Abraham and the City of Ur

yes and no. that building is made out of mud. it's incredibly impressive that part of it still exists, even in the desert. no, we can't. because we have a problem: the chaldeans did in fact rule ur at one point. about 600 bc. the chaldeans did no exist at the time of abraham, to the best of our knowledge.so we have some possibilities:1. genesis is refering to this ur, using a modern reference from the time of its writing. this would be like us saying "king nebuchadnezzar of babylon, which is now baghdad."2. genesis is refering to another ur, which may have been ruled by the chaldeans at the point, and just hasn't been found yet or3. the chaldeans ruled urfa when abraham was there and we don't know about it. in these two cases the text is adding the "of the chaldeans" bit to avoid getting it confused with the ur pictured. this would be like us saying "paris, texas" to distinguish it from the other well known paris.4. the text is in total error, or just plain made a mistake.i think that the first one is probably the best guess. every sign in genesis points to it being compiled and edited around 600 bc, and the chaldeans ruled ur at this point. it's too much of a coincidence to not be right, in my mind.

You left out possibility 5, Arach, that the whole tale is a load of codswallop

no, that was covered under number 4.

This topic has really gone on too long dealing with the crap of a few apologists who can't accept that when the Hebrew text says Ur of the Kasdim, that it means Ur of the Kasdim. The problem for the apologist of course is that the notion of an anachronism is so unpalatable, but let's face it, concocting exotic exit strategies is only going to leave more egg on the face of the apologist.The Kasdim (Gr: Chaldaeans) were relatively new arrivals on the Mesopotamian scene. Their name rarely occurs before the 8th century BCE. In fact the name may come from lower Mesopotamia where it seems to relate to a town name and was applied to these people when they arrived in the area. They held power in Babylon when the Neo-Assyrian power to the north was starting to wane and emerged as the leading force in the area under Nebuchadrezzar, who was responsible for a large building campaign in Ur (hence the connection Ur of the Kasdim). This is plainly what is referred to in Gen 11. One has to try to invent other links such as with Urkesh or with Urfa (Turkish name for what the Greeks called Edessa and the locals at the time of Augustus called Orhay, or similar). Then they have to imagine some link between their revised Ur(something, Urfa, Ura, Urkesh, etc., never plain old Ur) and the Kasdim of southern Mesopotamia.The apologetics of this effort are transparent. Why bother with it?spin

because i investigate ideas before discarding them.but i think you've pretty thoroughly convinced me that it's still an anachronism like i originally thought.btw. here was a short answer question on the take-home portion of my bible/ot final:

quote:

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Why are camels, Chaldeans, and the Philistines relevant to determining when the patriarchs live? (5 points)

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and my answer:

quote:

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All are anachronisms. Camels were not domesticated until roughly the time of Moses. The Chaldeans did not exist until just after the time of Moses, and were not in control of Ur until 900 BC. And the Philistines had not immigrated to Canaan at that time either. However, these are only useful for dating when the text was written about the patriarchs, or when the stories originated, but not for determining when the patriarchs actually lived (if they did indeed exist). Attributed stories and literary anachronisms are completely irrelevant to determining factual history. It does however point out that the Bible must be in error in some place, either regarding when the patriarchs lived, or whether they used camels, etc.

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There doesn't seem to be a way to post without it having to be a reply to something earlier. I didn't want to give the impression that I was specifically replying to your previous message.I remember someone on some scholarly mailing list arguing that camels had been around a lot longer in the fertile crescent. Dunno, myself.And you'd better watch out -- although I totally agree with you --: the Philistines some diehards try to claim were indigenous and not those people talked about by the Egyptians as Peleset. Where there's a will to ignore evidence there's a way.

There are two white boxes at the bottom of a page down just below and to the left of Administrative, to the right is the Hop to box. They have written in them in odd flourished writing, "post topic" and "post reply". The post reply will post a reply that isn't referenced to a post. That seems to be discouraged though.lfen

yeah, i know. i was just saying i was done quibling over it, as i had really held your position all along. the dates line up too well for me. around? yes.
domesticated? no.the only evidence of such is the bible. which is not a reliable document. like i said to a classmate who had trouble on that question, if it were ONLY camels, maybe we could view the bible as evidence for earlier domestication. but since all the other signs in the text point to a much later date anyways, it's very very weak evidence for camels having been domesticated. i haven't really investigated that claim either, but i doubt it holds any water.

It sure don't hold water...The archaeology of the coastal zone shows a great influx of Greek-type influence around 1150 BCE. This coincides with the migration process that brought an end to Aegean and Mediterranean coastal realms, Hatti, Ugarit and finally the well-depicted attack on Egypt (outside wall at Madinat Habu near Luxor). Important Canaanite cities along the coast of Palestine fall and are replaced by the Greek-type culture, Egypt slowly loses more and more possessions in the southern Levant. All classical signs of the Philistine arrival. The only way to get around this one is to stick one's head in the sand.