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Abraham did not come from Ur of the Chaldees

Ultimatum

Classical Liberal
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s
son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with
them from Ur of the Chaldees.... (Gen. 11:31)

A glaring mistake I came across whilst reading Genesis: Ur of the Chaldees did not exist until about the eighth century B.C., which is around one thousand years after the time of Abraham.
This signals that Genesis was written some time AFTER Christ's birth, which would have resulted in an erroneously written 'eyewitness' account.

Thoughts?
 

te_lanus

Alien Hybrid
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s
son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with
them from Ur of the Chaldees.... (Gen. 11:31)

A glaring mistake I came across whilst reading Genesis: Ur of the Chaldees did not exist until about the eighth century B.C., which is around one thousand years after the time of Abraham.
This signals that Genesis was written some time AFTER Christ's birth, which would have resulted in an erroneously written 'eyewitness' account.

Thoughts?
Genesis is said to have been written somewhere at or just after the exile to babylon.
 

Ultimatum

Classical Liberal
Genesis is said to have been written somewhere at or just after the exile to babylon.

Genesis is largely accepted to have been written by Adam and his near descendants in which each person wrote down an account of events which occurred during his life. These accounts would later be compiled by Moses in around 1393 BC This would be the only way to determine Genesis as an 'eyewitness' account. This places it way before the Babylonian Exile (538 BC)

What source are you using?
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s
son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with
them from Ur of the Chaldees.... (Gen. 11:31)

A glaring mistake I came across whilst reading Genesis: Ur of the Chaldees did not exist until about the eighth century B.C., which is around one thousand years after the time of Abraham.


Wow! An anachronism in Genesis! Who woulda thunk?

This signals that Genesis was written some time AFTER Christ's birth, which would have resulted in an erroneously written 'eyewitness' account.
Nonsense. From Wikipedia
Chaldea was the name of a man is used in two different senses. In the early period, between the early 800's BC and late 600's BC, it was the name of a small sporadically independent territory under the domination of the Neo Assyrian Empire, in south eastern Babylonia extendin western shores of the Persian Gulf.[1] At some point after the Chaldean tribes settled in the region it eventually became called mat Kaldi "land of Chaldeans" by the native Mesopotamian Assyrians and Babylonians. The expression mat Bit Yakin is also used, apparently synonymously. Bit Yakin was likely the chief or capital city of the land. The king of Chaldea was also called the king of Bit Yakin, just as the kings of Babylonia and Assyria are regularly styled simply king of Babylon or Assur, the capital city. In the same way, the Persian Gulf was sometimes called "the Sea of Bit Yakin, instead of "the Sea of the Land of Chaldea."

The boundaries of the early lands settled by Chaldeans in the early 800's BC are not identified with precision by historians. Chaldea generally referred to the low, marshy, alluvial land around the estuaries of the Tigris and Euphrates, which then discharged their waters through separate mouths into the sea. In a later time, between 608 BC and 556 BC, when the Chaldean tribe had burst their narrow bonds and obtained their short lived period of ascendency over all Babylonia, they briefly gave their name to the whole land of Babylonia, which was then somewhat inaccurately called Chaldea by some peoples, particularly the Jews, for a short time, although this term eventually fell out of use.
To argue that the use of a reference viable in the 6th century BCE suggests that Genesis was written no earlier than the 1st century CE is laughable. And then there's the DSS ...
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
Genesis is largely accepted to have been written by Adam and his near descendants in which each person wrote down an account of events which occurred during his life. These accounts would later be compiled by Moses in around 1393 BC This would be the only way to determine Genesis as an 'eyewitness' account. This places it way before the Babylonian Exile (538 BC)

What source are you using?

Written on what? Papyrus?
 

Pegg

Jehovah our God is One
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s
son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with
them from Ur of the Chaldees.... (Gen. 11:31)

A glaring mistake I came across whilst reading Genesis: Ur of the Chaldees did not exist until about the eighth century B.C., which is around one thousand years after the time of Abraham.
This signals that Genesis was written some time AFTER Christ's birth, which would have resulted in an erroneously written 'eyewitness' account.

Thoughts?

Thats very strange considering my state library has an exhibition with a cuneiform tablet from the city of Ur dated to the 1900's BCE

Excavations there by Sir Leonard Woolley indicate that it was at the height of its power at the time of Abraham’s departure for Canaan

And what you're saying is so easily disproved by cuneiform tablets... The alphabet came into use around 1000bce and cuneiform went into decline until it was no longer used. So any cuneiform writing is known to be over 4,000 years old and that ages the city of Ur to over 4,000 years because the form of writing used there was cuneiform, not alphabetic.
 

Ingledsva

HEATHEN ALASKAN
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s
son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with
them from Ur of the Chaldees.... (Gen. 11:31)

A glaring mistake I came across whilst reading Genesis: Ur of the Chaldees did not exist until about the eighth century B.C., which is around one thousand years after the time of Abraham.
This signals that Genesis was written some time AFTER Christ's birth, which would have resulted in an erroneously written 'eyewitness' account.

Thoughts?

Some believe this actually refers to Ur in India.

"Megasthenes, who was sent to India by Seleucus Nicator, about three hundred years before Christ says that the Jews 'were an Indian tribe or sect called Kalani...'" (Anacalypsis, by Godfrey Higgins, Vol. I; p. 400.)

"...These Jews are derived from the Indian philosophers; they are named by the Indians Calani."Josephus (37 - 100 A.D.), (Book I:22.)

"The tribe of Ioud or the Brahmin Abraham, left the Maturea of the kingdom of Oude in India and, settling in Goshen, or the house of the Sun or Heliopolis in Egypt, gave it the name of the place which they had left in India, Maturea." (Anacalypsis; Vol. I, p. 405.)

In other words, the idea that the word being translated as "Chaldees," is actually related to Calani/kalani = Caldees.

The bible also states that Ishmael, son of Hagar, and his descendants lived in India. "...Ishmael breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his kin... They dwelt from Havilah (India), by Shur, which is close to Egypt, all the way to Asshur." (Genesis 25:17-18.)

The names of Abraham's sons, Isaac and Ishmael, are derived from Sanskrit: (Hebrew) Ishaak = (Sanskrit) Ishakhu = "Friend of Shiva." (Hebrew) Ishmael = (Sanskrit) Ish-Mahal = "Great Shiva."


*
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Ultimatum said:
A glaring mistake I came across whilst reading Genesis: Ur of the Chaldees did not exist until about the eighth century B.C., which is around one thousand years after the time of Abraham.

Actually, Ur has existed since the 3200 BCE, and Ur used to be a coastal city at the Persian Gulf. But you are right, about Chaldees didn't exist until the 1st millennium BCE, because the land of Chaldee was originally under water and part of the gulf.

This tell us that the Genesis wasn't written by Moses, which tradition has attributed to him the authorship of the Genesis.
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
**removed**
First:
Unless you are Gary Greenberg, presenting excerpts from this source without attribution is unethical, dishonest, and adolescent. It's called plagiarism and it is, to the best of my knowledge, a violation of RF rules.​

Second:
To claim "that Genesis was written some time AFTER Christ's birth" when we the DSS dates to many decades before then is thoughtlessly idiotic.​
 
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seeking4truth

Active Member
Documents were re-written by hand for much of their lifetime. More than once the central records of the people of Abraham were destroyed by invading armies up to and including the time of the Romans after Jesus.
Isn't it natural as records were re-compiled recent understanding would replace the original. The DSS are the records of one particular group from around the time of Jesus which have been preserved.
Who preserved other documents from the Temple?
Who authorized which were reliable and which not?
Were their ideas of scriptural accuracy and authenticity the same as ours are today?
 

Ultimatum

Classical Liberal
First:
Unless you are Gary Greenberg, presenting excerpts from this source without attribution is unethical, dishonest, and adolescent. It's called plagiarism and it is, to the best of my knowledge, a violation of RF rules.​

Second:
To claim "that Genesis was written some time AFTER Christ's birth" when we the DSS dates to many decades before then is thoughtlessly idiotic.​

I admit that I was using the book (paperback), and should have sourced accordingly.

The point I was trying to make was that the association between the two cities was not until long after the supposed writing of Genesis.
So therefore we have a problem with the translation of the Bible, which puts me in doubt with the rest of it.
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
The point I was trying to make was that the association between the two cities was not until long after the supposed writing of Genesis.
So therefore we have a problem with the translation of the Bible, which puts me in doubt with the rest of it.
The point you clearly made was …

This signals that Genesis was written some time AFTER Christ's birth, which would have resulted in an erroneously written 'eyewitness' account.
And it was a really, really dumb point.
 

Ultimatum

Classical Liberal
The point you clearly made was …


And it was a really, really dumb point.

You haven't got it yet, have you?
That still is not the point. I know that Genesis was of course written before Christs birth, but the fact that we have an association between two cities after Christ's birth signals a problem. A translation problem which should people in doubt about the rest of the Bible..
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
You haven't got it yet, have you?
How ironic …

I know that Genesis was of course written before Christs birth, but ...
… but you asserted:

This signals that Genesis was written some time AFTER Christ's birth, which would have resulted in an erroneously written 'eyewitness' account.
So: (a) "Genesis was of course written before Christs birth" and (b) "Genesis was written some time AFTER Christ's birth".

Absolutely brilliant!
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Genesis is largely accepted to have been written by Adam and his near descendants in which each person wrote down an account of events which occurred during his life. These accounts would later be compiled by Moses in around 1393 BC This would be the only way to determine Genesis as an 'eyewitness' account. This places it way before the Babylonian Exile (538 BC)

What source are you using?

That's nonsense.

The Pentateuch was supposedly written by Moses, but that's false as well. There were many authors during and after the Babylonian exile. Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written first followed by Genesis and Exodus... and it was redacted, edited, combined and amended many times.. 800 years AFTER Moses died.

There was NO Ur of the Chaldees in Abraham's time because the river had not yet changed course.

There was Urfa near Haran which is now in Turkey.. At the time it would have been in the kingdom of Aram.

Until 1850, “ Ur of the Chaldees ” was considered to be Urfa, near Haran, Southeast Turkey.

1200px-Kingdoms_of_the_Levant_Map_830.png
 

The Anointed

Well-Known Member
Genesis is said to have been written somewhere at or just after the exile to babylon.

The written Torah was housed in the temple of Solomon, which, according to Josephus the historian, stood for 470 years, six months and ten days before it was sacked and burned by Nebuchadnezzar's forces in 587 B.C..

But the written Torah was not lost, owing to the Hebrew's oral tradition handed down through the generations, they were rewritten by the selected Jews who were captives in Babylon.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
The written Torah was housed in the temple of Solomon, which, according to Josephus the historian, stood for 470 years, six months and ten days before it was sacked and burned by Nebuchadnezzar's forces in 587 B.C..

But the written Torah was not lost, owing to the Hebrew's oral tradition handed down through the generations, they were rewritten by the selected Jews who were captives in Babylon.

There was no Torah before Soloman's Temple was destroyed.. There was an enclave of observant Jews in Elephantine Island in Egypt with a Synagogue .. NOT Synagogue.. They had a Temple.


One bit of evidence..... the Jewish community at Elephantine, which was founded pre-exile, did not have the Torah based on the absence of any knowledge of the Torah in their documents from the 4th century BCE
 
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sooda

Veteran Member

Please explain how do you know that and why should I believe it?

Because that's when the two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates changed course and entered the Persian Gulf as one outlet.

The Chaldean Empire (625 - 539 B.C.) The Chaldeans
Assyrian people

Assyrian people, or Syriacs, are an ethnic group indigenous to Western Asia. Some of them self-identify as Arameans, or as Chaldeans.

Uruk was an ancient city of Sumer, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates river, on the dried-up, ancient channel of the Euphrates, some 30 km east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.
 

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