Was Abraham Sumerian, or Babylonian? Aware me

[Jainarayan]

The Book of Genesis states that Abraham was from the city of Ur of the Chaldees. Though the exact location of Ur remains a mystery according to the article, Abraham was born somewhere within Mesopotamia. Yet Abraham is the father of the Hebrew and Arab peoples through his sons Isaac and Ishmael, respectively. If this is the case, then a small group of Mesopotamians migrated and took on entirely new cultural and religious identities, with the Sumerians living on genetically not only in Iraq, but the entire Middle East. Is this the case, or is there something else? Btw this is just one of my thought experiments; I'm truly curious.

 

[outhouse]

Most scholars state he is a literary creation.

 

[Jainarayan]

Well, yeah that too because this seems to be yet another inconsistency, or inexplicability (I'm sure that's not a word) in a bible story.

 

[outhouse]

Much of Israelites history and pre history is completely suppressed with the monotheistic redactions that reinvented their history and changed their deity Yahweh after the 622 BC reforms of king Josiah.

600 years of history almost completely wiped clean retold from a later perspective.

Not that they knew their real history anyway. Multicultural people that were constantly beaten down and rebuilt their culture many times over.

 

[Jeremy Mason]

Side note: Ishmael was the older brother of Isaac.

 

[EtuMalku]

Chaldea was a part of Mesopotamia, Abraham was from there.

 

[outhouse]

Chaldea was a part of Mesopotamia, Abraham was from there.

Any reliable source besides theology

 

[Jainarayan]

Much of Israelites history and pre history is completely suppressed with the monotheistic redactions that reinvented their history and changed their deity Yahweh after the 622 BC reforms of king Josiah.

600 years of history almost completely wiped clean retold from a later perspective.

Did not know that, thanks. This is what I was aiming for.

 

[Jainarayan]

Side note: Ishmael was the older brother of Isaac.

Yes. Yes he was.

 

[Jainarayan]

Chaldea was a part of Mesopotamia, Abraham was from there.

Well, that's the point of the thread. Assuming there is truth to the story, how is it that a Sumerian or Babylonian became the progenitor of an entirely new culture? Not to mention that the Sumerian language is a language isolate; no known related languages, much less Proto-Semitic, the forerunner of Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Ancient Egyptian, Phoenician, etc. In that regard maybe the descendants of Abraham abandoned their mother tongue and picked up the language(s) of the regions they settled. These are curiosities. I think however, that these stories can't be read as history, but as morality and faith stories.

 

[outhouse]

Did not know that, thanks. This is what I was aiming for.

Israelites evolved from displaced Canaanites after 1200 BC. The highlands were filled in Israelite pre history before their writing appears around 1000 BC.

For a 200 Year period their history is only archeological in origin. 1200 -1000 BC

David and Soloman may have been real people, but what is written about them is anything but accurate. After 1000BC and with their new writing skills, we start to get small glimpses of history and their beliefs shining through multiple redactions and compilations of text.

These first 5 books are so fragmented in origin, as would be expected from over 500 years of the books evolving

Much of what we know was redacted after the return of the people from the Babylonian exile. They brought back much of the mesopotamian herritage and mythology, hence Abraham coming from Mesopotamia.

They also brought back with them, the Mesopotamian flood mythology and rewrote their own version. Atleast they claimed Noah was from Mesopotamia.

 

[Jainarayan]

I always thought there was too much in common with the biblical flood story and the Mesopotamian story, not to mention other mythologies. I think many of the things proscribed and commanded in Deuteronomy and Leviticus had to do with the Israelites wanting to be distanced from the other tribes in the area.

 

[dantech]

Side note: Ishmael was the older brother of Isaac.

But he had no "older brother rights" over him.

 

[Jeremy Mason]

Nimrod was related to Noah and then he goes where?

 

[Jeremy Mason]

But he had no "older brother rights" over him.

I agree but some people don't.

 

[outhouse]

Nimrod was related to Noah and then he goes where?

Doesnt one have to exist to actually have a relative?

 

[outhouse]

I always thought there was too much in common with the biblical flood story and the Mesopotamian story, not to mention other mythologies. I think many of the things proscribed and commanded in Deuteronomy and Leviticus had to do with the Israelites wanting to be distanced from the other tribes in the area.

The flood myths in the Levant started with Ziusudra, when the Euphrates overflowed in 2900 BC after a 6 day thunderstorm. It supposedly took King Ziusudra down the swollen river on a barge loaded with livestock and goods where it landed next to a hill and a sacrifice was made.

Then the later myths grew from a river flood to a sea deluge with Gilgamesh

Long before it was retold with a Israelite spin, which also holds true for the creation mythologies that came from Mesopotamian mythology.

 

[EtuMalku]

Any reliable source besides theology

Ok, thanks for making me do a bit of reading . . .

"Information translated from the Mari tablets would seem to indicate that the Sumerian Ur, not Ur of the Chaldeans, is more likely the place where Abraham and his family started their journey."

Abraham in the Bible - Archaeology Unearths Clues to the World of Abraham in the Bible

 

[outhouse]

Abraham was like what 180 years old?

What many christians dont understand is that back then, ages were attributed by popularity.

The older a person was the more respected he was. That also goes back to Mesopotamian mythology and their deities.

Thats why the older patriarchs have all these old ages applied to them.

 

[outhouse]

Ok, thanks for making me do a bit of reading . . .

"Information translated from the Mari tablets would seem to indicate that the Sumerian Ur, not Ur of the Chaldeans, is more likely the place where Abraham and his family started their journey."

Abraham in the Bible - Archaeology Unearths Clues to the World of Abraham in the Bible

None of which builds any historicity at all for Abraham.

The article only deals with possibilities of biblical matches with the real history of 4000 years ago. Which are totally luck that anything matches up.

Try a better source.

Abraham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bible's internal chronology places Abraham around 2000 BCE,[5] but the stories in Genesis cannot be definitively related to the known history of that time.[6]

By the beginning of the 21st century, and despite sporadic attempts by more conservative scholars such as Kenneth Kitchen to save the patriarchal narratives as history, archaeologists had "given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac or Jacob credible 'historical figures'".[8]