Abraham from the City of Ur
One of the main themes I have been focusing on is the origin of Abraham.
He could not be a nomad who suddenly appeared when the great Sumerian kingdom built around the city Ur fell. Abraham must have been part of the Sumerian Civilization that was losing its genuine glory around 2000 BC when he left the city Ur.
THE OLD TESTAMENT BEGINS AT SUMER
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Much as Biblical apologists have tried to avoid or cloud the issue of the origin of the Old Testament, the historical facts clearly show that its antecedents are in the valley of Mesopotamia.
The Sumerian culture, which can be traced as far back as the beginning of the Fourth Millennium BC, was the source of all the myths of Middle Eastern civilizations that followed, such as the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian people who inherited much of the Sumerian culture. This culture was subsequently transferred to the west to the lands of Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Anatolia.
The actual language of the Sumerians was superseded rather early by Akkadian, a Semitic tongue. Sumerian is non-Semitic and its origins are unknown. It seems to have no affinities at all and to have suddenly appeared on Earth out of nowhere. The Akkadians and Sumerians later intermingled and eventually formed a fusion of the two languages. From this Sumerian-Akkadian milieu evolved the Semites and eventually the Hebrews or Jews. The Hebrews did not invent their language or literary forms - their culture was inherited from the older Mesopotamian and Canaanite cultures.
It should be more widely realized that when those famous Biblical figures Noah and Abraham lived, there was no such thing as a Hebrew in existence. Both the Jews and Arabs traditionally claim descendancy from Abraham who was neither Jew nor Arab but a resident of the city of Ur in Mesopotamia.
The earliest reference in the Old Testament said to show Abraham’s alleged Hebrew ancestry is an error perpetuated by mistranslation. In their eagerness to prove Hebrew antiquity, translators have incorrectly referred to Abraham as such in Genesis 14.
The context in which this reference appears is the invasion of the eastern kings into Canaan and Abraham’s reaction when his nephew Lot is taken prisoner. As the text goes,
"The invaders seized all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food, and departed, taking with them Lot, the son of Abram’s brother, together with his possessions; he had been living in Sodom. A fugitive brought the news to Abram the Hebrew who was camping at the terebinths of Mamre the Amorite, kinsman of Eshkol and Aner, these being the confederates of Abram."
Evidently, Abraham (Abram) was a stranger in the land at the time; he had just migrated from the city of Ur in Mesopotamia.
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Therefore, in order to learn the writing and language of the Babylonians, it is necessary for these peoples to study their literature and for this purpose texts were required. Among the tablets discovered at Tel-Amarna in Egypt were copies, in the form of school exercises, of the Babylonian stories of Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld, and the story of Adapa, the mortal who was misled into refusing the food and water of immortality. So it is not unreasonable to assume that many of the Sumerians and Babylonian traditions, such as the stories of Creation and the Deluge, were known also to the Hebrews, or at least to their leaders.
When he left Ur in the valley of Mesopotamia, Abraham presumably brought these Sumerian traditions with him. His father Terah was a high priest in the government of Ur and would certainly have had an intimate knowledge of Sumerian culture.
It is therefore manifest that Sumerian tales of the gods of heaven and earth, the creation of Man, and the Deluge were the fountainhead from which nations of the ancient world drew their knowledge and beliefs.
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Hebrew "Elohim" is grammatically a plural form and is often translated as "God" at times but also "Gods" or "divine beings" at other times, mainly because the text is often ambiguous. Generally, the name for the deity is "El" which appears to be the generic term for the deity in western Semitic as well as Biblical Hebrew. It apparently was borrowed from the pantheon of indigenous people of the land of Canaan. Who then was this El who was the supreme deity of the Canaanites?
[Comment: This "El" later became the Islamic "Allah."]
As the ruling god of the Western Semitic pantheon, the leading Sumerian deity Enlil was transcribed syllabically as "ilulu," then became "ili" in Akkadian or Semitic, and later "el" in Hebrew. El thus became the name for Enlil, the supreme being in Palestine and carried over into the Old Testament.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/serpents_dragons/boulay04e.htm
So, Christianity has long history of 2000 years. Hebrews or Judaists could claim, however, 4000 years based on the Old Testament and the legend of Abraham. But the Sumerian Civilization is believed to have started in 3500 BC.
Before Abraham, there had been 1500-year long history for Sumerians. In this scenario, Abraham looks a little younger than we usually imagine.
But, there is one big enigma: the religion of Sumerians was very different from the religion of Hebrews. I will discuss it later.
The 3rd dynasty of Ur (21th cent. BC) brought about a Sumerian Renaissance.
Ur-nammu of Ur proclaimed himself king and soon conquered all of Sumer and Akkad.
http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/civil_n2/histscript0_n2/bb.html
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Mar 8:6 And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground: and he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave to his disciples to set before them; and they did set them before the people.