Abraham in Egypt

In Abraham 1 we learn that Abraham was in the “land of the Chaldeans” at the place of his fathers.  The Bible described this place as “Ur of the Chaldees”, a description which was also used in the Pearl of Great Price (Abraham 3:1, Genesis 15:7).  It has generally been suggested that the location of this is over towards the Persian Gulf as The World of the Old Testament map shows.  The same map shows another possible location up north and to the west, and I recently listened to another lecturer who suggested it is even further west than that around the area of Phoencia. Clearly wherever it was, there was a lot of Egyptian influence.  Abraham told us that one of the false gods that the people was worshipping was “the god of Pharoah, king of Egypt” and that the “priest of Pharoah” was the one who was making offerings on the “altar which was built up in the land of Chaldea” (Abraham 1:6-8).  All of those proposed locations certainly seem very far from Egypt, but apparently wherever it was there were Egyptians and Egyptian priests. 

When Abraham escaped from Ur of the Chaldees he went to the “land of the Canaan” and named the place that they went Haran.  If the above map is correct, this was north of the Euphrates River in what appears to be modern-day southern Turkey.  Eventually he left there and went to Canaan, and after that because of a famine he “concluded to go down into Egypt to sojourn there” (Abraham 2:21).  He spent some time there and ultimately made it back to the land of Canaan.  As I’ve thought through these details, I’ve been puzzled by something on Facsimile 1.  This picture corresponds to Abraham 1 in the story where he was almost sacrificed on the altar.  Abraham even referred to the picture as he spoke about the altar: “And it came to pass that the priests laid violence upon me, that they might slay me also, as they did those virgins upon this altar; and that you may have a knowledge of this altar, I will refer you to the representation at the commencement of this record” (Abraham 1:12).  This altar was apparently “by the hill called Potiphar’s Hill, at the head of the plain of Olishem” (Abraham 1:10).  What puzzles me is the description in Facsimile 1 of item 10.  It appears to be a general description of the whole scene and says, “Abraham in Egypt.”  But my understanding is that he wasn’t in Egypt; he was in the land of the Chaldeans.  So why does the description say Egypt?  One thought I’ve had is that perhaps Egypt is used loosely here and is also used to represent the lands which were physically far from Egypt but culturally filled with Egyptian influence, as the place where Abraham surely was.  But Facsimile 3 seems to make that interpretation more difficult.  This picture was of Abraham in Egypt when he went there after the famine in Canaan.  The description for item 3 says, “Signifies Abraham in Egypt as given also in Figure 10 of Facsimile No. 1.”  Taken at face value, that seems to strongly suggest that the 1^st facsimile showed Abraham in Egypt. 

I’m not sure quite how to reconcile this assertion that the picture was in Egypt with the assumption that the land of the Chaldees was far from Egypt.  Is it possible that “Ur of the Chaldees” was really a region in Egypt and that’s where Abraham was originally from?  That would seem to mean that none of the suggested sites for Ur are correct.  Perhaps there is much to the early life of Abraham and his origins that is different than we assume.