Abram of Ur And Why He Moved To His New Destination

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

     Abraham about to be stopped in the sacrifice of his son, Isaac.  Today,  Muslims believe Abraham (known as Ibrahim) was commanded by God to sacrifice his son. However, there are two key differences between the Islamic and Judeo-Christian traditions: Muslims believe the son was Ishmael (Ismail) rather than Isaac, and that the son was a willing participant. Ishmael was the son of Hagar, Abrams's concubine/wife that couldn't get along with Sarah being Ishmael resented the new baby then and as he was growing up.   

Jewish children usually were able to grow up with the story of Abram whose name was changed to Abraham and learn that he was on quite a trip and had earned the newer name to show he had gone through a  transformation in thinking, like becoming a new person.     I'm going to elaborate on the why and how he did that and why it's so interesting and full of meaning for us.

Genetic studies today have consistently shown that Palestinians and Jews share deep biological roots and are close genetic neighbors. Both groups inherit a significant portion of their ancestry from the ancient populations of the Levant.  This differs from studies done at least 20 years ago.  However, findings do not indicate that Palestinian DNA has become more similar to Jewish DNA over the past two decades. Rather, the scientific consensus has remained consistent: genetics demonstrate a high degree of ancestral continuity in the region.  I believe this shows that we may be 20th cousins to Palestinians but do not share the same interpretations of morality that Judaism has presented to us through Abram, and than Moses, his 15th descendant or so.  It's all in the interpretations.  

              Ur of the Chaldees on the Euphrates River

Abram grew up in Ur of the Chaldees, the meaning explanation showing the importance of the Chaldees as their might have been another Abram somewhere.  The Chaldees show the type of people who lived there.  Abram was an extremely important man to the Jewish people.  He was our Patriarch and his wife Sarah, who was his niece, was our Matriarch.  The patriarch Abram (later Abraham) was born and lived before God called him to migrate to Canaan. It was a major urban center in ancient Mesopotamia. I had thought of it as a simple little grouping of huts, being Abraham lived in the 2nd millennium BCE, probably about the year 1948 BCE., which is about 4,000 years ago.  One cannot even imagine 250 years ago when our USA was born let alone 4,000 years ago.

It turns out that Ur certainly was a major urban center, a large one at that.  It's where people were sacrificed to their polytheistic gods regularly when they needed things.  We know this because Moses wrote about it when Abram was asked to sacrifice his only son to their G-d., and he seemed willing to do it, getting everything ready, when they were stopped by an angel.  The story reflects the change in Abraham, not going along with sacrificial rituals.  To me, he then realized that he didn't want his children to grow up with such a morality as that, and he had to leave this city and find a place barren of such thinking. Ur at that period was like New York City to Abraham. 

Ur has been investigated by archaeologists.   It was situated in southern Mesopotamia on the banks of the Euphrates River, about 10 miles west of its modern-day bed  The ancient city of Ur (also known as Ur of the Chaldees) is a Sumerian city-state located in modern-day southern Iraq, near Nasiriyah. It was famously investigated by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley between 1922 and 1934 in a joint expedition between the British Museum and the Penn Museum. Woolley  was a British archaeologist best known for his excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. He is recognized as one of the first "modern" archaeologists who excavated in a methodical way, keeping careful records, and using them to reconstruct ancient life and history. Woolley was knighted in 1935 for his contributions to the discipline of archaeology.  Ur was the burial site of what may have been many Sumerian royals. The Woolleys discovered tombs of great material wealth, containing large paintings of ancient Sumerian culture at its zenith, along with gold and silver jewelry, cups and other furnishings. The most extravagant tomb was that of "Queen" Pu-Abi. Amazingly enough, Queen Pu-Abi's tomb was untouched by looters. Inside the tomb, many well-preserved items were found, including a cylindrical seal bearing her name in Sumerian. Her body was found buried along with those of two attendants, who had presumably been poisoned to continue to serve her after death. Woolley was able to reconstruct Pu-Abi's funeral ceremony from objects found in her tomb.

                Kingdom of Aram-Damascus up north   

In the Hebrew Bible, the term Amorite often refers to specific, militant highlander groups or pre-Israelite inhabitants who occupied the land of Canaan.They are frequently described as enemies defeated by the Israelites during the Exodus and conquest narratives, led by kings such as Sihon and Og.  Hammurabi of Babylon: The most celebrated Amorite ruler, King Hammurabi (reigned 1792–1750 BCE), united Mesopotamia under the Code of Hammurabi, one of the oldest and most comprehensive deciphered writings of significant law in the world.   Despite their pastoralist roots, the Amorites rapidly adopted and contributed to the Sumero-Akkadian culture, blending their own traditions (such as the worship of the chief deity Amurru) with native religious and societal structures.

Since Upper Mesopotamia included northern Syria, which was inhabited by groups like the Amorites, some even consider Abraham to be among the Amorites that migrated to the Levant. Like Abraham and his descendants, the Amorites followed shepherding-based lifestyles. Nonetheless, the Biblical authors distanced themselves from the Amorites to assert their moral superiority.  Abram's writings were an upgrade from Hammurabi's list.  

Here's the map showing how Abram/Abraham and his group traveled northwest and then south to Canaan.  

    Terah, father of Nahor and of Abram and Haran,  couldn't make it all the way to Canaan.  They seemed to be traveling in a massive caravan. . By 4,000 years ago (around 2000 B.C.E.), the wheel had already been in use for over a millennium, so they must have had wagons of some sort to travel with.  Mesopotamia: Archaeological excavations—such as those at Kurd Qaburstan on the Erbil Plain—have uncovered evidence of monumental city walls, gates, and trade routes used during the Middle Bronze Age.

 Terah, a descendant of Shem son of Noah, was the father of Abram/Abraham, Nahor, and Haran. Their home's location is not certain, but it is usually supposed to have been in Mesopotamia. Besides Lot and Milcah, Haran fathered a daughter Iscah.  After Haran died in Ur of the Chaldees "before his father Terah",his family travelled towards Canaan, the Promised Land. Abram did not know his destination geographically at first. According to the biblical narrative, he knew about the "Promised Land" of Canaan entirely through divine revelation, being called by God to leave his homeland and go to a place that God would "show" him.  

However, Terah stopped at Harran [Hebrew חָרָן, Ḥārān]) and settled there, as did Nahor and Milcah, whereas Lot, son of Haran,  accompanied Abraham and others onwards to Canaan.