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295 Habiru/Hapiru connection, which we have already mentioned (and discarded). This erroneous interpretation has stemmed from the search for the meaning of the epithet-name in Western Asia. It is our conviction that instead the answer is to be found in the Sume- rian origins and the Sumerian language of Abraham and his ances- tors. Such a look at the Sumerian roots of the © family and the name Aan a 3 ers Be a ta. provides an answer that startles with its simplicity. The term Ibri ("Hebrew") by which Abraham and his family identified themselves clearly stemmed from Eber, the father of Peleg, and from the root "to cross." Instead of seeking the mean- ing of the epithet-name in the Hapiru notions or in Western Asia, it is our conviction that the answer is to be found in the Sumerian ori- gins and the Sumerian language of Abraham and his ancestors. Then, a new solution emerges with startling simplicity: The biblical suffix "i," when applied to a person, meant "a na- tive of; Gileadi_ meant a native of Gilead and so on. Likewise, Ibri meant a native of the place called "Crossing": and that, pre- cisely, was the Sumerian name for Nippur: NIIB.RU—the Cross- ing Place, the place where the pre-Diluvial grids crisscrossed each other, the original Navel of the Earth, the olden Mission Control n.- Center. The dropping of the n in transposing from Sumerian to Akka- dian/Hebrew was a frequent occurrence. In stating that Abraham was an Ibri, the Bible simply meant that Abraham was a Ni-ib-ri, a man of Nippurian origin! The fact that Abraham's family migrated to Harran from Ur has been taken by scholars to imply that Ur was also Abraham's birth- place; but that is not stated anywhere in the Bible. On the contrary, the command to Abraham to go to Canaan and leave for good his past abodes lists three separate entities: his father's house (which was then in Harran); his land (the city-state of Ur); and his birth- place (which the Bible does not identify). Our suggestion that Ibri means a native of Nippur solves the problem of Abraham's true birthplace. As the name Eber indicates, it was in his time—the middle of the twenty-fourth century B.C.—that the family's association with twenty-fourth century B.C.—that the family's association with Nippur had begun. Nippur was never a royal capital; rather, it was a consecrated city, Sumer's "religious center," as scholars put it. It was also the place where the knowledge of astronomy was en- trusted to the high priests and thus the place where the calendar— the with Abraham: The Fateful Years and the best scholars had to offer in explanation was to seek the a eee ea OS a SO OE association