Terah, Abraham's Father's Homeland and What He's Remembered For

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

They were immigrants in Ur.  Terah was Abram's  father.  He left the city of Ur of the Chaldees that sat near the Euphrates River to travel to the land of Canaan with Abram and his nephew, Lot.  On the way they settled in the town of Haran where Terah died.  The book, the Aggadah, depicts Terah as a devout idolator challenged in his beliefs by Abram, later to be called Abraham.  The land of Ur has become a city in Iraq!!!  One can conclude that the male line (Y haplotype is J1) as suggested by DNA and genealogy.  

Haplogroup J1 (J-M267) is a Y-chromosome haplogroup that originated in the Near East, specifically in the northern parts of West Asia around 20,000 years ago. The major branch, J1a1a1-P58, evolved later, around 9,500 years ago, in the Arabian Peninsula, southern Levant, and southern Mesopotamia. 

 Terah is listed as the son of Nahor and father of the patriarch Abraham. As such, he is a descendant of Shem's son Arpachshad. Terah is mentioned in Genesis 11:26–27, Book of Joshua 24:2, and 1 Chronicles 1:17–27 of the Hebrew Bible; and Noah's 3 sons Noah's three sons, according to the Bible, were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. These three sons, along with their wives, and Noah and his wife, were the only survivors of the flood and would repopulate the earth, according to Genesis 9:18-29.  and Luke 3:34–36 in the New Testament.

Terah was an idol-maker.  In the stories, he scolded Abram when he came home because he found one of the idols smashed, lying on the floor.  Abram told him that the idol had a fight with the other one near him, and lost.  His father told him that he knew better;  the idols were only clay and couldn't move or fight.  ah ha!

When they left Haran, The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country and the people of your father's family. Go to the land that I will show you.

2 I will cause your descendants to become a great nation. I will bless you. Everyone will know your name. You will bring my blessing to other people. 3 I will bless those people who bless you. But I will curse anyone who insults you. Through you, I will bless all the families of people on the earth.’

4 Abram did what the Lord had told him. He left Haran. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran. Lot went with him. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot. He took everything that belonged to them. He also took the people that worked for them in Haran. They all left to go to the land of Canaan.
                                                                             

When they arrived in Canaan, 6 Abram walked through the land. He went as far as Shechem (renamed Nablus) , to the special oak tree of Moreh. At that time, Canaanites lived in this land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram there. He said, ‘I will give this land to your descendants.’ So Abram built an altar in that place to worship the Lord. He did that because the Lord had appeared to him.

Later, Abraham had a conversation with the pharaoh of Egypt and told him that they were a family of sheep-herders, which they were.  He was asked by the Pharaoh to also tend the Pharaoh's few cattle along his sheep.  Cattle and sheep do not get along, foraging differently for food, but he did well.  

His father, Terah, had come from sheep herders east of the Euphrates River that was between that river and the Tigris River-land.  The land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers was historically known as Mesopotamia, which is a Greek term meaning "between rivers". This region is also part of the larger Fertile Crescent, a crescent-shaped area where some of the earliest civilizations developed. 

In Bible literature, sheepherders, or shepherds, were individuals who tended flocks of sheep or goats. Many important figures from the Hebrew Bible, including Abraham, Moses, and King David, were also shepherds. Shepherding was a common occupation, and shepherds were often nomads, known for their simple lives and connection to the land. King David ruled from 1010 BCE to 970 BCE; or from 3,035 to 2,995 years ago.  

Mesopotamia was home to several early civilizations, most notably the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. The Sumerians are often considered the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia, and some believe they may have been the first human civilization. Other civilizations like the Akkadians and Babylonians later emerged in Mesopotamia, adopting and building upon aspects of Sumerian culture. 

As for Terah, it's likely that he came from the Babylonians of Mesopotamia since he found Ur a comfortable city to settle in, knowing the language and habits of thepeople.  Babylon was known as the land of Shinar or of the Kasdim (Chaldees). TheBook of Genesis regards it as the cradle of humanity and as the scene of man's firstrevolt against G0d as in "THE TOWER OF BABEL." 

       Evosheep,  cuniform writing about sheep telling how to be raised :   from the third millennium BCE to the second millennium BCE

Yes, Mesopotamia was generally good land for grazing sheep, particularly in the steppe regions. While the area was arid, sheep were well-adapted to surviving on limited resources, and areas like the steppe provided grazing land. They focused above all on the cultivation of cereals (particularly barley) and sheep farming, but also farmed legumes, as well as date palms in the south and grapes in the north.

Resource:

https://archeorient.hypotheses.org/24818

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