HISTORICITY OF ABRAHAM
BY
ALVIN ESAU
DECEMBER 8, 2011
Is the Abraham narrative as found in Gen.11:26 to 25:10 a story about actual characters that existed and events that happened in the past? Unlike the brief Noah narrative, the Abraham story is an extensive narrative that can be broken up into at least twenty-two discreet incidents.[1] Rather than making an all or nothing conclusion about historicity, we might envision belief in historicity on a sliding scale. At one end are those who believe that the narratives are purely fictional, and at the other end of the scale are those who take the whole of the narrative as historical. But between these poles we might tentatively conclude that while we may have some doubts about establishing precise dates and chronologies for the events in question, at least some/many of the episodes probably are rooted in actual historical events.
Historicity Generally:
The historicity debate surrounding the text itself (internal) involves prior questions about dating of the purported sources of the text, dating the final narrator of the text, and dating the story told in the text. If the narrative is finally constructed (maybe by P.) in the 6th, or even 5th century B.C., (perhaps utilizing the J. / E. sources written back in the 10th century), and the Abraham story is set back in the 20th or 19th century B.C., we have a 1000 to 1500 year gap that separates the final written story from the events that it purports to convey.[2] If the Abraham story is moved to the 15th century, we still have at least a 500 year gap between the story and what scholars often consider the earliest written account. If Moses is the narrator, the gap is reduced to a degree, but the point is that just as our memories are subject to fading, distortion, and creative reconstruction as time passes between the event and the retelling,[3] so the length of time between event and writing creates problems for the historicity of the story. Can the story live in cultural memory, passed from generation to generation, with some degree of accuracy, or is there just a little grain of historicity that is then creatively embellished through time, like rolling a snowball out of an original pebble? Perhaps some original memory is indeed preserved, but through time the stories “have been idealized, shaped, and stereotyped” reflecting political, religious, and ideological influences.[4] Conservative scholars have responded that studies on oral traditions from various cultures in the world show a persistence of accuracy, especially in terms of oral genealogy.[5]
As we move to external evidence, it should be noted that most of the Abraham story is about a series of isolated events in the life of a family, not about public events that might be documented somewhere outside the biblical story,[6] (though we do have a Pharaoh, an Abimelech, and various “kings” in Ch. 14). While we might look for some direct evidence of the public dimensions of the story, there is generally never going to be any direct evidence outside the text itself to either support or cast doubt on the historicity of the largely private dimensions of the story. The only external evidence we have is confined to the historical context of the story. A story is arguably less plausible as history if the setting itself betrays signs of having been constructed from a much later period. A wonderful example of anachronisms is found in the movie “Blazing Saddles” set in the mythical “wild west” where we have a host of funny anachronisms, ending with the main characters getting off their horses and riding off into the sunset in a Cadillac. We might then ask whether a story passes the “Blazing Saddles” test of verisimilitude. However, we should also note that a story might be completely fictional and yet be set perfectly within a historical setting.[7] Thus the inferences that we make about historicity of details, based on historicity of context, is in no way irrefutable evidence of anything. It does however help us to make judgments of plausibility.
As we move outside the text, we are also limited to whatever material stuff is left behind from the past and has been found, and also whatever epigraphy (written) stuff has survived and been discovered. All of this evidence must be dated and interpreted, and inferences must be made as to how this evidence might reconstruct some aspect of the past. For example, in the reconstruction of how and when Israel emerged in Palestine, apparently “archeologists cannot as yet distinguish “Israelite” villages, houses, tools or weapons from those of other people.”[8] Historical understanding is always a reconstruction of the past based on various inferences from evidence. Reconstruction becomes very tentative and fragmentary when we have very little evidence to begin with. Furthermore, how we make inferences and judgments about probability is partly a function of our own worldviews. We judge the credibility of a witness, not so much by demeanor, which can be very misleading, but by the content of the testimony. Does the testimony in terms of chronology, causation, coherence, and detail, conform to our understanding of the way the world works? Obviously, both the internal evidence and external evidence for historicity can be interpreted in different ways due to the ideological worldviews of the interpreter. Perhaps we need to be somewhat cautious when looking at claims from both those who are wedded to an “inerrant” view of scriptural inspiration, and those who are overtly hostile to religious faith.[9]
Traditional (Maximal) Support for Biblical Historicity:
Whether fact or fiction, in what historic period does the Abraham narrative fit? A literal chronology from the biblical text working backwards from the building of Solomon’s temple and adding various ages given for the conquest of Canaan, wilderness wanderings, exodus, Egyptian sojourn, ages of the patriarchs, and so forth, leads to the conclusion that Abraham was born in 2166, and left Haran for Canaan in 2091, and died in 1991 B.C.[10] Thus conservative scholars place the patriarchal period in the early 2nd Millennium BC, although they may argue for a somewhat different dating, due to the archeological evidence and the possible symbolic value of the numbers in 1.K. 6:1.
In any event, given the lack of any direct evidence for the story, contextual archeological evidence, both material and textual, has been used to support the basic dating of the patriarchal narratives to this early 2nd millennium (early Middle Bronze) period, and also to support the plausibility of the story by showing that it fits within the culture of this period. The scholars who supported a maximalist historicity included W. F. Albright,[11] E. A. Speiser,[12] and John Bright[13]and many others.[14] According to G. Ernest Wright, another maximalist:
We shall probably never be able to prove that Abram really existed, that he did this or that, said thus and so, but what we can prove is that his life and times, as reflected in the stories about him, fit perfectly within the early second millennium, but imperfectly with any later period.[15]
Reduced here to a few main points, what were some of the arguments used by the maximalists? One line of argument dealt with Abraham as a nomad. There is archeological evidence that in the late 3rd millennium there was a collapse of urban culture in the Syria-Canaan area, and maximalists argued that it was caused by the immigration/invasion of a nomadic people called the Amurru (or Amorites) who then gradually over centuries reestablished various urban settlements that had been destroyed. However, even as urban settlements were established, other Amorites continued to exist as nomadic pastoralists alongside the urban settlements. The theory is that Abraham might have been part of this influx of Amorites, and in the Biblical story we have Abraham as a nomad, but within a context of having some settled communities nearby. His movements correspond to known Amorite migratory and commercial routes in this period.[16] Secondly, we have various arguments based on the Amorite names found in the Patriarchal narratives and matching various names found in 2nd M. documents. Thirdly, we have various social and legal practices that are illustrated in the thousands of cuneiform tablets (dated in the 19th and 18th centuries, B.C.) recovered from Mari, a once impressive Amorite city, and also from a host of legal texts found in the Hurrian city of Nuzi (dated in the 15th c.), and also utilizing various texts from Egypt as well.[17] The argument is that these texts parallel the social and legal practices we see in the Biblical account such as the adoption by Abraham of his servant as heir, the raised social status of a sister-wife, and the law of surrogate motherhood through the provision of a maidservant by a barren wife, just to mention a few.
Recent (Minimalist) Rejection of Biblical Historicity:
While the early chapters of Genesis are commonly said to be pre-historical and written in the genre of myth, as we move into the patriarchal stories many scholars argue that we again do not have history, but rather we have sagas and folktales that serve as etiological narratives; stories that explain the origin of a name, or a geographical feature or a religious custom, or the questionable origins of folks who are enemies of Israel.[18] Generally, the patriarchal narratives may have functioned “to define Judah and Israel as separate from the peoples of Canaan, among whom they lived for generations.”[19]
Scholars, forming a loose school of minimalists in regard to the historicity of the Biblical account, argue that the patriarchal narratives; the exodus, wilderness and Sinai events; the conquest; the confederacy, and even the monarchy periods of David and Solomon are either completely, or largely, fictional.[20] Thus:
Contemporary scholarship tends to see Abraham as a fictitious symbolic model of faith, as a figure who legitimates the claims of Israel to its land, and whose actions foreshadow the deeds of his children.[21]
McCarter and Hendel argue that Abraham may have been a historical individual before he became a figure of tradition and legend, but most of the patriarchs are not even historical characters, but rather eponyms; “typological prefigurations of the later Israelites and their neighbors… invented to establish kinship bonds necessary for the cohesion of the community.”[22]
T. L. Thompson[23] and J. Van Seters[24] published books in 1974 and 1975 that questioned the historicity of the Abraham story. Thompson showed that various names, “fit well into the common Near Eastern nomenclature,” but it was clearly false to say that they fit best with the 2nd M. material, as compared to the 1st M.[25] Amorite names in the biblical account are pervasive in the later period and not confined to the early 2nd M. With a great deal of detail, Thompson also took apart various alleged parallels between the biblical story and social/legal customs illustrated in the Mari, Nuzi and Egyptian documents. Doubting that an original event could be transmitted intact for over 800 years, Thompson came to the conclusion that the historicity of the story is “totally improbable.”[26]
Van Seters claimed that the Abraham story is not about a nomadic lifestyle at all, but rather is about a resident alien with numerous slaves, and the story also frequently makes reference to urban settlements. However, the Middle Bronze period at the beginning of the 2nd M. does not conform to this picture. According to Van Seters:
When [Middle Bronze I] is compared with the stories of Abraham, it becomes clear that the Old Testament descriptions of cities, a sedentary way of life, and political forms are quite inappropriate to this period. The Old Testament stresses the difference between the pastoral population represented by Abraham and the urban population of Shechem, Gerar, Hebron, and the cities of the Jordan Valley. But none of the settlements of MB I, whether in Palestine, Transjordan or the Negeb, can be interpreted as urban centers of this kind. The whole economy of MB I appears to be only pastoral. It should also be noted that both Shechem and Beersheba have no MB I settlements.[27]
Van Seters admits that in the next period of Middle Bronze II we have all sorts of urban developments consistent with the story, but he still asserts that it is more likely that the story is created in the Judean monarchy period.[28] Van Seters also pointed out serious interpretative weaknesses in the use of the Mari and Nuzi texts, which were either misinterpreted by the maximalists, or reflected customs that were not confined to the early 2nd M.
That the narrative of the Patriarchs should be associated with a much later date is now a familiar refrain in much of the literature. At the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age in about 1200 BCE, archeological evidence in Syria-Palestine shows that the influence of the Egyptian Kingdom in the South and the Hittite Kingdom in the North collapse, and we have another kind of “dark age” in which various peoples are on the move, and it is this period in which the people known as Israel emerge.[29] Thus the Abraham story is better associated with an Aramean movement into Palestine in the 1100s. In short, the social and legal situation of the patriarchal period fits better with the early 1st M, than the early 2nd M. The biblical traditions themselves associate the patriarchs with the Iron Age Arameans and also, but less directly, with other Iron Age groups like the Moabites, Edomites, and Philistines.[30]
Responding:
One might respond that the arguments between maximalists and minimalist are simply arguments about the appropriate time that Abraham lived, as opposed to the question about the historicity of the accounts of his life. However, if the story is placed in the context of the early first millennium rather than in the early second millennium, the argument can be made that the stories are just a reflection of those who wrote them, rather than a recollection of events that took place a thousand years earlier. Placing the story into a monarchal period obviously discounts the historicity of having a patriarchal period that proceeded various other periods before the Monarchy, such as the Egyptian-Exodus-Wilderness Wandering-Conquest-Tribal Confederacy periods. This is to say that the minimalists are only acknowledging the history of story-telling or tradition, rather than the historicity of the story or tradition itself.
Shortly after the Thompson and Von Seters books, Evangelical scholars like Millard acknowledged that these writers had raised many legitimate criticisms of how the traditionalists had supported their views with questionable evidence but argued that the minimalists had hardly delivered evidence that disproved the traditional view. There is no direct evidence to prove or disprove the story, and while some contextual evidence might be questioned, other such evidence continued to be valid.[31] As to the rejection of the Amorite hypothesis, Bimson noted that “the migration spoken of in Genesis involves only a single family, and it is nowhere implied that the family’s movements were part of a wider shift or expansion of populations.”[32] Selman argued that while some specific parallels as to social and legal customs found in the Nuzi tablets had been properly rejected, there remained others (he cited thirteen) that still provided contextual evidence for the historicity of the Biblical account within the period traditionally assigned to it.[33] After reviewing the arguments of Thompson and Seters, A. R. Millard concluded that while the evidence does not demand a finding that Abraham was a real historical figure living at the beginning of the 2d millennium, the evidence is entirely sustainable that he was.[34] Donald Wiseman concluded that the Thompson and Von Seters dismissal of historicity “goes beyond the evidence” and is “open to strong criticism.”[35]
More recently, Yamauchi[36] has argued that Iron Age anachronisms can be explained as adaptations that simply make the traditional and historical story from the Early or Middle Bronze Age intelligible for later audiences; or the problematic references in the story are not anachronisms at all. Camels were domesticated well before 1200 BC, and the biblical story does not say that various sites like Shechem, Ai, Bethel, Hebron, or Beersheba were occupied at the time of Abraham; and the Philistines mentioned in the narrative were not the 13th century group, but actually proto-Philistines related to the Minoans of Crete.[37]
Another evangelical scholar, Merrill,[38] has responded that the idea of having pastoralists like Abraham moving about on land that does not need to be purchased, “comports remarkably with what is known of settlement patterns in Canaan in this period.”[39] While the Nuzi tablets may well be dated much later than Abraham, the laws contained therein are likely of long-standing validity.[40]
Rooker, another conservative scholar, maintains that we can still assert that “the events described in the narratives are plausible, because they are in harmony with all that is known about the culture of the [2000-1750] period.”[41] He also cites the continuing value of the Mari texts, the Nuzi texts, and some Egyptian texts, that all reflect living conditions before and after their time.
Concluding:
Between the maximal and minimal, we have some scholars who cautiously find a middle position. There may well be authentic recollections of actual people and events from an actual patriarchal period, but there is also a high probability that the story has been expanded or shaped to a degree by later redactors/narrators with a view to later events in Israel’s history.[42] For example, Fretheim has recently stated:
At the least, scholarly reconstructions of this ancestral period have had mixed results. Various ancient Near Eastern parallels to ancestral names, customs, and modes of life have been overdrawn at times; yet, the parallels may be sufficient to claim that these texts carry some authentic memories of a second millennium setting and that they are not simply a product of ancient imaginations… In a general way, it is common to date the time of the ancestors in the first half of the second millennium (2000-1500 B.C.E.).[43]
One of the best arguments that the narrative does not just reflect the theology/ideology of the writer/redactor, is the assertion that there are customs, beliefs, and actions of the patriarchs “that are not only anachronistic to a later period, but occasionally downright objectionable.”[44] The patriarchs engaged in sexual/marital relations that violated later Old Testament laws; and they flouted, under divine guidance, later customs of inheritance, and most importantly, they engaged in religious practices that violated later Israelite practices.[45] As Provan, Long and Longman ask, “…how likely is it that much later writers, writing purely out of their imagination, would paint a picture of their founding fathers that included such things?”[46]
Ronald Hendel, hardly a conservative scholar,[47] has recently argued that there is evidence that some of the traditions within the patriarchal story predate the formation of Israel in the early Iron Age.”[48] He also accepts the argument that “it is entirely possible… that there is some historical connection between the patriarchal traditions and the Amorite culture of Syro-Mesopotamia during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.[49] Having said that, Hendel still views the narrative as a “composite of historical memory, traditional folklore, cultural self-definition, and narrative brilliance.”[50]
In conclusion, it would appear that neither the maximalists, nor the minimalists, have established “knock down” arguments from outside the text to support their positions. For aspects of the narrative that may not be strictly historical, we would still affirm that the Bible is the Word of God and is communicating truth, even when the story may be folktale/saga and not strictly history. I do not think we need to have the kind of faith in the historicity of the text as argued by Merrill who states that historicity is based on the “premise that the Old Testament is the Word of God and that it is therefore reliable and authoritative not only when it teaches doctrine and theology but also when it professes to convey historical information.”[51] One might agree that the Bible is the Word of God, but it is not unmediated. Rather it is incarnated into the experiences of various peoples through time and expressed with the symbols that the people are familiar with, including their limited knowledge of the past.[52]
[1] Robert North, “Abraham” in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan, eds. (New York: Oxford U. Press, 1993) 4-5.
[2] Terence Fretheim, Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 19.
[3] One of the leading books on eyewitness and memory is Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U. Press, 1996).
[4] Eric M. Meyers and John Rogerson, “The World of the Hebrew Bible”, in The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, ed. Bruce Chilton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed., 2008), 39-325, 50.
[5] Richard E. Averbeck, “Factors in Reading the Patriarchal Narratives: Literary, Historical and Theological Dimensions,” in Giving the Sense: Understanding and Using Old Testament Texts, eds. David M. Howard Jr. and Michael A Grisanti (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003), 115, 134-35.
[6] P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., revised by Ronald Hendel, “The Patriarchal Age,” in Ancient Israel, ed. Hershel Shanks (Washington: Biblical Archeology Society, rev. ed. 1999), 1-31.
[7] Philip R. Davies, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 133, noting that, for example, the verification of there being a port in Jaffa does not make the Jonah story real.
[8] J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2nd ed. 2006), 5.
[9] For what I think is a cynically anti-religious reading of the Abraham narrative, see Philip R. Davies, “Abraham and Yahweh: A Case of Male Bonding,” in Abraham and Family, ed. Hershel Shanks (Washington D.C.: Biblical Archeology Society, 2000), 21-40.
[10] Mark F. Rooker, “Dating of the Patriarchal Age: The Contribution of ANE Texts,” in Giving the Sense: Understanding and Using Old Testament Texts, eds. David M. Howard Jr. and Michael A Grisanti (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003), 217, 218; also Eugene H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2nd ed., 2008), 47. Notice that Merrill gives precise dates for all the major events of the Abraham narrative. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is listed at 2067 B.C.
[11] William F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (New York: Doubleday, 1968).
[12] Ephraim A. Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Bible 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1964).
[13] John Bright, A History of Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 3rd ed., 1981).
[14] K. A. Kitchen, “The Old Testament in its Context: 1: From the Origins to the Eve of Exodus,” TSF Bulletin 59 (1971), is an example of using archeology to support historicity. Also, Gleason L Archer Jr., “Old Testament History and Recent Archeology- From Abraham to Moses,” Bibliotheca Sacra 127 (1970) 3-25.
[15] G. Ernest Wright, Biblical Archaeology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 40.
[16] North, “Abraham,” 4-5.
[17] Averbeck, “Factors,” 115-137.
[18] Michael D. Coogan, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2d ed. 2011).
[19] Meyers and Rogerson, “The World,” 39, 61.
[20] For an overview, see Diane Banks, Writing the History of Israel (London: T and T Clark, 2006). Minimalists of various stripes include Keith W. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (London: Routledge, 1996); Niels Peter Lemche, Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988); Philip R. Davies, The Origins of Biblical Israel (London: T. and T. Clark, 2007).
[21] Nahum M. Sarna and S. David Sperling, “Abraham,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 2nd. ed., 2007), 283.
[22] McCarter and Hendel, “Patriarchal Age,” 4, 22.
[23] Thomas L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974).
[24] John Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975).
[25] Thompson, Historicity, 17.
[26] Ibid., 328.
[27] Van Seters, Abraham, 107.
[28] Ibid. 108.
[29] Miller and Hayes, A History, 3.
[30] Ibid., 53.
[31] A. R. Millard, “Methods of Studying the Patriarchal Narratives as Ancient Texts,” in Essays On The Patriarchal Narratives, ed. A. R. Millard and D. J. Wiseman (Leicester: I. V. P., 1980), 43-57.
[32] J. J. Bimson, “Archeological Data and the Dating of the Patriarchs,” Ibid., 59-92, 65.
[33] M. J. Selman, “Comparative Customs and the Patriarchal Age,” Ibid., 93-138.
[34] A. R. Millard, “Abraham” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), I: 40.
[35] Donald J. Wiseman, “Abraham in History and Tradition,” Biblio Sacra 134 (1977) 123-30, 124, 128.
[36] Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Abraham and Archaeology: Anachronisms or Adaptations?” in Perspectives on Our Father Abraham, ed. Steven A. Hunt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 15-32.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Merrill, Kingdom of Priests
[39] Ibid., 52.
[40] Ibid., 54-56.
[41]Mark F. Rooker, “Dating” 217. He dates the narrative as being in the first quarter of 2nd m.
[42] George W. Ramsey, “Israel’s Ancestors,” in The Biblical World, ed. John Barton (London: Routledge, 2002) II: 175-193.
[43] Fretheim, Abraham, 21-22.
[44] Ian Provan, V. Phillips Long, and Tremper Longman III, A Biblical History of Israel, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003) 115.
[45] Fretheim, Abraham, 27; Ramsey, “Ancestors,” 178; Also, G. J. Wenham, “The Religion of the Partriarchs,” in Millard and Wiseman, Essays, 157-188. Also G.J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50 (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994).
[46] Provan, Biblical History, 116.
[47] Apparently Hendel withdrew his membership in the S.B.L. in protest over the fact that people like Waltke are allowed to express unscholarly views that accept the religious authority of
orthodox Christian faith!! See, Hendel, "Farewell to SBL," Biblical Archaeology Review 36/4 (2010) 28, 74.
[48] Ronald Hendel, Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 47.
[49] Ibid. 54.
[50] Ibid. 47.
[51] Merrill, Kingdom of Priests, 25.
[52] Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005). Also, Kenton L. Sparks, God’s Word in Human Words: an Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Bible Scholarship (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008).
Bibliography:
Albright, William F. Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan. New York: Doubleday, 1968.
Archer, Gleason L. Jr. “Old Testament History and Recent Archeology- From Abraham to Moses.” Bibliotheca Sacra 127 (1970) 3-25.
Averbeck, Richard E. “Factors in Reading the Patriarchal Narratives: Literary, Historical and Theological Dimensions.” In Giving the Sense: Understanding and Using Old Testament Texts, eds. David M. Howard Jr. and Michael A Grisanti, 115-137. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003.
Bimson, J. J. “Archeological Data and the Dating of the Patriarchs.” In Essays On The Patriarchal Narratives, ed. A. R. Millard and D. J. Wiseman, 59-92. Leicester: I. V. P., 1980.
Banks, Diane. Writing the History of Israel. London: T and T Clark, 2006.
Bright, John. A History of Israel. Philadelphia: Westminster, 3rd ed., 1981.
Coogan, Michael D. The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2d ed, 2011.
Davies, Philip R. “Abraham and Yahweh: A Case of Male Bonding.” In Abraham and Family, ed. Hershel Shanks, 21-40. Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archeology Society, 2000.
Davies, Philip R. The Origins of Biblical Israel. London: T. and T. Clark, 2007.
Davies, Philip R. Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.
Enns, Peter. Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005.
Fretheim, Terence. Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007.
Hendel, Ronald. Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Kitchen, K. A. “The Old Testament in its Context: 1: From the Origins to the Eve of Exodus.” TSF Bulletin 59 (1971) 2-10.
Lemche, Niels Peter. Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988.
Loftus, Elizabeth. Eyewitness Testimony. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U. Press, 1996.
McCarter, P. Kyle Jr., revised by Ronald Hendel. “The Patriarchal Age.” In Ancient Israel, ed. Hershel Shanks, 1-31. Washington: Biblical Archeology Society, rev. ed. 1999.
Merrill, Eugene H. Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2nd ed., 2008.
Meyers, Eric M., and John Rogerson. “The World of the Hebrew Bible.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, ed. Bruce Chilton, 39-325. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed., 2008.
Millard, A. R. “Methods of Studying the Patriarchal Narratives as Ancient Texts.” In Essays On The Patriarchal Narratives, ed. A. R. Millard and D. J. Wiseman, 43-57. Leicester: I. V. P., 1980.
Millard, A. R. “Abraham.” In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, I: 35-41. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
Miller, J. Maxwell, and John H. Hayes. A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. Louisville: John Knox Press, 2nd ed. 2006.
North, Robert. “Abraham.” In The Oxford Companion to the Bible, eds., Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan, 4-5. New York: Oxford U. Press, 1993.
Provan, I., V. Phillips Long, and Tremper Longman III. A Biblical History of Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.
Ramsey, George W. “Israel’s Ancestors.” In The Biblical World, ed. John Barton, II: 175-193. London: Routledge, 2002.
Rooker, Mark F. “Dating of the Patriarchal Age: The Contribution of ANE Texts.” In Giving the Sense: Understanding and Using Old Testament Texts, eds. David M. Howard Jr. and Michael A Grisanti, 217-235. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003.
Sarna, Nahum M. and S. David Sperling. “Abraham.” In Encyclopaedia Judaica, I: 280-283. Jerusalem: Keter, 2nd. ed., 2007.
Selman, M. J. “Comparative Customs and the Patriarchal Age.” In Essays On The Patriarchal Narratives, ed. A. R. Millard and D. J. Wiseman, 93-138. Leicester: I. V. P., 1980.
Sparks, Kenton L. God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Bible Scholarship. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.
Speiser, Ephraim A. Genesis, Anchor Bible 1. New York: Doubleday, 1964.
Thompson, Thomas L. The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974
Van Seters, John. Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.
Wenham, G. J. “The Religion of the Partriarchs.” In Essays On The Patriarchal Narratives, ed. A. R. Millard and D. J. Wiseman, 157-188. Leicester: I. V. P., 1980.
Wenham, G. J. Genesis 16-50. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994.
Whitelam, Keith W. The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History. London: Routledge, 1996.
Wiseman, Donald J. “Abraham in History and Tradition.” Biblio Sacra 134 (1977) 123-130.
Wright, G. Ernest. Biblical Archaeology. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962.
Yamauchi, Edwin M. “Abraham and Archaeology: Anachronisms or Adaptations?” In Perspectives on Our Father Abraham, ed. Steven A. Hunt, 15-32. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.
BY
ALVIN ESAU
DECEMBER 8, 2011
Is the Abraham narrative as found in Gen.11:26 to 25:10 a story about actual characters that existed and events that happened in the past? Unlike the brief Noah narrative, the Abraham story is an extensive narrative that can be broken up into at least twenty-two discreet incidents.[1] Rather than making an all or nothing conclusion about historicity, we might envision belief in historicity on a sliding scale. At one end are those who believe that the narratives are purely fictional, and at the other end of the scale are those who take the whole of the narrative as historical. But between these poles we might tentatively conclude that while we may have some doubts about establishing precise dates and chronologies for the events in question, at least some/many of the episodes probably are rooted in actual historical events.
Historicity Generally:
The historicity debate surrounding the text itself (internal) involves prior questions about dating of the purported sources of the text, dating the final narrator of the text, and dating the story told in the text. If the narrative is finally constructed (maybe by P.) in the 6th, or even 5th century B.C., (perhaps utilizing the J. / E. sources written back in the 10th century), and the Abraham story is set back in the 20th or 19th century B.C., we have a 1000 to 1500 year gap that separates the final written story from the events that it purports to convey.[2] If the Abraham story is moved to the 15th century, we still have at least a 500 year gap between the story and what scholars often consider the earliest written account. If Moses is the narrator, the gap is reduced to a degree, but the point is that just as our memories are subject to fading, distortion, and creative reconstruction as time passes between the event and the retelling,[3] so the length of time between event and writing creates problems for the historicity of the story. Can the story live in cultural memory, passed from generation to generation, with some degree of accuracy, or is there just a little grain of historicity that is then creatively embellished through time, like rolling a snowball out of an original pebble? Perhaps some original memory is indeed preserved, but through time the stories “have been idealized, shaped, and stereotyped” reflecting political, religious, and ideological influences.[4] Conservative scholars have responded that studies on oral traditions from various cultures in the world show a persistence of accuracy, especially in terms of oral genealogy.[5]
As we move to external evidence, it should be noted that most of the Abraham story is about a series of isolated events in the life of a family, not about public events that might be documented somewhere outside the biblical story,[6] (though we do have a Pharaoh, an Abimelech, and various “kings” in Ch. 14). While we might look for some direct evidence of the public dimensions of the story, there is generally never going to be any direct evidence outside the text itself to either support or cast doubt on the historicity of the largely private dimensions of the story. The only external evidence we have is confined to the historical context of the story. A story is arguably less plausible as history if the setting itself betrays signs of having been constructed from a much later period. A wonderful example of anachronisms is found in the movie “Blazing Saddles” set in the mythical “wild west” where we have a host of funny anachronisms, ending with the main characters getting off their horses and riding off into the sunset in a Cadillac. We might then ask whether a story passes the “Blazing Saddles” test of verisimilitude. However, we should also note that a story might be completely fictional and yet be set perfectly within a historical setting.[7] Thus the inferences that we make about historicity of details, based on historicity of context, is in no way irrefutable evidence of anything. It does however help us to make judgments of plausibility.
As we move outside the text, we are also limited to whatever material stuff is left behind from the past and has been found, and also whatever epigraphy (written) stuff has survived and been discovered. All of this evidence must be dated and interpreted, and inferences must be made as to how this evidence might reconstruct some aspect of the past. For example, in the reconstruction of how and when Israel emerged in Palestine, apparently “archeologists cannot as yet distinguish “Israelite” villages, houses, tools or weapons from those of other people.”[8] Historical understanding is always a reconstruction of the past based on various inferences from evidence. Reconstruction becomes very tentative and fragmentary when we have very little evidence to begin with. Furthermore, how we make inferences and judgments about probability is partly a function of our own worldviews. We judge the credibility of a witness, not so much by demeanor, which can be very misleading, but by the content of the testimony. Does the testimony in terms of chronology, causation, coherence, and detail, conform to our understanding of the way the world works? Obviously, both the internal evidence and external evidence for historicity can be interpreted in different ways due to the ideological worldviews of the interpreter. Perhaps we need to be somewhat cautious when looking at claims from both those who are wedded to an “inerrant” view of scriptural inspiration, and those who are overtly hostile to religious faith.[9]
Traditional (Maximal) Support for Biblical Historicity:
Whether fact or fiction, in what historic period does the Abraham narrative fit? A literal chronology from the biblical text working backwards from the building of Solomon’s temple and adding various ages given for the conquest of Canaan, wilderness wanderings, exodus, Egyptian sojourn, ages of the patriarchs, and so forth, leads to the conclusion that Abraham was born in 2166, and left Haran for Canaan in 2091, and died in 1991 B.C.[10] Thus conservative scholars place the patriarchal period in the early 2nd Millennium BC, although they may argue for a somewhat different dating, due to the archeological evidence and the possible symbolic value of the numbers in 1.K. 6:1.
In any event, given the lack of any direct evidence for the story, contextual archeological evidence, both material and textual, has been used to support the basic dating of the patriarchal narratives to this early 2nd millennium (early Middle Bronze) period, and also to support the plausibility of the story by showing that it fits within the culture of this period. The scholars who supported a maximalist historicity included W. F. Albright,[11] E. A. Speiser,[12] and John Bright[13]and many others.[14] According to G. Ernest Wright, another maximalist:
We shall probably never be able to prove that Abram really existed, that he did this or that, said thus and so, but what we can prove is that his life and times, as reflected in the stories about him, fit perfectly within the early second millennium, but imperfectly with any later period.[15]
Reduced here to a few main points, what were some of the arguments used by the maximalists? One line of argument dealt with Abraham as a nomad. There is archeological evidence that in the late 3rd millennium there was a collapse of urban culture in the Syria-Canaan area, and maximalists argued that it was caused by the immigration/invasion of a nomadic people called the Amurru (or Amorites) who then gradually over centuries reestablished various urban settlements that had been destroyed. However, even as urban settlements were established, other Amorites continued to exist as nomadic pastoralists alongside the urban settlements. The theory is that Abraham might have been part of this influx of Amorites, and in the Biblical story we have Abraham as a nomad, but within a context of having some settled communities nearby. His movements correspond to known Amorite migratory and commercial routes in this period.[16] Secondly, we have various arguments based on the Amorite names found in the Patriarchal narratives and matching various names found in 2nd M. documents. Thirdly, we have various social and legal practices that are illustrated in the thousands of cuneiform tablets (dated in the 19th and 18th centuries, B.C.) recovered from Mari, a once impressive Amorite city, and also from a host of legal texts found in the Hurrian city of Nuzi (dated in the 15th c.), and also utilizing various texts from Egypt as well.[17] The argument is that these texts parallel the social and legal practices we see in the Biblical account such as the adoption by Abraham of his servant as heir, the raised social status of a sister-wife, and the law of surrogate motherhood through the provision of a maidservant by a barren wife, just to mention a few.
Recent (Minimalist) Rejection of Biblical Historicity:
While the early chapters of Genesis are commonly said to be pre-historical and written in the genre of myth, as we move into the patriarchal stories many scholars argue that we again do not have history, but rather we have sagas and folktales that serve as etiological narratives; stories that explain the origin of a name, or a geographical feature or a religious custom, or the questionable origins of folks who are enemies of Israel.[18] Generally, the patriarchal narratives may have functioned “to define Judah and Israel as separate from the peoples of Canaan, among whom they lived for generations.”[19]
Scholars, forming a loose school of minimalists in regard to the historicity of the Biblical account, argue that the patriarchal narratives; the exodus, wilderness and Sinai events; the conquest; the confederacy, and even the monarchy periods of David and Solomon are either completely, or largely, fictional.[20] Thus:
Contemporary scholarship tends to see Abraham as a fictitious symbolic model of faith, as a figure who legitimates the claims of Israel to its land, and whose actions foreshadow the deeds of his children.[21]
McCarter and Hendel argue that Abraham may have been a historical individual before he became a figure of tradition and legend, but most of the patriarchs are not even historical characters, but rather eponyms; “typological prefigurations of the later Israelites and their neighbors… invented to establish kinship bonds necessary for the cohesion of the community.”[22]
T. L. Thompson[23] and J. Van Seters[24] published books in 1974 and 1975 that questioned the historicity of the Abraham story. Thompson showed that various names, “fit well into the common Near Eastern nomenclature,” but it was clearly false to say that they fit best with the 2nd M. material, as compared to the 1st M.[25] Amorite names in the biblical account are pervasive in the later period and not confined to the early 2nd M. With a great deal of detail, Thompson also took apart various alleged parallels between the biblical story and social/legal customs illustrated in the Mari, Nuzi and Egyptian documents. Doubting that an original event could be transmitted intact for over 800 years, Thompson came to the conclusion that the historicity of the story is “totally improbable.”[26]
Van Seters claimed that the Abraham story is not about a nomadic lifestyle at all, but rather is about a resident alien with numerous slaves, and the story also frequently makes reference to urban settlements. However, the Middle Bronze period at the beginning of the 2nd M. does not conform to this picture. According to Van Seters:
When [Middle Bronze I] is compared with the stories of Abraham, it becomes clear that the Old Testament descriptions of cities, a sedentary way of life, and political forms are quite inappropriate to this period. The Old Testament stresses the difference between the pastoral population represented by Abraham and the urban population of Shechem, Gerar, Hebron, and the cities of the Jordan Valley. But none of the settlements of MB I, whether in Palestine, Transjordan or the Negeb, can be interpreted as urban centers of this kind. The whole economy of MB I appears to be only pastoral. It should also be noted that both Shechem and Beersheba have no MB I settlements.[27]
Van Seters admits that in the next period of Middle Bronze II we have all sorts of urban developments consistent with the story, but he still asserts that it is more likely that the story is created in the Judean monarchy period.[28] Van Seters also pointed out serious interpretative weaknesses in the use of the Mari and Nuzi texts, which were either misinterpreted by the maximalists, or reflected customs that were not confined to the early 2nd M.
That the narrative of the Patriarchs should be associated with a much later date is now a familiar refrain in much of the literature. At the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age in about 1200 BCE, archeological evidence in Syria-Palestine shows that the influence of the Egyptian Kingdom in the South and the Hittite Kingdom in the North collapse, and we have another kind of “dark age” in which various peoples are on the move, and it is this period in which the people known as Israel emerge.[29] Thus the Abraham story is better associated with an Aramean movement into Palestine in the 1100s. In short, the social and legal situation of the patriarchal period fits better with the early 1st M, than the early 2nd M. The biblical traditions themselves associate the patriarchs with the Iron Age Arameans and also, but less directly, with other Iron Age groups like the Moabites, Edomites, and Philistines.[30]
Responding:
One might respond that the arguments between maximalists and minimalist are simply arguments about the appropriate time that Abraham lived, as opposed to the question about the historicity of the accounts of his life. However, if the story is placed in the context of the early first millennium rather than in the early second millennium, the argument can be made that the stories are just a reflection of those who wrote them, rather than a recollection of events that took place a thousand years earlier. Placing the story into a monarchal period obviously discounts the historicity of having a patriarchal period that proceeded various other periods before the Monarchy, such as the Egyptian-Exodus-Wilderness Wandering-Conquest-Tribal Confederacy periods. This is to say that the minimalists are only acknowledging the history of story-telling or tradition, rather than the historicity of the story or tradition itself.
Shortly after the Thompson and Von Seters books, Evangelical scholars like Millard acknowledged that these writers had raised many legitimate criticisms of how the traditionalists had supported their views with questionable evidence but argued that the minimalists had hardly delivered evidence that disproved the traditional view. There is no direct evidence to prove or disprove the story, and while some contextual evidence might be questioned, other such evidence continued to be valid.[31] As to the rejection of the Amorite hypothesis, Bimson noted that “the migration spoken of in Genesis involves only a single family, and it is nowhere implied that the family’s movements were part of a wider shift or expansion of populations.”[32] Selman argued that while some specific parallels as to social and legal customs found in the Nuzi tablets had been properly rejected, there remained others (he cited thirteen) that still provided contextual evidence for the historicity of the Biblical account within the period traditionally assigned to it.[33] After reviewing the arguments of Thompson and Seters, A. R. Millard concluded that while the evidence does not demand a finding that Abraham was a real historical figure living at the beginning of the 2d millennium, the evidence is entirely sustainable that he was.[34] Donald Wiseman concluded that the Thompson and Von Seters dismissal of historicity “goes beyond the evidence” and is “open to strong criticism.”[35]
More recently, Yamauchi[36] has argued that Iron Age anachronisms can be explained as adaptations that simply make the traditional and historical story from the Early or Middle Bronze Age intelligible for later audiences; or the problematic references in the story are not anachronisms at all. Camels were domesticated well before 1200 BC, and the biblical story does not say that various sites like Shechem, Ai, Bethel, Hebron, or Beersheba were occupied at the time of Abraham; and the Philistines mentioned in the narrative were not the 13th century group, but actually proto-Philistines related to the Minoans of Crete.[37]
Another evangelical scholar, Merrill,[38] has responded that the idea of having pastoralists like Abraham moving about on land that does not need to be purchased, “comports remarkably with what is known of settlement patterns in Canaan in this period.”[39] While the Nuzi tablets may well be dated much later than Abraham, the laws contained therein are likely of long-standing validity.[40]
Rooker, another conservative scholar, maintains that we can still assert that “the events described in the narratives are plausible, because they are in harmony with all that is known about the culture of the [2000-1750] period.”[41] He also cites the continuing value of the Mari texts, the Nuzi texts, and some Egyptian texts, that all reflect living conditions before and after their time.
Concluding:
Between the maximal and minimal, we have some scholars who cautiously find a middle position. There may well be authentic recollections of actual people and events from an actual patriarchal period, but there is also a high probability that the story has been expanded or shaped to a degree by later redactors/narrators with a view to later events in Israel’s history.[42] For example, Fretheim has recently stated:
At the least, scholarly reconstructions of this ancestral period have had mixed results. Various ancient Near Eastern parallels to ancestral names, customs, and modes of life have been overdrawn at times; yet, the parallels may be sufficient to claim that these texts carry some authentic memories of a second millennium setting and that they are not simply a product of ancient imaginations… In a general way, it is common to date the time of the ancestors in the first half of the second millennium (2000-1500 B.C.E.).[43]
One of the best arguments that the narrative does not just reflect the theology/ideology of the writer/redactor, is the assertion that there are customs, beliefs, and actions of the patriarchs “that are not only anachronistic to a later period, but occasionally downright objectionable.”[44] The patriarchs engaged in sexual/marital relations that violated later Old Testament laws; and they flouted, under divine guidance, later customs of inheritance, and most importantly, they engaged in religious practices that violated later Israelite practices.[45] As Provan, Long and Longman ask, “…how likely is it that much later writers, writing purely out of their imagination, would paint a picture of their founding fathers that included such things?”[46]
Ronald Hendel, hardly a conservative scholar,[47] has recently argued that there is evidence that some of the traditions within the patriarchal story predate the formation of Israel in the early Iron Age.”[48] He also accepts the argument that “it is entirely possible… that there is some historical connection between the patriarchal traditions and the Amorite culture of Syro-Mesopotamia during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.[49] Having said that, Hendel still views the narrative as a “composite of historical memory, traditional folklore, cultural self-definition, and narrative brilliance.”[50]
In conclusion, it would appear that neither the maximalists, nor the minimalists, have established “knock down” arguments from outside the text to support their positions. For aspects of the narrative that may not be strictly historical, we would still affirm that the Bible is the Word of God and is communicating truth, even when the story may be folktale/saga and not strictly history. I do not think we need to have the kind of faith in the historicity of the text as argued by Merrill who states that historicity is based on the “premise that the Old Testament is the Word of God and that it is therefore reliable and authoritative not only when it teaches doctrine and theology but also when it professes to convey historical information.”[51] One might agree that the Bible is the Word of God, but it is not unmediated. Rather it is incarnated into the experiences of various peoples through time and expressed with the symbols that the people are familiar with, including their limited knowledge of the past.[52]
[1] Robert North, “Abraham” in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan, eds. (New York: Oxford U. Press, 1993) 4-5.
[2] Terence Fretheim, Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 19.
[3] One of the leading books on eyewitness and memory is Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U. Press, 1996).
[4] Eric M. Meyers and John Rogerson, “The World of the Hebrew Bible”, in The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, ed. Bruce Chilton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed., 2008), 39-325, 50.
[5] Richard E. Averbeck, “Factors in Reading the Patriarchal Narratives: Literary, Historical and Theological Dimensions,” in Giving the Sense: Understanding and Using Old Testament Texts, eds. David M. Howard Jr. and Michael A Grisanti (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003), 115, 134-35.
[6] P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., revised by Ronald Hendel, “The Patriarchal Age,” in Ancient Israel, ed. Hershel Shanks (Washington: Biblical Archeology Society, rev. ed. 1999), 1-31.
[7] Philip R. Davies, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 133, noting that, for example, the verification of there being a port in Jaffa does not make the Jonah story real.
[8] J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2nd ed. 2006), 5.
[9] For what I think is a cynically anti-religious reading of the Abraham narrative, see Philip R. Davies, “Abraham and Yahweh: A Case of Male Bonding,” in Abraham and Family, ed. Hershel Shanks (Washington D.C.: Biblical Archeology Society, 2000), 21-40.
[10] Mark F. Rooker, “Dating of the Patriarchal Age: The Contribution of ANE Texts,” in Giving the Sense: Understanding and Using Old Testament Texts, eds. David M. Howard Jr. and Michael A Grisanti (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003), 217, 218; also Eugene H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2nd ed., 2008), 47. Notice that Merrill gives precise dates for all the major events of the Abraham narrative. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is listed at 2067 B.C.
[11] William F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (New York: Doubleday, 1968).
[12] Ephraim A. Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Bible 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1964).
[13] John Bright, A History of Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 3rd ed., 1981).
[14] K. A. Kitchen, “The Old Testament in its Context: 1: From the Origins to the Eve of Exodus,” TSF Bulletin 59 (1971), is an example of using archeology to support historicity. Also, Gleason L Archer Jr., “Old Testament History and Recent Archeology- From Abraham to Moses,” Bibliotheca Sacra 127 (1970) 3-25.
[15] G. Ernest Wright, Biblical Archaeology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 40.
[16] North, “Abraham,” 4-5.
[17] Averbeck, “Factors,” 115-137.
[18] Michael D. Coogan, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2d ed. 2011).
[19] Meyers and Rogerson, “The World,” 39, 61.
[20] For an overview, see Diane Banks, Writing the History of Israel (London: T and T Clark, 2006). Minimalists of various stripes include Keith W. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (London: Routledge, 1996); Niels Peter Lemche, Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988); Philip R. Davies, The Origins of Biblical Israel (London: T. and T. Clark, 2007).
[21] Nahum M. Sarna and S. David Sperling, “Abraham,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 2nd. ed., 2007), 283.
[22] McCarter and Hendel, “Patriarchal Age,” 4, 22.
[23] Thomas L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974).
[24] John Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975).
[25] Thompson, Historicity, 17.
[26] Ibid., 328.
[27] Van Seters, Abraham, 107.
[28] Ibid. 108.
[29] Miller and Hayes, A History, 3.
[30] Ibid., 53.
[31] A. R. Millard, “Methods of Studying the Patriarchal Narratives as Ancient Texts,” in Essays On The Patriarchal Narratives, ed. A. R. Millard and D. J. Wiseman (Leicester: I. V. P., 1980), 43-57.
[32] J. J. Bimson, “Archeological Data and the Dating of the Patriarchs,” Ibid., 59-92, 65.
[33] M. J. Selman, “Comparative Customs and the Patriarchal Age,” Ibid., 93-138.
[34] A. R. Millard, “Abraham” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), I: 40.
[35] Donald J. Wiseman, “Abraham in History and Tradition,” Biblio Sacra 134 (1977) 123-30, 124, 128.
[36] Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Abraham and Archaeology: Anachronisms or Adaptations?” in Perspectives on Our Father Abraham, ed. Steven A. Hunt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 15-32.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Merrill, Kingdom of Priests
[39] Ibid., 52.
[40] Ibid., 54-56.
[41]Mark F. Rooker, “Dating” 217. He dates the narrative as being in the first quarter of 2nd m.
[42] George W. Ramsey, “Israel’s Ancestors,” in The Biblical World, ed. John Barton (London: Routledge, 2002) II: 175-193.
[43] Fretheim, Abraham, 21-22.
[44] Ian Provan, V. Phillips Long, and Tremper Longman III, A Biblical History of Israel, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003) 115.
[45] Fretheim, Abraham, 27; Ramsey, “Ancestors,” 178; Also, G. J. Wenham, “The Religion of the Partriarchs,” in Millard and Wiseman, Essays, 157-188. Also G.J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50 (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994).
[46] Provan, Biblical History, 116.
[47] Apparently Hendel withdrew his membership in the S.B.L. in protest over the fact that people like Waltke are allowed to express unscholarly views that accept the religious authority of
orthodox Christian faith!! See, Hendel, "Farewell to SBL," Biblical Archaeology Review 36/4 (2010) 28, 74.
[48] Ronald Hendel, Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 47.
[49] Ibid. 54.
[50] Ibid. 47.
[51] Merrill, Kingdom of Priests, 25.
[52] Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005). Also, Kenton L. Sparks, God’s Word in Human Words: an Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Bible Scholarship (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008).
Bibliography:
Albright, William F. Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan. New York: Doubleday, 1968.
Archer, Gleason L. Jr. “Old Testament History and Recent Archeology- From Abraham to Moses.” Bibliotheca Sacra 127 (1970) 3-25.
Averbeck, Richard E. “Factors in Reading the Patriarchal Narratives: Literary, Historical and Theological Dimensions.” In Giving the Sense: Understanding and Using Old Testament Texts, eds. David M. Howard Jr. and Michael A Grisanti, 115-137. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003.
Bimson, J. J. “Archeological Data and the Dating of the Patriarchs.” In Essays On The Patriarchal Narratives, ed. A. R. Millard and D. J. Wiseman, 59-92. Leicester: I. V. P., 1980.
Banks, Diane. Writing the History of Israel. London: T and T Clark, 2006.
Bright, John. A History of Israel. Philadelphia: Westminster, 3rd ed., 1981.
Coogan, Michael D. The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2d ed, 2011.
Davies, Philip R. “Abraham and Yahweh: A Case of Male Bonding.” In Abraham and Family, ed. Hershel Shanks, 21-40. Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archeology Society, 2000.
Davies, Philip R. The Origins of Biblical Israel. London: T. and T. Clark, 2007.
Davies, Philip R. Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.
Enns, Peter. Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005.
Fretheim, Terence. Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007.
Hendel, Ronald. Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Kitchen, K. A. “The Old Testament in its Context: 1: From the Origins to the Eve of Exodus.” TSF Bulletin 59 (1971) 2-10.
Lemche, Niels Peter. Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988.
Loftus, Elizabeth. Eyewitness Testimony. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U. Press, 1996.
McCarter, P. Kyle Jr., revised by Ronald Hendel. “The Patriarchal Age.” In Ancient Israel, ed. Hershel Shanks, 1-31. Washington: Biblical Archeology Society, rev. ed. 1999.
Merrill, Eugene H. Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2nd ed., 2008.
Meyers, Eric M., and John Rogerson. “The World of the Hebrew Bible.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, ed. Bruce Chilton, 39-325. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed., 2008.
Millard, A. R. “Methods of Studying the Patriarchal Narratives as Ancient Texts.” In Essays On The Patriarchal Narratives, ed. A. R. Millard and D. J. Wiseman, 43-57. Leicester: I. V. P., 1980.
Millard, A. R. “Abraham.” In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, I: 35-41. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
Miller, J. Maxwell, and John H. Hayes. A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. Louisville: John Knox Press, 2nd ed. 2006.
North, Robert. “Abraham.” In The Oxford Companion to the Bible, eds., Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan, 4-5. New York: Oxford U. Press, 1993.
Provan, I., V. Phillips Long, and Tremper Longman III. A Biblical History of Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.
Ramsey, George W. “Israel’s Ancestors.” In The Biblical World, ed. John Barton, II: 175-193. London: Routledge, 2002.
Rooker, Mark F. “Dating of the Patriarchal Age: The Contribution of ANE Texts.” In Giving the Sense: Understanding and Using Old Testament Texts, eds. David M. Howard Jr. and Michael A Grisanti, 217-235. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003.
Sarna, Nahum M. and S. David Sperling. “Abraham.” In Encyclopaedia Judaica, I: 280-283. Jerusalem: Keter, 2nd. ed., 2007.
Selman, M. J. “Comparative Customs and the Patriarchal Age.” In Essays On The Patriarchal Narratives, ed. A. R. Millard and D. J. Wiseman, 93-138. Leicester: I. V. P., 1980.
Sparks, Kenton L. God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Bible Scholarship. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.
Speiser, Ephraim A. Genesis, Anchor Bible 1. New York: Doubleday, 1964.
Thompson, Thomas L. The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974
Van Seters, John. Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.
Wenham, G. J. “The Religion of the Partriarchs.” In Essays On The Patriarchal Narratives, ed. A. R. Millard and D. J. Wiseman, 157-188. Leicester: I. V. P., 1980.
Wenham, G. J. Genesis 16-50. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994.
Whitelam, Keith W. The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History. London: Routledge, 1996.
Wiseman, Donald J. “Abraham in History and Tradition.” Biblio Sacra 134 (1977) 123-130.
Wright, G. Ernest. Biblical Archaeology. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962.
Yamauchi, Edwin M. “Abraham and Archaeology: Anachronisms or Adaptations?” In Perspectives on Our Father Abraham, ed. Steven A. Hunt, 15-32. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.
