Where was Abraham born?
There are a couple of confusing, and perhaps even conflicting verses in the bible about Abraham's original homeland.
The general consensus is that Abraham and his family were originally from the ancient South Mesopotamian city of Ur, though after Abraham embarks and settled in Haran, God says to him:
Genesis 12:1 "And the Lord said to Abram, "Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you."
This is told to Abraham while he is in Haran, so was Abraham born in Haran? and what does "your father's house" refer to here?
In Genesis 28 Jacob is told to take a wife for himself from one of Laban's daughters in Padan-Aram, and eventually he sets off to Haran.
From this we can deduce that Haran is located in Padan-Aram.
In Genesis 24 Abraham asks his servant to get a daughter for Isaac from his birthplace and father's house, and then the servant sets off to Aram-Naharim where he fetches Rebecca from Bethuel's household. Later in Genesis 25:20 Bethuel is described as hailing from Padan-Aram. Therefore from this we can deduce that either Aram-Naharim and Padan-Aram are synonymous or that one is perhaps an enclave of the other. Since Ur and Haran are relatively far from each other, would that mean that Ur was not Abraham's birthplace, or would that mean that Padan-Aram/Aram-Naharim extends to southern Mesopotamia? (Aram-Naharim definitely included Haran, and Abraham was supposedly born in Ur, but his birthplace is evidently in Aram-Naharaim per his servant's journey. So either Ur was never his birthplace or Aram-Naharaim extends till Southern Mesopotamia.)
