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city connected by ancient trade routes to Ur. One possible explanation: Abram was born in Haran, then traveled to Ur. Another notion put forth by eminent biblical scholar Cyrus Gordon is that Abram actually came from Urfa in northern Mesopotamia rather than Ur. The date of Abram’s travels is also a matter of speculation and scholarly disagreement. Gordon has speculatively placed Abram around 1385 BCE; traditionally Abram was thought to have lived between 2000 and 1700 BCE. His travels correspond to known migratory and commercial routes before Ur was conquered and abandoned in 1740 BCE. Another problem is the mention of camels being given to Abram. Camels were not domesticated until the fourteenth century BCE. Another confusion: the Genesis account calls it “Ur of the Chaldeans.” The Chaldeans were not on the scene in Mesopotamia until a much later date, and conquered Jerusalem in 612 BCE, sending the people of Jerusalem into the Exile in Babylon. A minority of scholars argue for this very late date for Abram’s life, but most likely a scribe copying the Scriptures used “Ur of the Chaldeans” as a descriptive phrase that would have had great meaning for a Jewish audience that had lived through the Exile under their Chaldean conquerors.

Most widely accepted notions of Abram contend that he lived sometime in the second millennium BCE. Stone tablets from the period show that “Ibrahim” was a common name, which would make him roughly contemporary with Hammurabi, one of the most famous kings of Babylon. Of course, drawing that conclusion would be like finding a “John Smith” in a modern Manhattan telephone book and assuming he was the same “John Smith” who was a founder of Jamestown in colonial America.

While Abram exists only in faith—or legend—Hammurabi is a bit easier to nail down. An Ammorite (meaning “westerner”) whose family swept into Sumer after 2000 BCE, Hammurabi conquered several Sumerian cities and developed a small empire, making him the first king to elevate Babylon from relatively small town to major power. Some scholars have conjectured that Hammurabi—generally dated as king of Babylon from 1792-1750 BCE; some place him about 1706-1662—might be the mysterious King Amraphel, king of Shinar, mentioned in Genesis 14. There is no clear evidence to make that leap.

Hammurabi is best remembered for a code of law, set down toward the end of his reign on clay tablets and on stelae, or stone pillars, showing the sun god Shamash handing a code of laws to Hammurabi. These laws, derived from even older Sumerian law codes, are severe by modern standards, calling for the death penalty for a variety of offenses, including kidnapping and certain types of theft. These codes also covered traffic regulations on the Euphrates River and the rights of veterans. Written codes like these represented a major leap forward for human civilization, showing a move from primitive, arbitrary violence and vengeance to forms of justice, including protection for the weakest members of society—women, children, the poor, and slaves. There are clear parallels—and equally clear differences—between Hammurabi’s code and the law Moses receives from God on Mount Sinai (see Exodus). The notion of an “eye for an eye” is in Hammurabi’s Code and appears in Exodus, and there are other parallels regarding damages done by a farmer’s animals.

But there is one key difference between these two sets of laws. Unlike the Ark of the Covenant containing the tablets with the Ten Commandments, you can actually see Hammurabi’s laws as they were inscribed. A copy of the code, carved on a block of stone, was uncovered by French archaeologists in the ancient city of Susa, modern Shush, in Iran near the border with Iraq, early in this century. It remains on display in the Louvre in Paris.

PLOT SUMMARY: ABRAM, SARAI, AND HAGAR

Promised repeatedly that he will found “a great nation,” Abram is getting worried—and not any younger. When he considers making one of his household slaves his heir, his wife, Sarai, suggests he take her Egyptian slave, Hagar, as a concubine. Any child