101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

116 101 Myths of the Bible
Still further confusing the matter, despite its antiquity and importance in ancient
Mesopotamia, Ur is not catalogued in the Table of Nations descended from Noah’s
children.
Although the Bible omits the origin of Ur, it does make reference to the birth of
both Chesed (i.e., the alternative name for Chaldea) and Aram (i.e., Aramea). They
are, respectively, the son and grandson of Abraham’s brother Haran (Gen. 22:20–22).
Since Abraham was born only 290 years after the flood, there is no way that the
Chaldees could have been associated with Ur in his time frame. The references to
Chesed and Aram as his contemporaries are equally anachronistic.
These references to Ur of the Chesdim, Chesed, and Aram obviously stem from a
time when:
1. Aramea and Chaldea had come into existence;
2. the Hebrews started to adopt Aramaic terminology;
3. Chaldea had become a major force in Mesopotamia;
4. the collective memory of Chaldean and Aramaic origins had receded into myth;
and
5. the Hebrews would use the Aramaic pronunciation rather than the native
dialect for the Chaldean name.
This suggests a timeframe well after the Babylonian conquest of Judah and almost
certainly into the Persian or Hellenistic period (fifth century B.C. or later.)
The anachronistic Mesopotamian genealogy of Abraham and his relatives shows
that it was a late invention intended to place Hebrew origins in the cultural center of
the powerful Mesopotamian empires that followed after the defeat of the Chaldeans
by the Persians, and intended to enhance Hebrew prestige within the Babylonian
community.