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Abraham
Abraham (center) in The Angel Hinders the Offering of Isaac by Rembrandt
Personal life
Born	Abram c. 1800 BCE Ur Kaśdim
Died	c. 1600 BCE Hebron
Resting place	Cave of Machpelah 31°31′29″N 35°06′39″E / 31.524744°N 35.110726°E / 31.524744; 35.110726
Spouse	Sarah Keturah Hagar
Children	Ishmael Isaac Zimran Jokshan Medan Midian Ishbak Shuah
Senior posting
Influenced Abrahamic religions

Abraham (/ˈeɪbrəˌhæm, -həm/ ABE-raham; Template:Lang-he, listen), originally Abram, is the first of the three patriarchs of Judaism. His story is a center piece of all Abrahamic religions and Abraham plays a prominent role as an example of faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The Biblical narrative revolves around the themes of posterity and land. Abraham is called by God to leave the house of his father Terah and settle in the land originally given to Canaan, but which God now promises to Abraham and his progeny. Various candidates are put forward who might inherit the land after Abraham, but all are dismissed except for Isaac, his son by his half-sister Sarah. Abraham purchases a tomb (the Cave of the Patriarchs) at Hebron to be Sarah's grave, thus establishing his right to the land, and in the second generation his heir Isaac is married to a woman from his own kin, thus ruling the Canaanites out of any inheritance. Abraham later marries Keturah and has six more sons, but on his death, when he is buried beside Sarah, it is Isaac who receives "all Abraham's goods", while the other sons receive only "gifts".

The Abraham story cannot be definitively related to any specific time, and it is widely agreed that the patriarchal age, along with the exodus and the period of the judges, is a late literary construct that does not relate to any period in actual history. A common hypothesis among scholars is that it was composed in the early Persian period (late 6th century BCE) as a result of tensions between Jewish landowners who had stayed in Judah during the Babylonian captivity and traced their right to the land through their "father Abraham", and the returning exiles who based their counter-claim on Moses and the Exodus tradition.

Abraham in religious traditions

Abraham
Abraham and the Angels by Aert de Gelder (c. 1680–85)
First Patriarch
Venerated in	Judaism Christianity Islam Baha'i Faith
Feast	9 October – Roman Catholicism

Overview

Abraham is given a high position of respect in three major world faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Judaism he is the founding father of the Covenant, the special relationship between the Jewish people and God – a belief which gives the Jews a unique position as the Chosen People of God. In Christianity, the Apostle Paul taught that Abraham's faith in God – preceding the Mosaic law – made him the prototype of all believers, circumcised and uncircumcised. The Islamic prophet Muhammad claimed Abraham, whose submission to God constituted Islam, as a "believer before the fact" and undercut Jewish claims to an exclusive relationship with God and the Covenant.

Judaism

In Jewish tradition, Abraham is called Avraham Avinu (אברהם אבינו), "our father Abraham," signifying that he is both the biological progenitor of the Jews (including converts, according to Jewish tradition), and the father of Judaism, the first Jew. His story is read in the weekly Torah reading portions, predominantly in the parashot: Lech-Lecha (לֶךְ-לְךָ), Vayeira (וַיֵּרָא), Chayei Sarah (חַיֵּי שָׂרָה), and Toledot (תּוֹלְדֹת).

Sefer Yetzirah

A cryptic story in the Babylonian Talmud states that "On the eve of every Shabbat, Judah HaNasi's pupils, Rab Hanina and Rab Hoshaiah, who devoted themselves especially to cosmogony, used to create a delicious calf by means of the Sefer Yetzirah, and ate it on the Sabbath." Mystics assert that the biblical patriarch Abraham used the same method to create the calf prepared for the three angels who foretold Sarah's pregnancy in the biblical account at Genesis 18:7.

Christianity

Abraham does not loom so large in Christianity as he does in Judaism and Islam. It is Jesus as the Messiah who is central to Christianity, and the idea of a divine Messiah is what separates Christianity from the other two religions. In Romans 4, Abraham's merit is less his obedience to the divine will than his faith in God's ultimate grace; this faith provides him the merit for God having chosen him for the covenant, and the covenant becomes one of faith, not obedience. I

The Roman Catholic Church calls Abraham "our father in Faith" in the Eucharistic prayer of the Roman Canon, recited during the Mass (see Abraham in the Catholic liturgy). He is also commemorated in the calendars of saints of several denominations: on 20 August by the Maronite Church, 28 August in the Coptic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East (with the full office for the latter), and on 9 October by the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. In the introduction to his 15th-century translation of the Golden Legend's account of Abraham, William Caxton noted that this patriarch's life was read in church on Quinquagesima Sunday. He is the patron saint of those in the hospitality industry. The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates him as the "Righteous Forefather Abraham", with two feast days in its liturgical calendar. The first time is on 9 October (for those churches which follow the traditional Julian Calendar, 9 October falls on 22 October of the modern Gregorian Calendar), where he is commemorated together with his nephew "Righteous Lot". The other is on the "Sunday of the Forefathers" (two Sundays before Christmas), when he is commemorated together with other ancestors of Jesus. Abraham is also mentioned in the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great, just before the Anaphora, and Abraham and Sarah are invoked in the prayers said by the priest over a newly married couple.

Islam

Judaism holds that one becomes a descendant of Abraham through birth, and Christianity that one becomes a descendant through faith, but Islam holds that one becomes a descendant of Abraham through both birth and faith. Abraham is also a link in the chain of prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Mohammad.

Ibrāhīm is mentioned in 35 chapters of the Quran, more often than any other biblical personage apart from Moses. He is called both a hanif (monotheist) and muslim (one who submits), and Muslims regard him as a prophet and patriarch, the archetype of the perfect Muslim, and the revered reformer of the Kaaba in Mecca. Islamic traditions consider Ibrāhīm (Abraham) the first Pioneer of Islam (which is also called millat Ibrahim, the "religion of Abraham"), and that his purpose and mission throughout his life was to proclaim the Oneness of God. In Islam, he is referred to as "Ibrahim Khalilullah " (إبراهيم خليلالله), meaning "Abraham the Friend ".

Connection to Hindu mythology

According to popular belief, there exists an historical-ideological connection between Hindu mythology and Hebrew scripture. According to this belief, there exists a similarity (and even an alliteration) between Brahma and Saraswati and Abraham and Sarah. There are those who make this connection through the Bible verse: But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east. Genesis 25:6

Abraham in the arts

Painting and sculpture

Paintings on the life of Abraham tend to focus on only a few incidents: the sacrifice of Isaac; meeting Melchizedek; entertaining the three angels; Hagar in the desert; and a few others. Additionally, Martin O'Kane, a professor of Biblical Studies, writes that the parable of Lazarus resting in the "Bosom of Abraham", as described in the Gospel of Luke, became an iconic image in Christian works. According to O'Kane, artists often chose to divert from the common literary portrayal of Lazarus sitting next to Abraham at a banquet in Heaven and instead focus on the "somewhat incongruous notion of Abraham, the most venerated of patriarchs, holding a naked and vulnerable child in his bosom". Several artists have been inspired by the life of Abraham, including Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), Caravaggio (1573–1610), Donatello, Raphael, Philip van Dyck (Dutch painter, 1680–1753), and Claude Lorrain (French painter, 1600–1682). Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669) created at least seven works on Abraham, Petrus-Paulus Rubens (1577–1640) did several, Marc Chagall did at least five on Abraham, Gustave Doré (French illustrator, 1832–1883) did six, and James Jacques Joseph Tissot (French painter and illustrator, 1836–1902) did over twenty works on the subject.

The Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus depicts a set of biblical stories, including Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac. These sculpted scenes are on the outside of a marble Early Christian sarcophagus used for the burial of Junius Bassus. He died in 359. This sarcophagus has been described as "probably the single most famous piece of early Christian relief sculpture." The sarcophagus was originally placed in or under Old St. Peter's Basilica, was rediscovered in 1597, and is now below the modern basilica in the Museo Storico del Tesoro della Basilica di San Pietro (Museum of Saint Peter's Basilica) in the Vatican. The base is approximately 4 × 8 × 4 feet. The Old Testament scenes depicted were chosen as precursors of Christ's sacrifice in the New Testament, in an early form of typology. Just to the right of the middle is Daniel in the lion's den and on the left is Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac.

George Segal created figural sculptures by molding plastered gauze strips over live models in his 1987 work Abraham's Farewell to Ishmael. The human condition was central to his concerns, and Segal used the Old Testament as a source for his imagery. This sculpture depicts the dilemma faced by Abraham when Sarah demanded that he expel Hagar and Ishmael. In the sculpture, the father's tenderness, Sarah's rage, and Hagar's resigned acceptance portray a range of human emotions. The sculpture was donated to the Miami Art Museum after the artist's death in 2000.

Abraham in Christian Iconography

Usually Abraham can be identified by the context of the image – the meeting with Melchizedek, the three visitors, or the sacrifice of Isaac. In solo portraits a sword or knife may be used as his attribute, as in this statue by Gian Maria Morlaiter or this painting by Lorenzo Monaco. He always wears a gray or white beard.

As early as the beginning of the 3rd century, Christian art followed Christian typology in making the sacrifice of Isaac a foreshadowing of Christ's sacrifice on the cross and its memorial in the sacrifice of the Mass. See for example this 11th-century Christian altar engraved with Abraham's and other sacrifices taken to prefigure that of Christ in the Eucharist.

Some early Christian writers interpreted the three visitors as the triune God. Thus in Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, a 5th-century mosaic portrays only the visitors against a gold ground and puts semitransparent copies of them in the "heavenly" space above the scene. In Eastern Orthodox art the visit is the chief means by which the Trinity is pictured (example). Some images do not include Abraham and Sarah, like Andrei Rublev's Trinity, which shows only the three visitors as beardless youths at a table.

Literature

Fear and Trembling (original Danish title: Frygt og Bæven) is an influential philosophical work by Søren Kierkegaard, published in 1843 under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio (John the Silent). Kierkegaard wanted to understand the anxiety that must have been present in Abraham when God asked him to sacrifice his son.

Music

In 1994, Steve Reich released an opera named The Cave. The title refers to The Cave of the Patriarchs. The narrative of the opera is based on the story of Abraham and his immediate family as it is recounted in the various religious texts, and as it is understood by individual people from different cultures and religious traditions.

Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" is the title track for his 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song as number 364 in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song has five stanzas. In each stanza, someone describes an unusual problem that is ultimately resolved on Highway 61. In Stanza 1, God tells Abraham to "kill me a son". God wants the killing done on Highway 61. Abram, the original name of the biblical Abraham, is also the name of Dylan's own father.

See also

• Abraham in Islam
• Abraham Path
• Abraham's Gate at Tel Dan
• Abraham in History and Tradition
• Book of Abraham
• Bosom of Abraham
• Gathering of Israel
• Genealogies of Genesis
• Jewish Kabbalah
• Pearl of Great Price
• Table of prophets of Abrahamic religions
• The evil Nimrod vs. the righteous Abraham

References

1. Andrews 1990, p. 5.
2. Ska 2009, p. 26–31.
3. McNutt 1999, p. 41–42.
4. Ska 2006, p. 227–228, 260.
5. Peters 2010, p. 170–171.
6. Levenson 2012, p. 3.
7. Sanhedrin 65b, 67b
8. Azulai, Abraham (1685). חסד לאברהם, מעין חמישי, נהר נא (in Hebrew). Amsterdam. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
9. Peters 2010, p. 171.
10. Firestone, Reuven, Encyclopedia of World History -Abraham (PDF)
11. Caxton, William. "Abraham". The Golden Legend. Internet Medieval Source Book. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
12. Holweck 1924.
13. Levenson 2012, p. PA8.
14. Peters 2003, p. PA9.
15. Levenson 2012, p. PA200.
16. Mecca, Martin Lings, c. 2004
17. ^ For a very thorough online collection of links to artwork about Abraham see: Artwork Depicting Scenes from Abraham's Life Accessed 25 March 2011
18. ^ Exum 2007, p. 135.
19. Journal of Early Christian Studies, Leonard Victor Rutgers, The Iconography of the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (review of Malbon book), Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 1993, pp. 94–96; for Janson it is also the "finest Early Christian sarcophagus".
20. or 1595, see Elsner, p. 86n.
21. Abraham's Farewell to Ishmael. George Segal. Miami Art Museum. Collections: Recent Acquisitions. Accessed 10 September 2014.
22. "Abraham the Patriarch in Art – Iconography and Literature". Christian Iconography – a project of Georgia Regents University. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
23. Boguslawski, Alexander. "The Holy Trinity". Rollins.edu. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
24. Kierkegaard 1980, p. 155–156.
25. "Highway 61 Revisited" Retrieved 25 March 2011.
26. "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Archived from the original on 13 September 2008. Retrieved 8 August 2008.

Bibliography

Andrews, Stephen J. (1990). "Abraham". In Mills, Watson E.; Bullard, Roger A. (eds.). Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-86554-373-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Barr, James (2013). Bible and Interpretation: The Collected Essays of James Barr. Oxford University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Barr, James (1993). "Chronology". In Metzger, Bruce; Coogan, Michael D. (eds.). The Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Carr, David M.; Conway, Colleen M. (2010). "Introduction to the Pentateuch". An Introduction to the Bible: Sacred Texts and Imperial Contexts. John Wiley & Sons. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Coogan, Michael (2008). The Old Testament: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530505-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Davies, Philip R. (2008). Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History – Ancient and Modern. Westminster John Knox Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Dever, William G. (2002). What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and when Did They Know It?: What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-2126-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Enns, Peter (2012). The Evolution of Adam. Baker Books. ISBN 978-1-58743-315-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Exum, Jo Cheryl (2007). Retellings: The Bible in Literature, Music, Art and Film. Brill Publishers. ISBN 90-04-16572-X. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2002). The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-2338-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Hatcher, W.S.; Martin, J.D. (1998). The Bahá'í Faith: The Emerging Global Religion. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Hendel, Ronald (2005). Remembering Abraham : Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-803959-X. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Hill, Andrew E.; Walton, John H. (2010). A Survey of the Old Testament. Zondervan. pp. 2024–2030. ISBN 978-0-310-59066-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Holweck, Frederick George (1924). A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints. B. Herder Book Co. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Hubbard, David Allan; Sanford La Sor, Frederic William; Bush (1996). Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-3788-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Hughes, Jeremy (1990). Secrets of the Times. Continuum. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Kierkegaard, Søren (1980). The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-02011-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Levenson, Jon Douglas (2012). Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Princeton University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Ma'ani, Baharieh Rouhani (2008). Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees. Oxford, United Kingdom: George Ronald. ISBN 0-85398-533-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

May, Dann J (December 1993). "The Bahá'í Principle of Religious Unity and the Challenge of Radical Pluralism". University of North Texas, Denton, Texas: 102. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

McCarter, P. Kyle (2000). "Abraham". In Freedman, Noel David; Myers, Allen C. (eds.). Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Amsterdam University Press. pp. 8–10. ISBN 978-90-5356-503-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

McNutt, Paula M. (1999). Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22265-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Mills, Watson E. (1998). Mercer Commentary on the Bible, Volume 1; Volume 8. Mercer University Press. ISBN 0-86554-506-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Moore, Megan Bishop; Kelle, Brad E. (2011). Biblical History and Israel's Past. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-6260-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Peters, Francis Edwards (2003). Islam, a Guide for Jews and Christians. Princeton University Press. p. 9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Peters, Francis Edwards (2010). The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Princeton University Press. ISBN 1-4008-2129-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Pitard, Wayne T. (2001). "Before Israel". In Coogan, Michael D. (ed.). The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-19-513937-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Shea, William H. (2000). "Chronology of the Old Testament". In Freedman, David Noel; Myers, Allen C. (eds.). Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Eerdmans. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Ska, Jean Louis (2006). Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-122-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Ska, Jean Louis (2009). The Exegesis of the Pentateuch: Exegetical Studies and Basic Questions. Mohr Siebeck. pp. 30–31, 260. ISBN 978-3-16-149905-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) link p.30–31

Taherzadeh, Adib (1984). "The Death of the Purest Branch". The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Volume 3: 'Akka, The Early Years 1868–77. Oxford, UK: George Ronald. ISBN 0-85398-144-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Thompson, Thomas L. (2002). The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham. Valley Forge, Pa: Trinity Press International. pp. 23–24, 36. ISBN 1-56338-389-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Wilson, Marvin R. (1989). Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith. Massachusetts: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-0423-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• "Abraham" at chabad.org.
• Abraham smashes the idols (accessed 24 March 2011).
• "Journey and Life of the Patriarch Abraham", a map dating back to 1590.
• Kitáb-i-Íqán

• Use dmy dates from April 2012
• Prophets in the Hebrew Bible
• Abraham
• Angelic visionaries
• Biblical patriarchs
• Book of Genesis
• Christian saints from the Old Testament
• Founders of religions
• Prophets of Islam
• Lech-Lecha
• Vayeira