Abraham in History

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Fitting the “Patriarchal Age” into a historical framework is a formidable task. The issues are complex and our ignorance profound. There is no known synchronism between a single patriarchal Biblical event and a datable occurrence recorded in extra-Biblical sources.^a Egyptian dynastic lists are of no help because the Bible designates the king of Egypt simply as “Pharaoh”; this was, unfortunately, the title of all Egyptian kings—at least from the New Kingdom (16th century B.C.). Conversely, no external document has turned up that mentions any of the patriarchs or members of their family by name.

True, the passage of time between the birth of Abraham and the death of Jacob can easily be calculated as 307 years (Genesis 21:5, 25:26; 47:28)—one measure of the Patriarchal Ages; but what was the duration of the sojourn in Egypt? Was it “four generations”. that is, about 100 years (Genesis 15:16) or 400 years (Genesis 15:13) or 430 years (Exodus 12:40–41) or only 210 years if rabbinic tradition is accepted (see Seder Olam 3:2)? Even if the date of the Exodus could be certainly fixed at c. 1250 B.C. (but see this issue, Queries & Comments), would the Patriarchal Age have begun in the 17th or in the 20th century B.C. or somewhere in between?

In any event, how was it possible for the sons of Machir, the son of Manasseh, to have been born in Joseph’s lifetime and to have participated in the wars of conquest and in the settlement of the land (Genesis 50:23; Numbers 32:39ff.; Joshua 13:31; 17:1)?

Even if satisfactory solutions could be found to all the chronological problems, we would still be faced with the fact that the narratives were written down hundreds of years after the events they describe. What then is their historic worth? How accurately do they report the period and the events which they purport to describe? Are they perhaps retrojections from a later age into an earlier one?

The school of classical late 19th century “Biblical Criticism” associated with the name of Julius Wellhausen long ago decided that “ … we attain to no historical knowledge of the patriarchs, but only of the time when the stories about them arose in the Israelite people; this later age is here unconsciously projected, in its inner and outward features, into hoar antiquity, and is reflected there like a glorified image.”^b

The twentieth century witnessed a complete reversal of this viewpoint. For example, the late W. F. Albright tells us: “The narratives of Genesis dealing with Abram (Abraham) may now be integrated into the life and history of the time in such surprisingly consistent ways that there can be little doubt about their substantial historicity.”^c

What accounts for this abrupt turnabout in scholarly attitude? In large part the answer lies both in archaeological finds and in new methods of literary analysis of the Biblical narratives.

The epigraphic material unearthed by archaeologists all over the Near East, particularly at the cities of Ur, Babylon, Nuzi, Mari, Alalah, Ugarit and Boghazkoy, has yielded an embarrassment of riches—personal, ethnographic and geographic names; reflections of social and legal institutions; and mythological and religious texts. Much of this archaeological material provides its own “synchronism” with patriarchal traditions; more precisely, it was argued, patriarchal law, customs, religion, names and social settings matched that available 006from contemporary or even earlier archaeological evidence. The Scriptural data about the Fathers of Israel, their lives, experiences and activities, are, according to the Albright school, reflected in the varied testimony now available from a host of archaeological sites.

The textual or literary approach to the historicity of the patriarchal narratives concerned itself with so-called “form criticism” and “tradition history.” Developed by the prominent German scholar Hermann Gunkel, the new literary analysis argued that the patriarchal narratives at first existed as orally transmitted folk stories, largely poetic in nature. After this pre-literary stage, these narratives were preserved in written form. What we have in the Bible is the final sophisticated prose form of these stories.

This approach, whatever its ultimate validity, was a liberating departure from classical 19th century scholarship, typified by Wellhausen, which had focused on so-called source analysis. Source analysis sought to divide the narratives into separate and distinct strands, denominated J (the Yahwist source), E (the Elohist source), P (the Priestly source) and D (the Deuteronomic source). Some scholars posited other or additional sources but these were the principal ones. Gunkel’s literary approach—or, as scholars call it, form criticism and tradition history—isolated the problem of the age of the material itself from the age of the source documents.

Gunkel’s conclusions had important implications for the question of the historicity of the patriarchal stories because, he claimed, oral tradition in the ancient world enjoyed an extraordinary tenacity and fidelity through the force of constant repetition in a more-or-less fixed form. According to Gunkel, the core of the patriarchal material had its origin in real life situations and was related to particular places and customs—therefore historic.

Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth developed Gunkel’s ideas further. Alt concentrated on the cultic aspects of the narratives. He claimed to have isolated authentic evidence of the early, pre-settlement, nomadic phase of Israelite religion reflected in the concept of the personal “God of the fathers” and the epithets applied to him. The “God of Abraham” (Genesis 26:24), the “Fear of Isaac” (Genesis 31:42), and the “Mighty One of 007Jacob” (Genesis 49:24) referred to deities as personal gods of the tribal leaders. Noth saw reflected in such references the religion of the Israelite tribes before they had become unified into a nation.

Professor John Van Seters of the University of Toronto in a new and important book—Abraham in History and Tradition^d has now mounted a systematic and full-scale assault upon the twin approaches of archaeology and literary criticism. He claims to have succeeded in discrediting the validity of both methodologies for dealing with the patriarchal traditions, thereby demolishing their conclusions.

The first part of his book criticizes the ways in which archaeological materials have been used to establish the historicity of the patriarchal narratives—and it is that part of the book I shall discuss here. The second part of the book is a critique of form-criticism and tradition history, as applied to the patriarchal narratives.

The net effect of Van Seters’ position is, more-or-less, a return to the classic position of Wellhausen. If anything it is even more extreme. The patriarchal narratives are placed completely outside the framework of history. Van Seters maintains that there is no way to prove a second millennium B.C. provenance for them. Nor can they be said to be authentic reflections of a pre-conquest reality in Israel. In fact, the J source of the patriarchal narratives is dated by Van Seters to the exilic period (586–538 B.C.), and the P to post-exilic times. (As to the E source, Van Seters doubts that it ever existed as an independent, extended narrative.)

Let it be asserted at once that Van Seters has performed a valuable service. He has collected and analyzed a vast amount of material; he has boldly and freshly examined issues long thought settled; and he has developed an alternative theory to the Albright-Speiser-Gordon^e school. Whether Van Seters’ theory is any more satisfactory than the Albright-Speiser school, however, is another matter.

Let us look at some of Van Seters arguments.

Van Seters claims that the patriarchal traditions as recorded in the Bible do not reflect what is known about second millennium B.C. nomadic life. The recurrent theme of land inheritance is said to be alien to the nomadism of the second millennium. So also is the employment of slaves, the partially sedentary nature of the patriarchal settlements and the occasional practice of agriculture. Abraham’s camels are seen not as an anachronism—as is generally held (camels were not domesticated until around 1000 B.C.)—but as an accurate reflection of first millennium conditions when the stories were created. No historical value is given to the stories about the migrations from Ur to Haran and from there to Canaan, because Van Seters finds difficulty in fitting Abraham into the Amorite migration and because he finds no extra-Biblical evidence of population moves similar to those attributed in the Bible to the Patriarchs. He regards as essentially inexplicable the population moves of Abraham’s clan. He doubts that Edom and Moab were settled kingdoms before Israel as they appear to be in the Bible (Genesis 36:31–39), and he claims that the picture of the Arameans in Genesis (Genesis 11:32ff.; 24, 29–31) could only derive from the tenth century, at earliest. In fact, late Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian times (8th–6th century B.C.) are said to provide the best setting for kinship ties between Israel and the Arameans of the Upper Euphrates.

Van Seters makes a thorough study of the parallels drawn by earlier scholars from the archives discovered in the city of Nuzi in Mesopotamia. These texts, numbering several thousand, date from the middle centuries of the second millennium B.C. Because the patriarchs maintained close connections with the region of Har(r)an (Genesis 11:31; 28:10), which was the center of Hurrian culture, the socio-legal institutions and customs reflected in the texts from Nuzi, also populated by Hurrians, would be of special 008interest. The alleged parallels between the patriarchal narratives, on the one hand, and the social customs reflected in the Nuzi archives, on the other hand, have been used by almost every writer on the subject to illuminate the Biblical texts. Van Seters now discounts the value of this extra-Biblical material for understanding Genesis. He points out that many of the supposedly parallel institutions were quite widespread throughout Mesopotamia over a long period of time and were not unique to the second millennium Hurrian culture of Nuzi. Other parallels such as the institution of adoption to explain the relationship between Abraham and his servant (Genesis 15:2f.), are, according to Van Seters, conjectural; the Hurrian practice of a husband’s adopting his wife as his sister too (“wife-sistership”), often adduced to explain the Patriarchal narratives in which the Patriarchs refer to their wives as sisters (see Genesis 12:11–20; 20:1–18; 26:6–11) can no longer be used for this purpose in light of more recent scholarship (see “The Patriarchs’ Wives As Sisters—Is The Anchor Bible Wrong?” BAR 01:03).

These arguments and others like them are marshalled in great detail to demolish the currently held view of a second millennium ambience for the Patriarchal narratives. Van Seters’ conclusion is straightforward and unambiguous: The archaeological materials point to a late first millennium provenance and cannot support the claims of great antiquity. His literary analysis, which I do not deal with here, leads him to the same conclusion.

Van Seters’ argument that the customs, legal procedures and terminology reflected in patriarchal traditions were used over a very long period of time, is irrefutable. But this arguments works in both directions. If second millennium institutions also continued into the first millennium, it is just as likely, especially in view of the endemic conservatism of the ancient Near East, that those customs, legal procedures and terminology, documented so well in the later periods, may have had far more ancient antecedents. Van Seters has shown that much of the evidence for an early dating could be as easily used to prove a later setting. But he has not demonstrated that it must be so used.

How cautious one must be is well illustrated by Van Seters’ assertion that the name “Canaan” is entirely unknown until the early 16th century B.C. (p. 47), and that no texts as yet attest to any connection between Ur and Haran in the second millennium (p. 23). Professor Pettinato has recently informed us that third millennium texts from Ebla contain references both to Canaan and to Haran, including the phrase “Haran in the territory of Ur.”^f

I have already referred to Van Seters’ argument that patriarchal nomadism as reflected in the Genesis narratives differs from what is known of Near Eastern nomadic life in the second millennium. He relies on the 18th century B.C. texts from Mari to paint what he regards as an authentic picture of second millennium nomadism. Van Seters, however, has gone much too far. The Mari texts do not support the contradiction which he posits between nomadism and a sedentary life-style. On the contrary, the various tribes mentioned in the Mari texts exhibit a wide range of life styles, extending from the fully nomadic to the fully sedentary, as well as some in the process of gradual sedentation as described in Genesis.

Van Seters makes much of the recent excavations at Beersheba which indicate that the city was not founded until the Iron 009Age (12th century B.C.); no earlier Canaanite city existed on the site. This proves to him that the strong patriarchal associations with Beersheba must be unhistorical (pp. 111f.). However, he has overlooked the fact that not a single Biblical passage makes reference to any permanent settlement at Beersheba. The Biblical passages refer only to a well and to a cultic site (Genesis 21:19, 30–33; 26:32f.; 46:1). No king or ruler is mentioned and no patriarch ever has dealings with the inhabitants of Beersheba. The only description of Beersheba as a “city” in the patriarchal narratives is a late editorial note (Genesis 26:33) which clearly has nothing to do with the narrative context, and which views the material through the eyes of a later age.

There is another major difficulty with Van Seters’ thesis that the patriarchal narratives were created in the late first millennium B.C. Why would an exilic or post-exilic author feature incidents about Israel’s national heroes that were offensive to the religious consciousness of his time? I refer to such incidents as Abraham marrying his half-sister (Sarah; Genesis 20:12, contrast Leviticus 18:9, 11; 20:17; especially Deuteronomy 27:22), Jacob being married to two sisters (Rachel and Leah) at the same time (contrast Leviticus 18:18), the line of David descending from an incestuous relationship between Judah and his daughter-in-law (Genesis 38; Ruth 4:18–22), Abraham planting a sacred tree (Genesis 21:33, contrast Deuteronomy 16:21), and Jacob setting up sacred pillars (Genesis 28:18, 22; 31:13ff.) All of these practices were abominable to the late first millennium religion of Israel. Van Seters does not deal with this problem.

The rare and often unique divine names in the patriarchal narratives—such as El Elyon (Genesis 14:18, 22), El Ro’i (Genesis 16:13), El ’Olam (Genesis 21:33); and El Beth-El (Genesis 31:13; 35:7)—also present a serious hurdle to Van Seters’ thesis. If all this material is late why are these names not found in the later literature?

Other phenomena such as the peculiar mode of oath-taking by placing the hand under the thigh (Genesis 24:2; 47:29), the absence of the horse among Abraham’s livestock (e.g. Genesis 12:16),^g the fact that 27 of the 38 names connected with the patriarchal families never recur in the Bible,^h—all seem to me to point more reasonably in the direction of authentic reflection of early historic tradition than to later inventiveness.

Van Seters’ book is unquestionably a serious challenge to current scholarship. Some of the arguments previously relied on for a second millennium provenance for patriarchal traditions have been largely discredited. But in the end I believe Van Seters’ major thesis that the patriarchal narratives were composed in, and reflect, late first millennium milieu will be proven wrong. It will be very interesting to see how many of Van Seters’ “facts” and arguments are contradicted or confirmed by the Ebla materials, once the texts become available. Let us hope their publication will not be long delayed.

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BAR Book Store Change

Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible is available now only with the Supplement in a 5-volume set. The supplement is also available separately.

(For the complete list of books offered by BAR’s Discount Book Store, see BAR, September 1977.)

Fitting the “Patriarchal Age” into a historical framework is a formidable task. The issues are complex and our ignorance profound. There is no known synchronism between a single patriarchal Biblical event and a datable occurrence recorded in extra-Biblical sources.a Egyptian dynastic lists are of no help because the Bible designates the king of Egypt simply as “Pharaoh”; this was, unfortunately, the title of all Egyptian kings—at least from the New Kingdom (16th century B.C.). Conversely, no external document has turned up that mentions any of the patriarchs or members of their family by name. True, the passage of time […]