
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