another promise of a numerous seed and abundant prosperity
(xxii. E). Thence he returned to Beersheba. The story is
one of the few told by E, and significantly teaches that human
sacrifice was not required by the Almighty (cf. Mic. vi. 7
seq.). The interest of the narrative now extends to Isaac
alone. To his ``only son'' (cp. xxii. 2, 12) Abraham gave
all he had, and dismissed the sons of his concubines to the
lands outside Palestine; they were thus regarded as less
intimately related to Isaac and his descendants (xxv. 1-4,
6). The measures taken by the patriarch for the marriage
of Isaac are circumstantially described. His head-servant
was sent to his master's country and kindred to find a
suitable bride, and the necessary preparation for the story
is contained in the description of Nahor's family (xxii.
20-24). The picturesque account of the meeting with Rebekah
throws interesting light on oriental custom. Marriage with
one's own folk (cf. Gen. xxvii. 46, xxix. 19; Judg. xiv. 3),
and especially with a cousin, is recommended now even as in the
past. For its charm the story is comparable with the account
of Jacob's experiences in the same land (xxix.). For the
completion of the history of Abraham the compiler of Genesis
has used P's narrative. Sarah is said to have died at a good
old age, and was buried in the cave of Machpelah near Hebron,
which the patriarch had purchased, with the adjoining field,
from Ephron the Hittite (xxiii.); and here he himself was
buried. Centuries later the tomb became a place of pilgrimage
and the traditional site is marked by a fine mosque.5
The story of Abraham is of greater value for the study of
Old Testament theology than for the history of Israel. He
became to the Hebrews the embodiment of their ideals, and
stood at their head as the founder of the nation, the one to
whom Yahweh had manifested his love by frequent promises and
covenants. From the time when he was bidden to leave his
country to enter the unknown land, Yahweh was ever present to
encourage him to trust in the future when his posterity should
possess the land, and so, in its bitterest hours, Israel could
turn for consolation to the promises of the past which enshrined
in Abraham its hopes for the future. Not only is Abraham the
founder of religion, but he, of all the patriarchal figures,
stands out most prominently as the recipient of the promises
(xii. 2 seq. 7, xiii. 14-17, xv., xvii., xviii. 17-19, xxii.
17 seq.; cf. xxiv. 7), and these the apostle Paul associates
with the coming of Christ, and, adopting a characteristic
and artificial style of interpretation prevalent in his time,
endeavours to force a Messianic interpretation out of them.6
For the history of the Hebrews the life of Abraham is of the
same value as other stories of traditional ancestors. The
narratives, viewed dispassionately, represent him as an
idealized sheikh (with one important exception, Gen. xiv.,
see below), about whose person a number of stories have
gathered. As the father of Isaac and Ishmael, he is ultimately
the common ancestor of the Israelites and their nomadic
fierce neighbours, men roving unrestrainedly like the wild
ass, troubled by and troubling every one (xvi. 12). As the
father of Midian, Sheba and other Arabian tribes (xxv. 1-4),
it is evident that some degree of kinship was felt by the
Hebrews with the dwellers of the more distant south, and
it is characteristic of the genealogies that the mothers
(Sarah, Hagar and Keturah) are in the descending scale as
regards purity of blood. This great ancestral figure came,
it was said, from Ur in Babylonia and Haran and thence to
Canaan. Late tradition supposed that the migration was
to escape Babylonian idolatry (Judith v., Jubilees xii.;
cf. Josh. xxiv. 2), and knew of Abraham's miraculous escape
from death (an obscure reference to some act of deliverance
in Is. xxix. 22). The route along the banks of the Euphrates
from south to north was so frequently taken by migrating
tribes that the tradition has nothing improbable in itself,
but the prominence given in the older narratives to the view
that Haran was the home gives this the preference. It was
thence that Jacob, the father of the tribes of Israel, came
and the route to Shechem and Bethel is precisely the same in
both. A twofold migration is doubtful, and, from what is
known of the situation in Palestine in the 15th century
B.C., is extremely improbable. Further, there is yet
another parallel in the story of the conquest by Joshua
(q.v.), partly implied and partly actually detailed (cf.
also Josh. viii. 9 with Gen. xii. 8, xiii. 3), whence it would
appear that too much importance must not be laid upon any
ethnological interpretation which fails to account for the three
versions. That similar traditional elements have influenced
them is not unlikely; but to recover the true historical
foundation is difficult. The invasion or immigration of
certain tribes from the east of the Jordan; the presence
of Aramaean blood among the Israelites (see JACOB); the
origin of the sanctity of venerable sites,---these and other
considerations may readily be found to account .for the
traditions. Noteworthy coincidences in the lives of Abraham
and Isaac, noticed above, point to the fluctuating state of
traditions in the oral stage, or suggest that Abraham's life
has been built up by borrowing from the common stock of popular
lore.7 More original is the parting of Lot and Abraham at
Bethel. The district was the scene of contests between
Moab and the Hebrews (cf. perhaps Judg. iii.), and if this
explains part of the story, the physical configuration of
the Dead Sea may have led to the legend of the destruction of
inhospitable and vicious cities (see SODOM AND GOMORRAH.)
Different writers have regarded the life of Abraham differently.
He has been viewed as a chieftain of the Amorites (q.v.),
as the head of a great Semitic migration from Mesopotamia;
or, since Ur and Haran were seats of Moon-worship, he has
been identified with a moon-god. From the character of
the literary evidence and the locale of the stories it
has been held that Abraham was originally associated with
Hebron. The double name AbramAbraham has even suggested
that two personages have been combined in the Biblical
narrative; although this does not explain the change from
Sarai to Sarah.8 But it is important to remember that the
narratives are not contemporary, and that the interesting
discovery of the name Abi-ramu (Abram) on Babylonian contracts
of about 2000 B.C. does not prove the Abram of the Old
Testament to be an historical person, even as the fact that
there were ``Amorites'' in Babylonia at the same period
does not make it certain that the patriarch was one of their
number. One remarkable chapter associates Abraham with
kings of Elam and the east (Gen. xiv.). No longer a peaceful
sheikh but a warrior with a small army of 318 followers,9
he overthrows a combination of powerful monarchs who have
ravaged the land. The genuineness of the narrative has been
strenuously maintained, although upon insufficient grounds.
``It is generally recognized that this chapter holds quite
an isolated place in the Pentateuchal history; it is the
only passage which presents Abraham in the character of a
warrior, and connects him with historical names and political
movements, and there are no clear marks by which it can be
assigned to any one of the documents of which Genesis is made
up. Thus, while one school of interpreters finds in the chapter
the earliest fragment of the political history of western Asia,
some even holding with Ewald that the narrative is probably
based on old Canaanite records, other critics, as Noldeke,
regard the whole as unhistorical and comparatively late in
origin. On the latter view, which finds its main support 1n the
intrinsic difficulties of the narrative, it is scarcely possible
to avoid the conclusion that the chapter is one of the latest
additions to the Pentateuch (Wellhausen and many others).''
On the assumption that a recollection of some invasion in
remote days may have been current, considerable interest is
attached to the names. Of these, Amraphel, king of Shinar
(i.e. Babylonia, Gen. x. 10), has been identified with
Khammurabi, one of the greatest of the Babylonian kings
(c. 2000 B.C.), and since he claims to have ruled as
far west as the Mediterranean Sea, the equation has found
considerable favour. Apart from chronological difficulties,
the identification of the king and his country is far from
certain, and at the most can only be regarded as possible.
Arioch, king of Ellasar, has been connected with Eriaku of
Larsa--the reading has been questioned---a contemporary with
Khammurabi. Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, bears what is
doubtless a genuine Elamite name. Finally, the name of Tid'al,
king of Goiim, may be identical with a certain Tudhulu the
son of Gazza, a warrior, but apparently not a king, who is
mentioned in a Babylonian inscription, and Goiim may stand
for Gutim, the Guti being a people who lived to the east of
Kurdistan. Nevertheless, there is as yet no monumental
evidence in favour of the genuineness of the story, and at
the most it can only be said that the author (of whatever
date) has derived his names from a trustworthy source,
and in representing an invasion of Palestine by Babylonian
overlords has given expression to a possible situation.11
The improbabilities and internal difficulties of the narrative
remain untouched, only the bare outlines may very well be
historical. If, as most critics agree, it is a historical
romance (cf., e.g., the book of Judith), it is possible
that a writer, preferably one who lived in the post-exilic
age and was acquainted with Babylonian history, desired to
enhance the greatness of Abraham by exhibiting his military
success against the monarchs of the Tigris and Euphrates,
the high esteem he enjoyed in Palestine and his lofty
character as displayed in his interview with Melchizedek.
See further, Pinches, Old Test. in Light of Hist. Records,
pp. 208. 236) Driver, Genesis, p. xlix., and notes on ch.
xiv.; Addis, Documents of the Hexateuch, ii. pp. 208-213;
Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, The Hexateuch, i. pp.
157-159, 168, Bezold, Bab.-Assyr. Keilinschriften, pp. 24
sqq., 54 sqq.; A. Jeremias, Altes Test. im Lichte d. Alten
Orients,2,, pp. 343 seq.; also the literature to the art.
GENESIS. Many fanciful legends about Abraham founded on
Biblical accounts or spun out of the fancy are to be found in
Josephus, and in post-Biblical and Mahommedan literature;
for these, reference may be made to Beer, Leben Abrahams
(1859); Grunbaum, Neue Beitrage z. semit. Sagenkunde,
pp. 89 seq. (1893); the apocryphal ``Testament of Abraham''
(M. R. James in Texts and Studies, 1892); W. Tisdall,
Original Sources of the Quran, passim (1905). (S. A. C.)
1 The name is not spelt with the same guttural as Haran the son of Terah.
2 Barrenness is a motif which recurs in the stories
of Rebekah, Rachel, the mother of Samson, and Hannah
(Gen. xxv. 21, xxix. 31; Judg. xiii. 2; 1 Sam. i. 5).
3Ebram's connexion with Damascus is supplemented in the traditions
of Nicolaus of Damascus as cited by Josephus (Antiq. 1. 7. 2).
4 Abram (or Abiram) is a familiar and old-attested name meaning
``(my) father is exalted''; the meaning of Abraham is obscure a,nd
the explanation Gen. xvii. 3 is mere word-play. It is possible
that raham was originally only a dialectical form of ram.
5 See Sir Charles Warren's description, Hasting's Dict.
Bible, vol. iii. pp. 200 seq. The so-called Babylonian colouring
