This post references two BAS articles and includes comparison maps. Where Is Abraham’s Ur? by Cyrus H. Gordon, published in 1977, and Abraham’s Ur—Is the Pope Going to the Wrong Place? by Hershel Shanks. Shank’s article references the one by Gordon.
The following is Claude.ai’s summary of the first article. The PDF is in the BAS directory in Dropbox. Below that are extracted paragraphs from the second article. Below that is Claude’s analysis of two scholar’s arguments for the northern and southern location.
Summary: Where Is Abraham’s Ur? by Cyrus H. Gordon at BSA published in 1977.
Gordon argues that the traditional identification of Abraham’s birthplace — “Ur of the Chaldees” — with Sumerian Ur in southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) is mistaken. The true Ur, he contends, lies in the Urfa-Haran region of south-central Turkey, near the Syrian border.
The Biblical Case
The geographic argument is straightforward: Genesis 11:31 describes Terah and Abram traveling from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan, stopping at Haran along the way. Since Haran’s location is firmly established, any reasonable travel route to Canaan would not pass through southern Mesopotamia — Sumerian Ur is simply too far out of the way. Gordon also notes that Genesis 24 places Abraham’s homeland in Aram-Naharayim, and that crossing the Euphrates was necessary to reach Canaan from there — something unnecessary if departing from Sumerian Ur, which lies west of the river.
The Cuneiform Evidence
Critically, Sumerian Ur is never called “Ur of the Chaldees” in any cuneiform texts, despite thousands of references. The “of the Chaldees” designation was clearly meant to distinguish Abraham’s Ur from other cities of the same name, including the Sumerian one. An Akkadian tablet from Ugarit mentions a northern trading city called “Ura” (which would render as “Ur” in Hebrew), associated with the Hittite kingdom in Anatolia — a plausible candidate for the biblical site.
How the Error Took Hold
Gordon traces the confusion to the 19th-century decipherment of cuneiform inscriptions, which brought Sumerian Ur to scholarly attention, followed by C. Leonard Woolley’s spectacular excavations there. The glamour of those finds led scholars to associate them with Abraham, and the misidentification became entrenched — repeated so often it was accepted as fact even by experts who knew Sumerian Ur was never labeled “of the Chaldees.”
The Ebla Confirmation
Gordon concludes by welcoming a newly discovered Ebla tablet (c. 1976) that refers to “Ur in Haran,” calling it corroboration of what the biblical evidence already makes clear.
MLA Citation for the full article: Gordon, Cyrus H. “Where Is Abraham’s Ur?” Biblical Archaeology Review 3.2 (1977): 20–21, 52.
Abraham’s Ur—Is the Pope Going to the Wrong Place? By Hershel Shanks.
The two paragraphs below are extracts from that article.
Gordon points to another objection: The southern Ur lies on the west bank of the Euphrates. Here’s why that matters: When Abraham was an old man, he sent his servant back to “the land of my birth”—Ur—to find a wife for his son Isaac (Genesis 24:4). Abraham’s obedient servant went back to the land of Abraham’s birth and there found Rebekah, Laban’s sister. (Actually, Laban is the first person to greet Abraham’s servant.) A generation later, Isaac’s son Jacob went back, presumably to Ur, to work for Laban. After working for Laban for 20 years, Jacob fled back to Canaan. To do so, however, he had to cross the Euphrates (Genesis 31:21). If Ur was on the west bank of the Euphrates, as the southern Ur is, it would not be necessary to cross the Euphrates to travel to Canaan. Ergo, the southern Ur cannot be the place that Abraham sent his servant.11
In addition, we are told that Laban lived in Paddan-Aram, in the Haran region (Genesis 28:2, 5, 6, 7). Scholars equate this with Aram-Naharaim, Abraham’s ancestral home (Genesis 24:10). Both terms refer, although somewhat vaguely, to areas in upper (northern) Mesopotamia, as indicated in other Biblical references.12
Citation – Biblical Archaeology Society. (n.d.). Abraham’s Ur: Is the Pope going to the wrong place? Biblical Archaeology Society Library. Retrieved November 15, 2024, from https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/article/abrahams-ur-is-the-pope-going-to-the-wrong-place-2/
See the article by Gary Rensberg at TheTorah.com titled Ur Kasdim: Where Is Abraham’s Birthplace? that makes a case for Abraham not being from Ur of the Chaldees. This alternate is based on the reference to their homeland being “Beyond the River”. Ur of the Chaldees is not beyond the river but on the same side.
Claude’s Analysis of the Rendsburg vs. Millard Views.
Where Was Abraham’s Ur? Rendsburg vs. Millard: Consolidated Analysis. Oct 21, 2026
Bottom line
Rendsburg (2019) identifies a real geographic tension in Genesis 11, but his case for Urfa rests on contested evidence, and Millard (2001) shows that each objection to southern Ur has a plausible answer. Neither side is conclusive, and Millard says so of his own position.
The weakest parts of Rendsburg’s case are the Ura identification, the Chaldean-origin inference, and the Urfa tradition. The strongest part is the Harran route. Both articles are advocacy pieces: Rendsburg for a northern Ur, Millard for the southern city, assuming Abraham’s historicity.
This analysis is based on the two articles plus a targeted check of secondary sources. I could not access Saggs’s full 1960 article; see the final sections for what remains unverified.
Rendsburg’s argument
Rendsburg argues that Ur-Kasdim is Urfa (Şanlıurfa) in southeastern Turkey, about 44 km north of Ḥarran, not the Sumerian city of Ur in southern Iraq. His article (TheTorah.com, published 2019) builds the case from geography, cuneiform names, tradition, and the Chaldeans.
The standard view. Rawlinson proposed the southern identification; Woolley, who excavated Ur from 1922 to 1934, made it standard doctrine. Rendsburg suggests the era’s drive to find biblical connections shaped Woolley’s conclusion, and notes that the “Ram in the Thicket” link to Gen 22:13 is weak because the figures appear to be goats (fn. 5).
Two problems with the south.
- “Beyond the River.” Josh 24:2–3 places Terah and Abraham beyond the River, which in the Bible means beyond the Euphrates. Southern Ur sits on the Euphrates’ west side, the same side as Canaan.
- Ḥarran is the wrong direction. Travelers from southern Ur to Canaan would go via Mari and across the Syrian Desert through Palmyra, or up the Euphrates to the Great Bend and then southwest through Aleppo, Ḥama, Ḥoms, and Damascus. Going north to Ḥarran makes little sense if Ḥarran was only a way-station (Gen 11:31).
The case for Urfa.
- Gordon’s logic. A journey that stops at Ḥarran implies an origin north of it. Gordon (1958) also linked the city to “Ura” in Ugarit tablets of the 14th–13th centuries B.C.E.
- Tradition. Turkish Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions identify Urfa as Abraham’s birthplace. Rendsburg quotes Bush (1839) to show the idea was common in 19th-century scholarship.
- Place names. Naḥor and Serug match place names in the region: Naḫur (Akkadian sources) and Serug (modern Suruç, 46 km southwest of Urfa).
- The Chaldeans. They reached southern Mesopotamia only in the early to mid first millennium B.C.E. Rendsburg infers an earlier northern home from Xenophon’s mentions of Chaldeans near Armenia and the Carduchi.
- Aramean connection. Deut 26:5 points to an Aramean heartland in northern Mesopotamia (Aram Naharaim), and Gen 22:21–22 pairs Aram and Chesed among Naḥor’s descendants.
- The epithet. The great Ur needed no qualifier, so “of the Chaldees” implies a lesser city, perhaps a northern colony, on the model of “London, Ontario.”
Conclusion. Rendsburg says several lines of evidence converge on Urfa and that the southern identification persists in atlases and textbooks despite having no real supporting evidence. In fn. 7 he also rejects the view that Genesis was composed in the exilic or post-exilic period, on linguistic grounds.
Millard’s counter-case
Millard (BAR 27:3, 2001, pp. 52–53, 57) argues that southern Ur (Tell el-Muqayyar) remains the stronger identification, while conceding that the available information precludes certainty. He wrote in response to Shanks’s reopening of Gordon’s debate, so he predates Rendsburg and does not answer him directly.
Why the northern Ur sites fail.
- Ebla, Alalakh, and Nuzi name several Ura/Uru places, but they appear to be villages near their urban centers with no special importance.
- The Ura of the Ugarit merchants is now placed on the Cilician coast, perhaps Gilindere. Other Ura sites in Turkey (near Amasya; northwest of Diyarbekir) are too far out of the way and not known to have had a West Semitic population.
- Urfa’s ancient name, Orhai, has unknown origin and lacks the expected final syllable if related to Ur. The form “Urfa” cannot be traced before Turkish times. He cites Harrak’s suggestion that Urfa was cuneiform Admum/Adme.
- His best northern candidate is Ura’u, in a 19th-century B.C.E. tablet from Tell Shemshara. It is linked to Khaburatum and may lie west of the Tigris, nearer Ḥarran than southern Ur is.
Why the objections to southern Ur fail.
- Distance. Merchants routinely traveled long distances in the early second millennium B.C.E. Three tablets trace a route from Larsa, 25 miles from Ur, to Emar via Ḥarran, running up the Tigris and then west.
- Roundabout route. Ur and Ḥarran were the two main centers of the moon-god Sîn. Millard says the names Terah and Laban, and possibly Milcah and Sarah, may be linked to the moon cult.
- Nomadic lifestyle. Tent-dwelling is well attested, and nothing says Terah’s family was nomadic. Abraham may have become a nomad only after leaving Ḥarran.
- “Beyond the River.” The Euphrates’ second-millennium course near Ur is poorly defined. Woolley said it washed the western rampart before shifting east in the mid-first millennium B.C.E. From the Levant, Ur would be “conceptually” beyond the river anyway.
- “Of the Chaldees.” He concedes there is no evidence for “Chaldean” before the ninth century B.C.E., and that Babylonian texts never attach the term to Ur. He treats the phrase as a gloss, perhaps reflecting Neo-Babylonian eminence (Machinist) or a later clarification. The tradition that Abraham came from Babylonia could still be ancient.
Limits of Millard’s case. The Larsa–Emar tablets show a route to Emar, not to Canaan. The moon-cult links for Terah and Laban are only possible, and he does not address the Aramean connections or the Naḥor and Serug place names.
Point-by-point comparison
Millard answers most of Rendsburg’s objections to southern Ur, but the Aramean and place-name evidence goes unanswered, and several of Millard’s own answers are only plausible, not demonstrated.
| Issue | Rendsburg | Millard | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Beyond the River” | Ur is on the Euphrates’ west side, so not “beyond” it | River course near Ur is poorly defined; Woolley: it ran by the western rampart; “conceptually” beyond the river from the Levant | Rendsburg’s premise is contested; Millard’s fallback is plausible but unprovable |
| Ḥarran route | No one would go from Ur to Canaan via Ḥarran | Long-distance travel was routine; Larsa–Emar tablets route via Ḥarran; Ur and Ḥarran both Sîn centers | Answers “no one would,” but the tablets lead to Emar, not Canaan |
| Ura | Gordon’s Ura is likely Urfa | Ugarit’s Ura is Cilician; Ura-names at Ebla, Alalakh, Nuzi are villages; Turkish sites too distant | Rendsburg’s cuneiform support is weak |
| Urfa name and tradition | Local tradition supports Urfa | Orhai’s origin unknown; “Urfa” untraceable before Turkish times | Undercuts both the name and the tradition |
| “Of the Chaldees” | A qualifier implies a lesser, northern Ur | No Chaldean evidence before the 9th c. B.C.E.; phrase is a gloss | A late gloss explains the epithet as well as a northern colony does |
| Chaldean origins | Northern origin, from Xenophon | Not addressed | Rendsburg’s inference is shaky (see next section) |
| Aramean link | Deut 26:5 and Aram Naharaim point north | Not addressed | Counts for Rendsburg; unanswered |
| Naḥor and Serug names | Match place names near Urfa | Not addressed | Counts for Rendsburg; unanswered |
| Northern alternatives | Urfa only | Ura’u (Tell Shemshara) is the best northern candidate | Rendsburg omits it |
Weak points in Rendsburg’s case
The weakest links are the Ura identification, the Chaldean-origin inference, and the Urfa tradition. Each is tagged below with how well I could verify it.
- Ura (verified). The Ura of the Ugarit merchants is most often placed on the Cilician coast, perhaps Gilindere (Millard 2001), though Beal’s study of its location says no fully satisfactory site has been proposed. The merchants’ names are mostly Luwian with some Hurrian and Mittannian (Beal, citing Goetze 1962). Other Ura sites exist in Ugarit’s kingdom and near Amasya. Nothing I found puts the Ugarit Ura at Urfa, so “most likely” overstates the case. Ebla also has scores of Ura/Uru names (Millard 2001), which makes name similarity cheap.
- Chaldean origins (mostly verified). The Kaldu first appear in Assyrian sources under Ashurnasirpal II (884/883–859 B.C.E.) as tribal groups in southern Babylonia, such as Bīt-Yakin, Bīt-Dakkuri, and Bīt-Amukkani. One reference work says their origin is uncertain but may lie in the west. I found no scholarly source supporting a northern Mesopotamian origin; Rendsburg’s claim is an inference from Xenophon.
- Xenophon’s Chaldaioi (partly verified). Nansen (1928) says Xenophon wrongly calls the Khaldians “Chaldeans”; they are linked to the Urartian god Haldi and lived in the mountains on Armenia’s frontier. A Thayer summary places them in the Pontic mountains. That is far from Urfa. The “homonymous but unrelated” wording comes from a Wikipedia mirror, so an Urartologist’s treatment should be checked.
- The Urfa tradition (partly verified). The Encyclopedia of the Bible says any tradition of Abraham at Urfa/Edessa goes back only to the 8th–9th century C.E. Saggs (1960, extract only) calls Urfa the traditional identification before Rawlinson’s 1850 work and counts classical and Arab tradition among its supports. A southern tradition of equal antiquity also existed (Pinches 1902, via Shanks’s endnote). Millard adds that the name Urfa cannot be traced before Turkish times. The tradition is post-biblical, its date is disputed, and a southern tradition competed with it.
- “Beyond the River” (partly verified). Millard and Woolley contest Rendsburg’s premise that Ur lay on the Euphrates’ west bank in antiquity. Whether the Hebrew phrase is perspectival, meaning either bank depending on the speaker, is my suggestion from memory (1 Kgs 4:24 ASV) and is unchecked.
- The epithet “of the Chaldees” (verified). The argument that the great Ur needed no qualifier is not unique to a northern reading. Millard shows a late gloss explains the epithet equally well, and the Septuagint renders the phrase as “land of the Chaldeans.” Barrick, an evangelical author who argues for another view, summarizes the gloss option as a later scribe distinguishing one Ur from others.
- Redaction and dating (partly verified). Van Seters (Biblica 96, 2015) dates the Yahwist to the late exilic period, reads the migration as starting from Ur as the Chaldean heartland, and sees Nabonidus-era parallels, including Sîn’s cult at Ur. Rendsburg’s fn. 7 rejects late dating on linguistic grounds. My inference, not a sourced point, is that a two-word gloss need not show Late Biblical Hebrew features.
- Harran as homeland (interpretive). Harran may be the ancestral homeland, which would make the Ur material a secondary layer. This is my reading, and the Gen 12:1 and 24:4 wording is unchecked. Gordon (1977) and Saggs’s summary cite the Isaac wife-quest as an argument for the north, so it cuts both ways.
What holds up. Rendsburg is right that the Ḥarran stop is awkward for a southern Ur if Ḥarran is only a way-station, and that Woolley’s excavations shaped the modern consensus more than the text did. His correction of the “Ram in the Thicket” is also fair.
Omissions and open questions
Each side leaves out evidence the other relies on, so a fair reading needs both articles.
Omitted by Rendsburg
- Woolley’s argument that the Euphrates once ran west of Ur, and Millard’s point that its second-millennium course is poorly defined.
- Ebla, which Gordon’s 1977 article raised through an Ebla reference to “Ur in Haran,” and the many Ura/Uru names there and at Alalakh and Nuzi.
- Ura’u at Tell Shemshara, which Millard calls the best northern candidate.
- The Larsa–Emar tablets and the Sîn-cult link between Ur and Ḥarran.
- Millard’s observation that the name Urfa cannot be traced before Turkish times.
Omitted by Millard
- The Aramean connections (Deut 26:5, Aram Naharaim, Gen 22:21–22).
- The Naḥor and Serug place names near Urfa.
- Any explanation of why the route to Canaan would pass through Ḥarran, since his tablets lead to Emar.
Open questions
- Where was Ura’u, and does it fit a Terah-to-Ḥarran route better than southern Ur?
- How old is the Urfa tradition, and how should Saggs’s “classical and Arab tradition” be weighed against the 8th–9th century dating?
- Where did the Kaldu come from, and is Xenophon’s Chaldaioi a homonym?
- Is “of the Chaldees” a gloss, and if so when was it added?
- Did the Euphrates run west of Ur in the second millennium B.C.E.?
Corrections and unverified items
Four claims in my earlier drafts needed correcting, and several citations and quotations remain unchecked.
Corrections
- Ura: I said it is “usually located in Cilicia.” More precisely, the Ugarit merchants’ Ura is most often placed there, but its site is unsettled.
- Urfa tradition: I called it late antique or medieval. That is only partly right; the date is disputed (see the weak-points section).
- Epithet argument: I called it circular. That was too harsh; the better critique is that a gloss explains it equally well.
- Woolley’s river argument: now confirmed from Millard’s text, so Saggs is no longer needed for it.
Citation discrepancies to check
- Shanks, “Abraham’s Ur: Is the Pope Going to the Wrong Place?”: Rendsburg’s fn. 8 gives BAR 26:2 (March/April 2000), but Millard’s footnote and the COJS page give 26:1 (Jan/Feb 2000).
- Beal, “The Location of Cilician Ura”: Millard’s endnote gives Anatolian Studies 42 (1995), but a Cambridge listing I saw implied 1992, which matches the volume number.
- Saggs, “Ur of the Chaldees”: Millard cites Iraq 20, but the library record gives Iraq 22 (1960), pp. 200–209. His p. 202 n.12 matches the Woolley river note, so this is probably a typo.
Not verified
| Item | Where it appears |
|---|---|
| Saggs’s full 1960 argument (extract only) | Urfa tradition; Isaac wife-quest; Josh 24 |
| Brinkman, A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia (1968) | Kaldu tribal structure |
| Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (1975) | Late-dating view |
| Blenkinsopp, JBL 128 (2009) | Redaction view |
| Bible wording: 1 Kgs 4:24 (ASV), Gen 12:1 and 24:4 (ASV), Acts 7 (NRSV) | “Beyond the River”; Harran as homeland |
| Nabonidus’s devotion to Ḥarran | Sîn-cult argument |
| Rendsburg’s Xenophon references (Anabasis 4.3.4, 5.5.17; Cyropaedia 3.1.34) | Chaldean origins |
| Harrak, JNES 51 (1992); Moorey (1982) | Urfa as Admum/Adme; Woolley revision |
Sources
The two main articles were read in full from your attachments. The other sources below were seen only as search-result excerpts, not full texts.
Read in full
- Rendsburg, Gary A. “Ur Kasdim: Where Is Abraham’s Birthplace?” TheTorah.com (published Nov. 6, 2019; last updated Oct. 7, 2026).
- Millard, Alan R. “Where Was Abraham’s Ur? The Case for the Babylonian City,” Biblical Archaeology Review 27:3 (2001): 52–53, 57.
Seen as excerpts
- Gordon, Cyrus H. “Where Is Abraham’s Ur?” BAR 3:2 (1977).
- Shanks, Hershel. “Abraham’s Ur: Is the Pope Going to the Wrong Place?” BAR 26 (2000).
- Saggs, H. W. F. “Ur of the Chaldees: A Problem of Identification,” Iraq 22 (1960): 200–209 (extract only); and the BAS endnote on Saggs and Pinches.
- Beal, Richard H. “The Location of Cilician Ura,” Anatolian Studies 42.
- Encyclopedia of the Bible, “Ur of the Chaldees” and “Chaldaea, Chaldea”.
- Britannica, “Chaldea” and a Chaldea reference entry.
- Nansen, Fridtjof. Armenia and the Near East (1928); Thayer, “Armenia as Xenophon saw it”; WorldHistory, “Ancient Armenia”; and a Wikipedia mirror, “Chalybes” (weak source).
- Van Seters, John. “Dating the Yahwist’s History,” Biblica 96 (2015): 1–25.
- Barrick (first name unconfirmed). “‘Ur of the Chaldeans’ (Gen 11:28–31),” journal details unconfirmed.
