|The statement in the Hebrew Scriptures that Abraham came from Ur does not
|necessarily mean that his ancestors were all from Ur... some could have come
|from Egypt, or anyplace for that matter.
 
You know, I need to get back to working on my homepage again.  I'm thinking about having a theme about ancient history, myths, urban legends, conspiracy theories, and of course proto-linguistics...
 
They could come from any place.  Noah's flood was in Asia Minor along the Black Sea coast (Nat'l Geographic had a nice article on this a couple months back), so there's one place.  Hebrew is classified linguistically as Canaanite, so they could've been a tribe in the Jordan valley who rise to prominence among the other Canaanite tribes (the Philistines, Edomites, Moabites etc.).  And there's always Egypt, where people of many origins served as slaves.
 
But the Semitic languages in general are likely to have origins in northern Arabia and the Sinai, and migrated from there in two main groups (one north and east, the other through southern Arabia and into eastern Africa).  At least I get that impression.
 
|There is a fringe theory that Moses was Akhenaton, the fanatically
|monotheistic Pharaoh... in any case, there is every reason to at least
|suspect an Egyptian influence on the Israelites, considering that they
|supposedly were in Egypt for four centuries. The origins of Abraham are not
|necessarily as relevant as the later history of his descendants. And at the
|same time, Mesopotamia and Egypt were close to each other, and certainly
|interacted with and influenced each other.
 
The same theory claims that Tutankhamun and Jesus are the same person.