Abraham’s Birthplace and Siblings

Abrám/Abraham is one of the most renowned characters in our Bible.  Much has been written about the faith of Abraham.  The apostle Paul wrote of Abraham as the prototype of faithful believers (Ro.4:16).  Also, Abraham’s obedience to the Lord was exemplary.  Ge.26:5 “Abraham obeyed Me, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”  (All that, without having a codified Law of Moses, so-called!  see the topic “Abraham Obeyed Which Commandments?”.)

However, this topic isn’t about Abraham’s faith or obedience.  Rather, it’s about the disputed place of his birth and his siblings.  We’ll look at the pertinent Old Testament (OT) verses, with the traditional (supposed) Book of Jasher.  For Abram’s first 75 years, ref Jash.7 – 13.  He lived circa (c) 2117–1942 BC.  Moses wrote or compiled the book of Genesis 500 years after Abraham lived.  (also see the topics “Chronology: Abraham to the Exodus” and Chronology: Septuagint versus Masoretic Text”.)

Abraham’s ancestor Noah & family survived the Flood (Ge.7:11-13, 8:13).  Ge.9:18-19 “The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Jápheth; and Ham was the father of Canáan.”  Then Ge.10:22 “The sons of Shem were Elám, Ásshur [Assyria], Arphaxad, Lud and Arám [Syria].”

Ge.10:24 “Arphaxad begot Shélah [Septúagint/LXX, ISV, NHEB “Kaínan”]; Shelah begot Éber.”  The Hebrew people were named after Eber.  Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 1:6:4 “Eber, from whom they originally called the Jews, Hebrews.”  Eber/Heber was the great-grandson (or grandson) of Arphaxad.

Eber was Abram’s great-great-great-great-grandfather.  Josephus Antiquities 1:6:5 “Abraham was born in the 292^nd year after the Deluge. Térah begat Abram in his 70^th year [Ge.11:26]. Abram had two [older] brothers, Nahór [2] and Harán [Hawráwn Strongs h2039, Hebrew]. Haran left a son, Lot; also Sarai and Milcáh his daughters, and died. These married their nieces. Nahor married Milcah and Abram married Sarai.”  1:7:1 “Abram adopted Lot, his brother Haran’s son & his wife Sarai’s brother.”

Jash.7:51 “Terah was 70 years old when he begat him, and Terah called the name of the son that was born to him Abram.”  Jash.9:4 “Haran was 42 years old when he begat Sarai, in the 10^th year [Ge.17:17] of the life of Abram.”  So Haran was 32 years older than Abram, according to Jasher.  Haran & Nahor 2 were twins?  Jash.7:22, 12:16, 9, 27, 24:27 Nahor 2 died at age 172 when Isaac was 40, Abraham 140.  Both Nahor 2 & Haran were born when Terah was age 38, 32 years before Abram’s birth.

Jash.12:44-45 “Nahor and Abram [age 50] took wives, the daughters of their brother Haran. The wife of Nahor was Milcah and Abram’s wife was Sarai [Sarah].”  Targum Jonathán Ge.22:20 “Sarah arose and cried out….And it was told Abraham, ‘Behold, Milcah also has borne; she has enlargement through the righteousness of her sister [Sarah], to bring forth sons unto Nahor your brother.”

Ge.11:29 “Abram’s wife was Sarai; Nahor’s wife was Milcah the daughter of Haran; the father of Milcah and Iscáh.”  Was Iscah, Sarah?  Wikipedia: Iscah “Rabbinical scholars [Talmudic]… claim that Iscah was an alternate name for Sarah.”  JFB Commentary Ge.11:31 “Sarai…the same as Iscah.”  Targum Jonathan, Jasher, Josephus, Talmudists indicate that Abraham’s niece Sarah (Lot’s sister) became his wife.  If Terah adopted Sarai when his son Haran died, then Abram married his legal sister.  Decades later in Ge.20:2, Abraham said of Sarah his wife to king Abimélech, “She is my sister”.

Núzi in N. Iraq ‘tablets of sistership’ were contracts written in Akkadian cúneiform (1400 BC); a man’s wife could legally be his sister.  Dr. Scott Stripling The Nuzi Tablets “The city of Nuzi, E of ancient Asshur and [9 miles] W of Árrapha in S Kurdistan. ‘Sister’ and ‘wife’ could be used interchangeably in documents. Thus, Abraham and Isaac [Ge.26:9] were being deceptive in calling their wives their sisters, but not strictly dishonest. In ancient Egyptian love poetry, brides are frequently referred to as ‘my sister.”  Ge.12:17-19 Pharaoh asked Abram regarding Sarai, “Why did you say, ‘She is my sister”?

BAS: The Patriarchs’ Wives As Sisters “Harran and Nuzi were of the same ethnic and cultural milieu, both centers of Hurrian society.”  Leon Mauldin Nuzi Tablets and the Patriarchs “In the society of the Hurrians, a wife enjoyed greater protection and a superior position when she also had the legal status of a sister [2 separate documents].”  Earlier, Abram moved to Harrán [Kawráwn h2771] in far S Turkey.

Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered: 4Q252, col.2 “Terah was 140 years old when he left Ur of the Cháldees and came to Harran. Abram was 70.”  (Terah was age 70 when he’d fathered Abram.)

“Ur of the Chaldees” was Abram’s birthplace or area of residence during his early decades.  Ge.11:28 it was also the place of brother Haran’s ‘nativity’ (moléhdeth h4138, or ‘kindred’).  Ne.9:7 “You are the Lord God who chose Abram and brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees, and gave him the name Abraham.”  Where was Ur of the Chaldees located…in northern Mesopotamia, or in southern?

In the OT, the term Ur (h218) occurs in Ge.11:28, 31, 15:7, Ne.9:7.  Ur meant ‘flame’, according to the BDB Hebrew-English Lexicon.  Flame or fire.  Could “Ur” and “fire” be switchable?

Douay-Rheims 2Esdras 9:7/Ne.9:7 “You chose Abram and brought him forth out of the fire of the Chaldeans.”  Jash.12:1-43 traditionally, king Nimrod cast Abram into a flaming furnace in Casdim, v.21-23.  God saved Abram (age 50) from the furnace, but his brother Haran died at age 82 in that “fire of Casdim”, 12:37.  Jash.13:1-6 “The Lord appeared to Abram, ‘I am the Lord who delivered you from Ur Casdim.”  Abraham et al left Ur/fire Casdim for Harran; later he settled in the land Canaan (13:26).

‘Ur’ doesn’t occur in the Greek OT (today our Septuagint/LXX) or New Testament (NT).  In the 4 OT verses above, the LXX reads “land of the Chaldéans” (not ‘Ur’).  The term rendered “land” is chórah g5561.  Ac.7:4 Luke used the Greek term “ge” g1093 for “land of the Chaldeans”; NHEB has “land of the Kasdím”.  Ne.9:7 LXX “You did choose Abram and brought him out of the land of the Chaldeans.”

Chaldeans/Chaldees (Kasdíy h3778, Kasdim plural, ‘clod-breakers’) occurs 80 times in the OT; 3 times in Genesis (11:28, 31, 15:7).  Ge.11:28 “Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his nativity, Ur of the Chaldees [Kasdim].”  (Da.2:5 “Chaldeans” in Aramaic is Kasdáy h3779.  For ancient linguistic background relative to Abraham’s time, see “Patriarchs’ Bronze Age Languages”.)

Cambridge Bible Ac.7:4 “The extent of the country signified by the ‘land of the Chaldeans’ must have varied at different periods.”  Southern Mesopotamia would become known as Cháldea in the future.

Mic.5:6 Assyria is called the “land of Nimrod”.  Pulpit Commentary Mi.5:6 “The term [‘land of Nimrod’] is better explained as a synonym for Assyria.”  Ge.10:6-11 Nimrod’s kingdom included Assyria, where “Asshur” (LXX, KJV, Josephus; others read “Nimrod”) had built Nineveh.  Descendants of Shem’s son Asshur lived in Assyria, but that land became ruled by Ham’s descendant Nimrod.

Wikipedia: Chaldea “The ancient Chaldeans were…West Semitic Levant [Syria] semi-nomadic tribes who seem to have migrated between 940–860 BC into the SE corner of Mesopotamia, at the head of the Persian Gulf. The first written attestation of Chaldeans occurs in 852 BC, in the annals of the Assyrian king Shalmeneser III, who mentions…the SE extremes of Babylonia, and subjugating the overall leader of the Kaldu [Akkadian language] tribes.”  Over the centuries, the Chaldean peoples migrated into various land areas.

Gen.11:27-31 Did Moses have in mind the area Chaldeans occupied 500 years earlier at Abram’s birth, or the area Chaldeans occupied at the time Moses wrote, or does our Genesis reflect the Babylonian area Chaldeans occupied when scribes (Ezra?) centuries later updated Gen. with current place names?

Britannica: Ur “Important city of ancient southern Mesopotamia (Sumer) situated about 140 miles SE of Babylon and 10 miles west of the present bed of the Euphrates River. Modern Tell Muqayyar, Iraq.”

Some Bible historians think Abram’s nativity was in southern Mesopotamia, at that famous Sumerian Ur.  Abram’s time corresponds to that of the Ur III Dynasty (c 2112–2004 BC) Neo-Sumerian empire of SW Mesopotamia.  But is southern Mesopotamia the most likely place of his birth?

Wikipedia: Ur of the Chaldees “In 1862, Henry Rawlinson [Assyriologist] identified Ur Kasdim with Tell Muqayyar. In 1927 Leonard Woolley [archaeologist] identified Ur Kasdim with the Sumerian city of Ur (founded c 3800 BC), in south Mesopotamia, where the Chaldeans settled much later (around the 9th century BC); Ur lay on the boundary of the region later called Kaldu (Chaldea, corresponding to Hebrew Kasdim [?]) in the first millennium BCE. Woolley’s identification was challenged with the discovery of the city of Harran in north Mesopotamia, near the present-day Altmbasak in Turkey (archaeological excavations at Harran began in the 1950s). The Chaldean dynasty didn’t rule Babylonia (and thus become the rulers of Ur) until the late 7^th century BC.”  Not in Abraham’s time.

Josh.24:2-3 LXX “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Your fathers at first dwelled beyond the River [Euphrates], Terah the father of Abram and Nahor, and they served other gods. And I took your father Abram from beyond the River and guided him in all the land [of Canaan].”  Initially they lived east of the Euphrates.  Ge.24:10 the city of Nahor was in Arám Naharáyim, Syria in northern Mesopotamia.

But the southern Ur of Sumer was located on the west bank of the Euphrates, not “beyond the River”!

Christopher Eames Has Abraham’s Father, Terah, Been Discovered? “Which of the northern, ‘beyond the River’ Ur options is the best fit? Urartu wasn’t established until a millennium after Abraham. Urfa is a possibility. But Urkesh is also a good fit—and even more so in name. ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ isn’t a transliteration of the original Hebrew. The Hebrew title is Ur Kasdim (‘im’ is a Hebrew plural ending). Thus, a parallel between Urkesh – more properly titled in inscriptions Urkeš.Ki, and the biblical Ur Kasd[im].”  Urfa and Urkesh are both in north Mesopotamia, “beyond the River”, east of Euphrates.

Perhaps the epicenter of the Flood was within the broad area of the Mediterranean toward the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, Lake Van in Turkey, including the upper Euphrates & Balikh Rivers.  Ge.8:4, 9:18-20 Noah’s Ark rested in the Ararat mountains of old Armenia, and he planted vineyards in the valleys.

Descendants of Noah’s son Shem migrated south, to what would become known as Urartu (cognate with Ararat) in the region of: Lake Van, Lake Urmia in NW Iran, Urkesh in far NE Syria, Urfa (today Sanliurfa) 10 miles N of the Turkey-Syria border and 70 miles east of the Euphrates.  Wikitravel.org: Urfa “Urfa (also Sanliurfa, formerly Edessa).”  Abraham migrated from an Ur, likely heading south, to Harran (where he intermittently spent a total of 8 years [?], Jash.13:1-26); then SW to Canaan land.

Josephus Antiquities 1:6:4 (93 AD) “Arphaxad named the Arphaxadites, now called Chaldeans.”  Gill Exposition Ge.10:22 “Arphaxad, from him part of Assyria, which lay northward next to Armenia, was called Arphaxitis. Josephus says, he gave name to the Arphaxadaeans, whom he ruled over, now called Chaldeans. Indeed the name of the Chaldeans may well be derived from the latter part of Arphaxad’s name, ‘Chashad’…the Chaldeans were called Chasdim before Chesed [Abraham’s nephew, Ge.22:20-22] was born, and were a nation when Abraham came out of Ur, before Chesed could be old enough to build towns and found a nation; see Ge.11:31.”  So its likely Kasdim didn’t relate to Chesed the son of Abraham’s brother Nahor 2, since Chesed was younger than Abraham.  Instead, Ur-Ka/esh?

Pulpit Commentary Ge.10:22 “Arphaxad. A region in the north of Assyria; the Arrhapacitis of Ptolemy (Rosenmüller, Keil, Kalisch).”  Barnes Notes Ge.10:22 “Gesenius renders it [Arphaxad’s country] border or stronghold of the Kasdim [?].”  Wikipedia: Arrapha “(Akkadian) An ancient city in NE Iraq, at [today’s] Kirkuk. A part of Sargon’s Akkadian empire [2300 BC].”

In the Jewish traditional (150 BC) Book of Jubilees 8:1-6, an earlier Kesed was Shelah’s uncle; Kesed & Kainan (Shelah’s father, LXX) were brothers, Arphaxad’s sons.  Jub.11:3 “Ur, the son of Kesed, built the city of ‘Ara of the Chaldees’, and called its name after his own name and the name of his father.”  Ur Kesed = Ur Kasdim?  Wikipedia: Arpachshad “Some ancient Jewish sources point to Arpachshad as the immediate progenitor of Ura and Kesed, who allegedly founded the city of Ur Kasdim (Ur of the Chaldees).”  Wikipedia: Ora, Daughter of Ur “The Book of Jubilees implies that Arphaxad is the grandfather of Ur, son of Kesed.”  Jub.9:4 “For Arpachshad came forth the third portion, all the land from the region of the Chaldees to the east of the Euphrates…all the land of Lebanon and Sanir [De.3:9 LXX, Mt Hermon] and Amana [SSol.4:8 LXX, a river by Damascus] to the border of the Euphrates.”

Job.1:17 CEV “Three gangs of Chaldeans [LXX “horsemen”] attacked and stole your camels.”  It is thought that Job (c 1800–1600 BC) lived in Bashan NE toward Syria.  (see “Job and the Land of Uz”.)  Barnes Notes Job.1:17 “The Chaldees or Casdim were a warlike people who originally inhabited the Carduchian mountains, north of Assyria, and the northern part of Mesopotamia.”  Keil and Delitzsch Ge.11:28 “Ur of the Chaldees is either in the Ur between Hatra and Nisibis [N Iraq and far S Turkey], near Arrapachitis, or in Armenian Urrhai, the old name for Edessa, modern Urfa [Sanliurfa].”  Urfa (Urha in Armenian) was 7 miles SW of the ancient Gobékli Tepe site of the oldest known temple.

TimesofIsrael.com Urkesh: Abraham’s Ur of the Chaldees? “The Hurrians came to be the dominant group in S Anatolia, N Mesopotamia, and NE Syria. Their capital and largest city was Urkesh at the base of the Taurus mountains. Nearby, in the heart of Hurrian territory was Harran. Could Urkesh be Ur of the Chaldees? In Hebrew it is called Ur Kasdim, with Hebrew consonants U-R-K-E-S. Josephus, Maimonides, and other early Jewish sages claim that Abraham’s birthplace was in north Mesopotamia.”

It is said that the general area of Abraham’s ancestors is witnessed by the names of ancient sites below Armenia in south Turkey.  ref the names in Gen.11:21-32.  Bet Yeshurun: Who Was Abraham? “Dr. Douglas L. Esse, Assoc. Director of the Harran Expedition of the Oriental Institute in Chicago wrote, ‘The biblical account clearly made a strong association between the patriarchs, the city, and the surroundings of Harran in N Syria (today SE Turkey). Abraham’s father, Terah, was named after the town of Til Turahi; Abraham’s grandfather Nahor [1], was named after Nahuru or Til Nahiri; Abraham’s great grandfather Serug, was named after Sarugi (modern Suruc); Abraham’s brother Nahor [2], was named after Nahuru or Til Nahiri; Abraham’s brother Haran, received the name of the Haran (also spelled Harran [?]) district, but was born and died in Ur of Chaldees. These were all place-names in the ancient Balikh Valley area of Aram. Harran, in SE Turkey…is east of the great northern bend of the Euphrates (just north of Syria). It is known by three names in the Bible (Gen 25:20, 28:2-7, 48:7; Hos 12:12-13): Harran, Paddán-Arám, Aram-Naharaim. This area was a crossroads of trade & civilization.”

There was more than one ancient ‘Ur’ (‘fire’ ?)!  readyforeternity.com Which Ur is Abraham’s Ur? “There were several ancient cities called Ur or a variation of Ur. The Mari tablets (dating to the time of Abraham) and later Assyrian sources mention cities such as Nahor and Serug in the vicinity of Harran. Modern Suruc is 35 miles east. Harran wasn’t on the route between Sumerian Ur and Canaan. A caravan traveling from southern Mesopotamia heading for Canaan would have followed the Euphrates in a northerly direction and then turned west at Mari [200 miles SSE of Haran!]…before turning south toward Canaan. Going directly west from Sumerian Ur to Canaan wasn’t a viable route because the Arabian desert would have proven an impractical, or perhaps impossible, challenge.”

TheTorah.com Ur Kasdim “A more attractive suggestion is that Abraham’s hometown is the city of Ur in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Urfa [Sanliurfa] in SE Turkey, 44 km north of Ḥarran.  Most likely, this city is the one mentioned as Ura in cuneiform tablets from Úgarit (14th–13^th centuries BCE), where it is associated with the Hittite realm. A journey from Urfa to Canaan would indeed pass directly through Ḥarran. Local (Turkish) Jewish, Christian, and Muslim tradition identifies this city as biblical Ur, the birthplace of Abraham.”  ‘Abraham’s Cave’ is a pilgrimage site in Sanliurfa.

OT Professor Tony Cartledge Have We Erred On Ur? “Cyrus Gordon, who dug at the Sumerian Ur with Leonard Wooley, never accepted Wooley’s identification of the southern Ur as Abraham’s ‘Ur of the Chaldees’. He consistently argued for a northern location. I’ll point to the more likely possibility that Abraham grew up in Anatolia [Turkey], not Sumer.”  Not in southern Mesopotamia.

Ge.11:31 Amplified Bible Harran was 550 miles NNW of the Sumerian Ur!  JFB Commentary Ge.11:31 “They came unto Harran, two days’ journey SSE from Ur [Sanliurfa].”  It is understood, a caravan couldn’t travel 550 miles north from the southern Sumerian Ur to Harran in only two days!

Jub.12:31 Nahor [2] too was in Harran.  Antiquities 1:6:5 “Nahor…Abram…Terah …they all moved to Harran.  Jash.22:15 “Abraham’s brother Nahor, his father, and all belonging to them dwelt in Harran.”  Keil and Delitzsch Ge.11:31 “Nahor must also have gone to Harran.”  Ge.24:10 Abraham’s servant “went into Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor.”  Jash.24:27 “Nahor…died and was buried in Harran”.  Ge.24:4 LXX, CEV, GN Abraham said, “Go to my country where I was born, find a wife for my son [Isaac].”  Cambridge Bible Note Ge.24:7 “Land of my nativity’; the land of Harran is clearly intended.”  Jash.24:32 “The servant [Eliezer] answered his master Abraham, ‘I go to your birthplace and to your father’s house to take a wife for your son from there.”  Abram “was born” in that northern region.

Professor Cyrus Gordon Where Is Abraham’s Ur? “Sumerian Ur is never called ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ in  the countless cuneiform tablets that mention Ur. The biblical evidence is conclusive in placing Ur of the Chaldees in the Urfa-Harran region…rather than in southern Mesopotamia. The designation ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ distinguishes it from other cities called Ur, including Sumerian Ur. Gen.24:7, 10, 29 tells us that Abraham’s birthplace was in Aram-Naharayim where Laban lived.”  Laban, grandson of Nahor 2.  Ge.31:21 leaving Laban in the east, Jacob crossed over Euphrates heading west on his way into Gilead.

The Ebla Tablets, dated c 2350 BC, were discovered in NW Syria in 1974.  Jonas Manske The Ebla Tablets (2005) “The Ebla tablets also speak of the city of Ur…as being in the territory of Harran.”

Ac.7:2 “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Harran.”  Meyer NT Commentary Ac.7:2 “The land of Ur (Gen.11:28) was situated in northern Mesopotamia.”  Cambridge Bible Ac.7:2 “…the site of Ur, the most probable opinion seems to be that which places it at Edessa [Sanliurfa], called Orfah…Orrha in early times.”  Smith’s Bible Dictionary:Ur “It has been identified by the most ancient traditions with Orfa in the highlands of Mesopotamia.”

Israel-a-history-of.com Ur of the Chaldees: The Forefather of the Hebrew Race “The traditional site of Abraham’s birth according to Islamic tradition is a cave in the vicinity of Edessa. Edessa is now named Sanliurfa and…is the site of a mosque called the ‘Mosque of Abraham’.”

Derek Gilbert Second Coming of Saturn, p.64 “For most of the last 4,000 years most people assumed that Abraham came from northern Mesopotamia. Until Wooley, Bible scholars generally believed the patriarch had come from southern Turkey.”  (Urkesh, now Tell Mozan, was 100 miles east of Harran.)

But since the 1920s, many have thought Abraham’s birthplace was the Ur in southern Mesopotamia (west of the Euphrates).  Yet the OT LXX and most other evidence to date indicates his birth was east of the Euphrates in northern Mesopotamia, near Urfa/Sanliurfa or Urkesh.  Perhaps future archaeological findings will more conclusively identify an exact location, be it northern or southern Mesopotamia.