1, xxiv. 4), but Ur
Casdim, which can only mean Ur of the Chaldees. From there
Terah, the father of Abraham, Nahor, and Haran, is said to have
emigrated with Abraham and Lot, the son of Haran, who was already
dead. If this was so, Nahor must have stayed at Ur Casdim, and
Haran must have died there. But neither of these assumptions is
consistent with the indications of the narrative. The different
aspirates notwithstanding, it is scarcely allowable to separate
the man Haran from the town Haran and to make him die elsewhere.
It is equally impossible to regard Ur in Chaldaea as the
residence of Nahor, whether the grandfather or the grandson of the
same name matters nothing; for it is obviously not without
relation to real facts that the place, which in any case must be
in Syria, where the Nahorides Laban and Rebecca dwell, is called
in J the town of Nahor, and in E Haran. Even in Q though Nahor
stays in Ur, Laban and Rebecca do not live in Chaldaea, but in
Padan Aram, ie., in Mesopotamian Syria. What helps to show that
Ur Casdim does not belong to the original form of the tradition,
is that even in Serug the father of Nahor, we are far away from
Babylon towards the West.
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