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Chaldea

Chaldea is located south of the current Baghdad in the diamond formed by the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Chaldea is an ancient region located between the lower reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris. The first civilized inhabitants who occupied this region formed the kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad.

The Chaldeans lived southwest of Babylon. It's an ancient people Semite ^History

From the ^ninth century to the ^sixth century BC. BC, the Chaldeans played an important role in the history of Asia and contributed to the destruction of the Assyrian empire. For a short period, they made Babylonia, which gradually was called Chaldea, the dominant power of Mesopotamia.

One of their most brilliant kings was Merodach Baladan-II (reigned 722-710 BC.) who fought bravely but unsuccessfully four mighty Assyrian monarchs: Tiglath-pileser III (reigned 745-727 BC.), Shalmaneser V (reigned 727-722 BC.) Sargon II (reigned 722-705 BC.) and Sennacherib (reigned 705-681 BC.), the destroyer of Babylon. Sennacherib's successors, Esarhaddon (reigned 681-599 BC.) and Ashurbanipal , maintained their political control over Babylonia despite numerous rebellions and defections.

In 626 BC. BC, however, when the Assyrians was threatened by the Medes , the Scythians and Cimmerians , a Chaldean named Nabopolassar (King 626-605 BC.) proclaimed himself king of Babylonia and alliance with the Medes, contributed to the destruction of Assyrian power.

Taking advantage of the weak position of Assyria, of Egypt began to threaten the Palestine and Syria. Upon his accession in 605 BC. BC, Nebuchadnezzar II marched to meet the Egyptians and defeated them at Carchemish (in modern Syria).

His reign, which lasted forty-three years, is marked by an extension of political control of Babylonia over most of Mesopotamia. It is known to readers of the Bible to be the destroyer of Jerusalem and the king who led the Jews into captivity in Babylon. For archaeologists and historians, he is the one who rebuilt Babylon, its capital, and restored many temples throughout Babylonia.

The Babylonian revival did not last long. After the death of Nebuchadnezzar in 562 BC. BC began an endless struggle for power. In 556 BC. BC, Nabonidus , governor of the city under Nebuchadnezzar ascended the throne and had to be measured by the influential priestly class of Babylon. Having left the city of Babylon under the regency of his son Belshazzar , he retreated to Harran and later in the oasis of Teima in the Arabian desert. In 539 BC. BC, he was taken prisoner by Cyrus the Great , who entered Babylon without resistance. Annexed to Persia , Babylonia lost its independence.

Abraham, Ur "of the Chaldees"?

According to Roemer , a reference to the origin "Chaldean" of Abraham in the Bible (see Genesis 11, 27-32) implies, if the recent origin of the legend of this character, at least the lateness of Affiliation origins of the Patriarch in southern Mesopotamia. Indeed the term "Chaldeans", he argues, appears at a time "recent" in the texts. Supposed time of Abraham, in the early second millennium BC, Ur was a Sumerian city.

Roemer sees the link between Abraham and the Chaldean creation of exiled Jews in this region during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Their hope of returning to Judea and end their exile, which performed effectively under Cyrus II and his successors, was mythologized in the creation of the legendary migration of the father of Abraham from Ur to Harran and its patriarch himself of Syria to Palestine. The exiles returning home remade the path traveled by their ancestors and his own destiny promised by God to the glory prefigured their own: the nomad without a country would be the "Father of a multitude" (meaning of the name "Abraham"), the forerunner of happy destiny is predicted that the returning exiles to Judea .