Abraham

==Historicity and origins of the narrative==
===Historicity===
[[File:PikiWiki Israel 11347 Abrams well.jpg|thumb|upright=1|[[Abraham's Well]] at [[Beersheba]], Israel]]

In the early and middle 20th century, leading archaeologists such as [[William F. Albright]] and [[G. Ernest Wright]] and biblical scholars such as [[Albrecht Alt]] and [[John Bright (biblical scholar)|John Bright]] believed that the patriarchs and matriarchs were either real individuals or believable composites of people who lived in the "[[patriarchal age]]", the 2nd millennium BCE.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bright|first=John|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0VG67yLs-LAC&q=Abraham|title=A History of Israel|date=1959|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|isbn=978-0-664-22068-6|page=93|language=en}}</ref> But, in the 1970s, new arguments concerning Israel's past and the biblical texts challenged these views; these arguments can be found in [[Thomas L. Thompson]]'s ''[[The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives]]'' (1974),<ref>{{Cite book|last=Thompson|first=Thomas L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o91vmgEACAAJ&q=The+Historicity+of+the+Patriarchal+Narratives:+The+Quest+for+the+Historical+Abraham|title=The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham|date=1974|publisher=Gruyter, Walter de, & Company |isbn=9783110040968 |language=en}}</ref> and [[John Van Seters]]' ''[[Abraham in History and Tradition]]'' (1975).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Seters|first=John Van|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F3fboAEACAAJ&q=Abraham+in+history+and+tradition|title=Abraham in History and Tradition|date=1975|publisher=Echo Point Books and Media|isbn=978-1-62654-910-4|language=en}}</ref> Thompson, a literary scholar, based his argument on archaeology and ancient texts. His thesis centered on the lack of compelling evidence that the patriarchs lived in the 2nd millennium BCE, and noted how certain biblical texts reflected first millennium conditions and concerns. Van Seters examined the patriarchal stories and argued that their names, social milieu, and messages strongly suggested that they were [[Iron Age]] creations.{{sfn|Moore|Kelle|2011|pp=18–19}} Van Seters' and Thompson's works were a [[paradigm shift]] in biblical scholarship and archaeology, which gradually led scholars to no longer consider the patriarchal narratives as historical.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Moorey|first=Peter Roger Stuart|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e1x9Rs_zdG8C&q=A+Century+of+Biblical+Archaeology+by+Roger+Moorey&pg=PP1|title=A Century of Biblical Archaeology|date=1991|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|isbn=978-0-664-25392-9|language=en}}</ref> Some conservative scholars attempted to defend the Patriarchal narratives in the following years, but this has not found acceptance among scholars.<ref>{{harvnb|Dever|2001|p=98}}: "There are a few sporadic attempts by conservative scholars to "save" the patriarchal narratives as history, such as [[Kenneth Kitchen]] [...] By and large, however, the minimalist view of Thompson's pioneering work, ''The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives'', prevails."</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Grabbe|first=Lester L.|editor1-first=H. G. M|editor1-last=Williamson |title=Understanding the History of Ancient Israel |url=https://britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5871/bacad/9780197264010.001.0001/upso-9780197264010-chapter-5|chapter=Some Recent Issues in the Study of the History of Israel|publisher=British Academy|year=2007|isbn=978-0-19-173494-6|language=en-US|doi=10.5871/bacad/9780197264010.001.0001|quote=The fact is that we are all minimalists – at least, when it comes to the patriarchal period and the settlement. When I began my PhD studies more than three decades ago in the USA, the 'substantial historicity' of the patriarchs was widely accepted as was the unified conquest of the land. These days it is quite difficult to find anyone who takes this view.}}</ref> By the beginning of the 21st century, archaeologists had stopped trying to recover any context that would make Abraham, Isaac or Jacob credible historical figures.{{sfn|Dever|2001|p=98 and fn.2}}

==={{anchor|Renaming}} Origins of the narrative===
[[File:Abraham's Gate.jpg|thumb|[[Abraham's Gate|Abraham's Gate, Tel Dan, Israel]]]]
Abraham's story, like those of the other patriarchs, most likely had a substantial oral prehistory{{sfn|Pitard|2001|p=27}} (he is mentioned in the [[Book of Ezekiel]]<ref>{{Bibleverse|Ezekiel|33:24}}</ref> and the [[Book of Isaiah]]<ref>{{Bibleverse|Isaiah|63:16}}</ref>). As with [[Moses]], Abraham's name is apparently very ancient, as the tradition found in the [[Book of Genesis]] no longer understands its original meaning (probably "Father is exalted" – the meaning offered in Genesis 17:5, "Father of a multitude", is a [[folk etymology]]).{{sfn|Thompson|2016|pp=23–24}} At some stage the [[oral tradition]]s became part of the written tradition of the [[Pentateuch]]; a majority of scholars believe this stage belongs to the Persian period, roughly 520–320 BCE.{{sfn|Ska|2009|p=260}} The mechanisms by which this came about remain unknown,{{sfn|Enns|2012|p=26}} but there are currently at least two hypotheses.{{sfn|Ska|2006|pp=217, 227–28}} The first, called Persian Imperial authorisation, is that the post-Exilic community devised the Torah as a legal basis on which to function within the Persian Imperial system; the second is that the Pentateuch was written to provide the criteria for determining who would belong to the post-Exilic Jewish community and to establish the power structures and relative positions of its various groups, notably the priesthood and the lay "elders".{{sfn|Ska|2006|pp=217, 227–28}}

The completion of the Torah and its elevation to the centre of post-Exilic Judaism was as much or more about combining older texts as writing new ones – the final Pentateuch was based on existing traditions.{{sfn|Carr|Conway|2010|p=193}} In the [[Book of Ezekiel]],<ref>{{bibleverse-nb||Ezek|33:24|niv}}</ref> written during the Exile (i.e., in the first half of the 6th century BCE), [[Ezekiel]], an exile in Babylon, tells how those who remained in Judah are claiming ownership of the land based on inheritance from Abraham; but the prophet tells them they have no claim because they do not observe Torah.{{sfn|Ska|2009|p=43}} The [[Book of Isaiah]]<ref>{{bibleverse-nb||Isaiah|63:16|niv}}</ref> similarly testifies of tension between the people of Judah and the returning post-Exilic Jews (the "[[Golah|gôlâ]]"), stating that God is the father of Israel and that Israel's history begins with the Exodus and not with Abraham.{{sfn|Ska|2009|p=44}} The conclusion to be inferred from this and similar evidence (e.g., [[Ezra–Nehemiah]]), is that the figure of Abraham must have been preeminent among the great landowners of Judah at the time of the Exile and after, serving to support their claims to the land in opposition to those of the returning exiles.{{sfn|Ska|2009|p=44}}

===Palestine origin hypothesis===
The earliest possible reference to Abraham may be the name of a town in the [[Negev]] listed in a victory inscription of Pharaoh [[Sheshonq I]] (biblical [[Shishak]]), which is referred as “the Fortress of Abraham”, suggesting the possible existence of an Abraham tradition in the 10th century BCE.{{sfn|McCarter|2000|p=9}} The orientalist [[Mario Liverani]] proposed to see in the name Abraham the mythical eponym of a Palestinian tribe from the 13th century BCE, that of the Raham, of which mention was found in the stele of [[Seti I]] found in [[Beit She'an|Beth-She'an]] and dating back to 'around 1289 BCE.<ref>The stele reads: «The Apiru of Mount Yarumta, together with the Tayaru, attack the Raham tribe». J. B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament , p. 255. Princeton, 1955.</ref> The tribe probably lived in the area surrounding or close to [[Beit She'an|Beth-She'an]], in [[Galilee]] (the stele in fact refers to fights that took place in the area). The semi-nomadic and pastoral Semitic tribes of the time used to prefix their names with the term banū ("sons of"), so it is hypothesized that the Raham called themselves Banu Raham . Furthermore, many interpreted blood ties between tribe members as common descent from an eponymous ancestor (i.e., one who gave the tribe its name), rather than as the result of intra-tribal ties. The name of this eponymous mythical ancestor was constructed with the patronymic (prefix) Abū ("father"), followed by the name of the tribe; in the case of the Raham, it would have been Abu Raham, later to become Ab-raham, Abraham. Abraham's Journey from Ur to Harran could be explained as a retrospective reflection of the story of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile. Indeed, [[Israel Finkelstein]] suggested that the oldest Abraham traditions originated in the Iron Age (monarchic period) and that they contained an [[Autochthon|autochthonous]] hero story as the oldest mentions of Abraham outside the book of Genesis (Ezekiel 33 and Isaiah 51) do not depend on Genesis 12–26, do not have there indication of a Mesopotamian origin of Abraham, and present only two main themes of the Abraham narrative in Genesis: land and offspring.<ref name=":82">{{cite journal |title=Comments on the Historical Background of the Abraham Narrative: Between "Realia" and "Exegetica" |journal=Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel |url=https://www.academia.edu/29972948 |last1=Finkelstein |first1=Israel |issue=1 |volume=3 |pages=3–23 |last2=Römer |first2=Thomas |year=2014 |doi=10.1628/219222714x13994465496820}}</ref> Yet, unlike Liverani, Finkelstein considered Abraham as ancestor who was worshiped in Hebron, which is too far from Beit She'an, and the oldest tradition of him might be about the altar he built in Hebron.<ref name=":82" />