In Search of Abraham’s Birthplace: Between Urfa and Ur

From Ur to Ḥarran

At the end of the post-flood genealogy, Genesis introduces Abram’s father Terah, and the family genealogy:

^{בראשית יא:כז} וְאֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת תֶּרַח תֶּרַח הוֹלִיד אֶת אַבְרָם אֶת נָחוֹר וְאֶת הָרָן וְהָרָן הוֹלִיד אֶת לוֹט. ^יא:כח וַיָּמָת הָרָן עַל פְּנֵי תֶּרַח אָבִיו בְּאֶרֶץ מוֹלַדְתּוֹ בְּאוּר כַּשְׂדִּים.

^{Gen 11:27} This is the line of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nakhor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot. ^11:28 Haran died in the lifetime of his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

Later, Genesis again mentions that Abram/Abraham hailed from Ur of the Chaldeans:

^{בראשית טו:ז} וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו אֲנִי יְ־הוָה אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאוּר כַּשְׂדִּים לָתֶת לְךָ אֶת הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת לְרִשְׁתָּהּ.

^{Gen 15:7} Then [YHWH] said to him, “I am YHWH who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to assign this land to you as a possession.”^[1]

At some point, Terah decides to leave Ur and take his family to Canaan. On the way there, Terah ends up stopping in Ḥarran, where he settles:

^{בראשית יא:לא} וַיִּקַּח תֶּרַח אֶת אַבְרָם בְּנוֹ וְאֶת לוֹט בֶּן הָרָן בֶּן בְּנוֹ וְאֵת שָׂרַי כַּלָּתוֹ אֵשֶׁת אַבְרָם בְּנוֹ וַיֵּצְאוּ אִתָּם מֵאוּר כַּשְׂדִּים לָלֶכֶת אַרְצָה כְּנַעַן וַיָּבֹאוּ עַד חָרָן וַיֵּשְׁבוּ שָׁם.

^{Gen 11:31} Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. They came to Ḥarran and settled there. ^[2]

The city of Ḥarran is located in southeastern Turkey, about 80 km (50 miles) east of the Euphrates. In ancient times, it was Upper Mesopotamia (biblical Aram-Naharayim or Paddan-Aram). It still exists today. By contrast, Ur cannot be found on even the most detailed modern maps, and with regard to its location in antiquity, the Bible and the historical record point in opposite directions. Let us consider both sources of information and then try to reconcile them.

The Ancestors’ Aramean Homeland

The brief historical retrospective that Deuteronomy prescribes reciting during the offering of the first fruit, begins with the statement, אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי “A wandering Aramean was my father” (Deut 26:5).^[3] Arameans lived in Upper Mesopotamia and Syria.

Similarly, the story about Abraham’s servant finding Rebecca locates his hometown in Aram-Naharayim:

^{בראשית כד:י} ...וַיָּקָם וַיֵּלֶךְ אֶל אֲרַם נַהֲרַיִם אֶל עִיר נָחוֹר.

^{Gen 24:10} …and he (Abraham’s servant) made his way to Aram-Naharayim, to the city of Nakhor.

When Isaac sends Jacob to find a wife in his father’s hometown, he too refers to this geographical area as Paddan-Aram:

^{בראשית כח:ה} וַיִּשְׁלַח יִצְחָק אֶת יַעֲקֹב וַיֵּלֶךְ פַּדֶּנָה אֲרָם אֶל לָבָן בֶּן בְּתוּאֵל הָאֲרַמִּי אֲחִי רִבְקָה אֵם יַעֲקֹב וְעֵשָׂו.

^{Gen 28:5} Then Isaac sent Jacob off, and he went to Paddan-Aram, to Laban the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebecca, mother of Jacob and Esau.

Finally, when Jacob arrives at the well where he will find Rachel, he is in Ḥarran:

^{בראשית כט:ד} וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם יַעֲקֹב אַחַי מֵאַיִן אַתֶּם וַיֹּאמְרוּ מֵחָרָן אֲנָחְנוּ. ^כד:ה וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם הַיְדַעְתֶּם אֶת לָבָן בֶּן נָחוֹר וַיֹּאמְרוּ יָדָעְנוּ.

^{Gen 29:4} Jacob said to them, “My friends, where are you from?” And they said, “We are from Ḥarran.” ^29:5 He said to them, “Do you know Laban the son of Nakhor?” And they said, “Yes, we do.”

It would seem, therefore, that the Bible places the homeland of Abraham’s family in Upper Mesopotamia. Accordingly, we might expect to find Ur of the Chaldeans somewhere in that area. Instead, it was discovered in a completely different place.

The Southern Shift: The New Consensus

When cuneiform texts were unearthed and deciphered in the nineteenth century, it turned out that quite a few of these texts – some contemporaneous with Abraham according to the biblical chronology – mention a city by the name of Ur in Lower Mesopotamia, very far from ancient Aram. A careful reading of these texts pinpointed Tell el-Muqayyar on the right bank of the Euphrates, about 16 km (10 miles) from the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.

The first study of Tell el-Muqayyar, in 1853–1854, confirmed that the mound contained ruins of a city founded well before Abraham. Subsequent research, especially the large-scale excavations undertaken at the site in 1922–1934 by the British archeologist Sir Leonard Wooley, established beyond any doubt that in the third and second millennia B.C.E. the southern Ur was one of the world’s most populous cities well as an economic and political center. For a time (under the so-called Third Dynasty of Ur, 21–20 centuries B.C.E.), it was the capital of one of the first large states in human history. In the first millennium, the southern Ur lost much of its importance, but it remained a substantial population hub until at least the fifth century – by which time the book of Genesis was likely written.

Moreover, cuneiform documents showed that although Chaldean tribes (Kasdim) were related to Arameans, whose area of origin was in Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, sometime in the tenth century B.C.E., or perhaps slightly earlier, Chaldeans migrated to Lower Mesopotamia and settled there. A few centuries later, they were so firmly ensconced in the area that a part of it, possibly including Ur and certainly close to it, became known as Chaldu.

For Genesis to refer to Upper Mesopotamia as Chaldea, it had to have been written no later than the tenth century B.C.E., before the Chaldean migration. Such a date for Genesis is unlikely, since the “Table of Nations” (Genesis 10) mentions several states and ethnicities that did not exist at that time: Ionian Greece (yavan, v. 2, 4), Media (maday, v. 2), Scythians (ashkenaz, from Assyrian iskuzai, v. 3), and Lydia (lud, v. 22).^[4]

Based on these considerations, already in 1862 Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810–1895), the future president of the Royal Geographical Society, argued that Tell el-Muqayyar was the biblical Ur of the Chaldeans. His hypothesis gradually won acceptance among scholars and then among the broader public. When Wooley undertook his expedition to Tell el-Muqayyar, there was little doubt in his mind that he was excavating the city featured in Genesis (11:26-31; 15:7).^[5] And when in 2021 the Holy See announced that on his visit to Iraq Pope Francis would visit Abraham’s birthplace, hardly anyone thought that the pontiff would go anywhere but the extreme south of the country.

Why Did Terah Cross the River?

Despite its popularity, the identification of the biblical Ur with that of the cuneiform texts was in fact highly vulnerable because its adherents never bothered to explain why the Hebrew Bible insists so strongly that Israel’s ancestors hailed from Upper Mesopotamia. Moreover, the geographical location of Tell el-Muqayyar created two new difficulties.

First, let us cast another look at Terah’s move from Ur to Ḥarran:

^{בראשית יא:לא} וַיִּקַּח תֶּרַח אֶת אַבְרָם בְּנוֹ וְאֶת לוֹט בֶּן הָרָן בֶּן בְּנוֹ וְאֵת שָׂרַי כַּלָּתוֹ אֵשֶׁת אַבְרָם בְּנוֹ וַיֵּצְאוּ אִתָּם מֵאוּר כַּשְׂדִּים לָלֶכֶת אַרְצָה כְּנַעַן וַיָּבֹאוּ עַד חָרָן וַיֵּשְׁבוּ שָׁם.

Terakh took his son Abram, and Lot… and Saray his daughter-in-law, the wife of his son Abram and went with them from Ur of the Chaldeans, heading to the land of Canaan. They came to Ḥarran and settled there.

If the family was traveling from Tell el-Muqayyar, the normal route to Canaan would not bring them to the city of Ḥarran. That would be a major detour, not to mention that it would involve crossing the Euphrates twice: Ḥarran is on the opposite side of the river from both Canaan and the southern Ur.

Second, a historical retrospective in Joshua begins with the book’s title character saying:

^{יהושע כד:ב} ...בְּעֵבֶר הַנָּהָר יָשְׁבוּ אֲבוֹתֵיכֶם מֵעוֹלָם תֶּרַח אֲבִי אַבְרָהָם וַאֲבִי נָחוֹר וַיַּעַבְדוּ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים. ^כד:ג וָאֶקַּח אֶת אֲבִיכֶם אֶת אַבְרָהָם מֵעֵבֶר הַנָּהָר וָאוֹלֵךְ אוֹתוֹ בְּכָל אֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן...

^{Josh 24:2} Beyond the river lived your fathers of old, Terah the father of Abraham and the father of Nakhor, and served other deities. ^24:3 But I took your father, Abraham, from beyond the river and led him across the entire land of Canaan…

The “river” mentioned here is doubtlessly the Euphrates. Looking from Canaan, Tell el-Muqayyar, located on the western (right) bank of the Euphrates was not “beyond” it.

These difficulties prompted several scholars to look elsewhere for solutions.

The Northern Alternative

The most prominent – and most outspoken – among those who tried to reconcile historical data with biblical evidence was the American scholar, Cyrus Gordon (1908–2001).^[6] His arguments were recently laid out by his student (and an eminent scholar in his own right) Gary Rendsburg, in his “Ur Kasdim: Where is Abraham’s Birthplace?” (TheTorah 2019).

Gordon and Rendsburg noted that in the area of Urfa, a Turkish city (official name Sanliurfa) located about 40 km (25 miles) north-north-west of Ḥarran, there was a tradition, shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, that it was Abraham’s birthplace.[7] To this day, several sites in Urfa, such as a pool in the courtyard of a local mosque, are associated with Abraham; these were, and to some extent still remain, popular with pilgrims. Could this city indeed be the biblical Ur of the Chaldeans?

Unfortunately, this hypothesis runs into even greater difficulties than does the identification of the biblical Ur with Tell el-Muqayyar.

The Ura Phantom

For starters, no archeological traces of Urfa’s existence have been uncovered prior to 303 or 302 B.C.E., when the Macedonian king Seleucus I Nicator founded it under the name Edessa.

Gordon and Rendsburg correctly point out that a few written sources from the second millennium B.C.E. do mention a place called Ura somewhere in Upper Mesopotamia or Asia Minor. Gordon was particularly sanguine about a clay tablet from Ugarit in which Ḫattušili III, a Hittite king, lays down regulations for “Ura merchants” plying their trade in this coastal city.^[8] In the article hailing the tablet’s publication, Gordon even went so far as to suggest that Abraham was one of these merchants – despite the fact that the Bible consistently depicts him as a shepherd (e.g., Gen 13:1­–8; 21:25–30).^[9]

Neither this document nor any other, however, specify the location of Ura.^[10] Moreover, a different tablet from the same Ugaritic archive rules out Ura’s identification with Urfa. The tablet in question calls Ura expats “merchants of my sun” – that is, of Ugarit’s suzerain Ḫattušili III.^[11] The clear implication is that Ura is a Hittite city. Yet, the area east of the Euphrates, where Urfa is located, was at that time under Assyrian control.^[12]

Chaldeans All Around

Another problem with the Urfa theory is that little evidence points to a significant number of Chaldeans remaining in the general vicinity of Urfa after the tenth century B.C.E. The only extra-biblical evidence in support of this claim comes from the Greek author Xenophon who mentions Chaldeans, whom he likely encountered during a 401 B.C.E. military expedition, as “a free and brave set of people… armed with long wicker shields and lances” living somewhere in the vicinity of Armenia (which in those times extended far beyond its present-day territory).^[13]

Yet Xenophon’s Khaldaioi were likely a remnant of the Urartu state, which existed from the mid-ninth to early sixth century B.C.E.; they were so named because worshiped warrior god Khaldu. These indomitable warriors were thus not related to the biblical Chaldeans; the latter were Semitic speakers while the language of Urartu belonged to the Hurro-Urartian linguistic family.^[14]

Even if they were Chaldeans, Xenophon (430–355 B.C.E.) lived more than 500 years after Chaldean tribes migrated to Lower Mesopotamia, so the existence of Chaldeans in his period says little about whether they were there in earlier periods.

But the decisive consideration is as follows. Suppose at the time Genesis was written there were indeed two different Chaldean areas, each with a city named Ur (or something like that) in or near it. Would referring to one of them as “Ur of the Chaldeans” make any sense? Would it clarify to the readers which of the two cities is meant?

In sum, historical evidence clearly points away from Urfa despite Gordon and Rendsburg’s efforts to argue otherwise. At the same time biblical evidence just as clearly points away from Tell el-Muqayyar. Are we at an impasse? Not necessarily.

The Living Tradition

A good place to start in solving the conundrum would be God’s famous command to Abraham:

^{בראשית יב:א} וַיֹּאמֶר יְ־הוָה אֶל אַבְרָם לֶךְ לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ.

^{Gen 12:1} Go forth from your land, and from your kin, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

When Abraham hears these words, he is in Ḥarran. It is this city that YHWH calls his homeland.

With Ḥarran as Abraham’s birthplace, pieces of the puzzle immediately fall into place. The city is located east of the Euphrates, that is, “beyond the river” looking from Canaan. It falls squarely within the area that the Bible calls Aram-Naharayim or Paddan-Aram. And there would be no contradiction between the Bible and historical evidence: according to both written sources and archeological data, Ḥarran existed since at least the third millennium B.C.E., well before Abram’s time, not to mention that of the biblical authors.

In fact, were it not for just two passages – Genesis 11:26–31; 15:7 – we would never have the slightest clue, biblical or extra-biblical, that Israel’s first ancestor might have had anything to do with any other location. This, in turn, allows us a sneak peek into the creative laboratory of the biblical writers.

All Roads Lead to Ḥarran

In all likelihood, according to the tradition of ancient Israel, Abraham hailed from Ḥarran. The author of Genesis respected this tradition, or at the very least could not ignore it because it would have put off prospective readers. At the same time, he tacked on a prequel, according to which before settling in Ḥarran Abraham’s family lived in Ur. In fact, even the choice of Ur over other Lower Mesopotamian locations was a subtle nod back at Ḥarran: while geographically far apart, the two cities shared the cult of the moon god Nanna (Sumerian name), a.k.a. Sin (Akkadian name).

One reason why this prequel was considered necessary is strongly hinted at by the qualifier “Kasdim” that the Bible adds to the city’s name. As historical data imply that there was only one Ur, this addition would not seem to make any sense; indeed, no sources outside the Bible mention “Ur of the Chaldeans.” However, the author of Genesis had special reasons to bring the Chaldeans into the picture.

We Are Fellow Chaldeans

Genesis is not a thing unto itself; rather, it is a part and parcel of a much longer historical account that ends in Kings with Israel sent by Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldean king of Babylon, into exile in Mesopotamia (2 Kings 25). Since the end of the exile is never mentioned, it stands to reason that at least the final version of the account, and maybe all of it, dates from the time when the people of Israel were at the mercy of Babylon’s Chaldean rulers.^[15]

Emphasizing that Israel’s ancestor was a fellow Chaldean was a good way of ingratiating the exiles with their captors. Such a move would be in line with the overall tendency of Genesis-Kings to avoid rubbing the Babylonian government the wrong way: the arch-villain of the biblical history is Egypt – Chaldeans’ nemesis in the struggle for regional domination – while there is no overt hostility toward Babylon. Even when the Chaldeans attack Judah, it is by God’s will.^[16]

On a deeper level, the Chaldean prequel makes an important point about divine election and human response to it. When God tells Abraham in Gen 15:7, “I am YHWH who led you out from Ur of the Chaldeans,” the implication is that Terah’s decision to head to Canaan (Gen 11:31) was divinely inspired. However, the detour to Ḥarran reported in Genesis 11:32 suggests that at some point Terah changed his mind. If so, he would have had very good reasons: ancient Ḥarran was a flourishing, vibrant city while Canaan was a severely underdeveloped backwater. However, by abandoning the spiritual quest out of material considerations Terah forfeited the special relationship with God and with it the lofty status of Israel’s founding father. The honor went to his son Abraham.

Why Urfa?

With all the above in mind, we can also tentatively determine how the tradition of Urfa as the biblical Ur of the Chaldeans came into being.

Any text is written with the author’s contemporaries in mind. The target audience of Genesis knew that Ur was located in Lower Mesopotamia and that it was where the Chaldeans lived. However, already by the turn of the eras the once glorious city had long been abandoned and buried under the sands of quickly desertifying Lower Mesopotamia. Ancient Chaldeans were pretty much forgotten as well: new groups of people that adopted the name had little to nothing to do with them.^[17]

The new generations of readers had nothing to go on but the Bible’s insistence that Israel’s ancestors hailed from Upper Mesopotamia; accordingly, they had no reason to suspect that Ur-Kasdim was located elsewhere. Those who still lived in the area found a suitable candidate with a vaguely similar name: Urfa, a widely known large city and a rich commercial center seen by countless conquerors as a valuable prize. Of course, somebody as important as Abraham had to come from such an important place! Thus, through the vagaries of history, the pre-biblical tradition of Ḥarran as Abraham’s birthplace gave birth to the post-biblical tradition of Urfa as such.