Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 72.144.81.147 (talk) at 02:43, 3 November 2006 (→Textual criticism). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

It has been suggested that Abraham (Hebrew Bible) be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since June 2006.

For other people called Abraham, see Abraham (disambiguation); Abram redirects here; see Abram, Greater Manchester for the English village.

Abraham (Hebrew: אַבְרָהָם, Standard Avraham Ashkenazi Avrohom or Avruhom Tiberian ʾAḇrāhām ; Arabic: ابراهيم, Ibrāhīm ; Ge'ez: አብርሃም, ʾAbrəham) is regarded as the founding patriarch of the Israelites in Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition. Abraham was chosen by God to be blessed and was made into a blessing for all peoples on Earth. His life as narrated in the book of Genesis (chapters 11–25) reflects the traditions of different ages, and Abraham is not regarded a historical figure by secular scholars.

His original name was Abram (Hebrew: אַבְרָם, Standard  Avram Tiberian ʾAḇrām) meaning either "exalted father" or " father is exalted" (compare Abiram). Later in life he went by the name Abraham, often glossed as av hamon (goyim) "father of many (nations)" per Genesis 17:5, although it does not have any literal meaning in Hebrew.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are sometimes referred to as the "Abrahamic religions", because of the role Abraham plays in their holy books and beliefs. In the Torah and the Qur'an, Abraham is described as a patriarch blessed by God (Genesis 17:4-5). In the Jewish tradition, he is called Avraham Avinu or "Abraham, our Father". God promised Abraham that through his offspring, all the nations of the world will come to be blessed (Genesis 12:3), interpreted in Christian tradition as a reference to Christ. Jews, Christians, and Muslims consider him father of the people of Israel through his son Isaac (cf. Exodus 6:3, Exodus 32:13). For Muslims, he is a prophet of Islam and the ancestor of Muhammad through his other son Ishmael.

hi

In the New Testament

In the New Testament Abraham is mentioned prominently as a man of faith (see e.g., Hebrews 11), and the apostle Paul uses him as an example of salvation by faith, as the progenitor of the Christ (or Messiah) (see Galatians 3:16).

Authors of the New Testament report that Jesus cited Abraham to support belief in the resurrection of the dead. "But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?" He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken" (Mark 12:26-27). The New Testament also sees Abraham as an obedient man of God, and Abraham's interrupted attempt to offer up Isaac is seen as the supreme act of perfect faith in God. "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, "In Isaac your seed shall be called," concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense." (Hebrews 11:17-19)

The traditional view in Christianity is that the chief promise made to Abraham in Genesis 12 is that through Abraham's seed, all the people of earth would be blessed. Notwithstanding this, John the Baptist specifically taught that merely being of Abraham's seed was no guarantee of salvation. The promise in Genesis is considered to have been fulfilled through Abraham's seed, Jesus. It is also a consequence of this promise that Christianity is open to people of all races and not limited to Jews.

The Roman Catholic Church calls Abraham "our father in Faith," in the Eucharistic prayer called the Roman Canon, recited during the Mass. (See Abraham in the Catholic liturgy).

In Islam

Abraham, known as Ibrahim in Arabic, is very important in Islam, both in his own right as a prophet as well as being the father of Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael, his firstborn son, is considered the Father of the Arabs, and Isaac is considered the Father of the Hebrews. Abraham is revered by Muslims as one of the most important prophets of Islam, and is commonly termed Khalil Ullah, "Friend of God". Abraham is considered a Hanif, that is, a discoverer of monotheism.

Muslims believe Abraham built the Kaaba, the Holy Mosque in Mecca, during his life. The construction of the Kaaba was upon God's command. Abraham's footprint is believed to remain to this day on a stone in the Holy Mosque. The annual Hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam, follows Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael's journey to the sacred place of the Kaaba. The Eid ul-Adha ceremony is focused on Abraham's willingess to sacrifice his promised son, which Muslims consider Ishmael, on God's command.

Arab connection

A line in the Book of Jubilees (20:13) mentions that the descendants of Abraham's son by Hagar, Ishmael, as well as his descendants by Keturah, became the "Arabians". The 1st century Jewish historian Josephus similarly described the descendants of Ishmael (i.e. the Ishmaelites) as an "Arabian" people. He also calls Ishmael the "founder" (κτίστης) of the "Arabians". Some Biblical scholars also believe that the area outlined in Genesis as the final destination of Ishmael and his descendants ("from Havilah to Assyria") refers to the Arabian peninsula. This has led to a commonplace view that modern Semitic-speaking Arabs are descended from Abraham via Ishmael, in addition to various other tribes who intermixed with the Ishmaelites, such as Joktan, Sheba, Dedan, etc. Both Judaeo-Christian and Islamic tradition speak of earlier inhabitants of Arabia, and the Nabateans are not the ancestors of the modern Arabs having assimilated into the Syriac, Jewish and Greek Middle Eastern communities of Late Antiquity.

Classical Arab historians traced the true Arabs (i.e. the original Arabs from Yemen) to Qahtan and the Arabicised Arabs (people from the region of Mecca who assimilated into the Arabs) to Adnan, said to be an ancestor of Muhammed, and have further equated Ishmael with A'raq Al-Thara said to be ancestor of Adnan. Umm Salama, one of Muhammed's wives, wrote that this was done using the following hermeneutical reasoning: Thara means moist earth, Abraham was not consumed by hell-fire, fire does not consume moist earth, thus A'raq al-Thara must be Ishmael son of Abraham.

In Mormonism

Abraham is an important figure in Mormonism, and is referenced in several LDS books of canon.

The Book of Abraham, found in the Pearl of Great Price, has five chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 include details about Abraham’s early life and his fight against the idolatry of his society and even of his own family. It recounts how pagan priests tried to sacrifice him to their god, but an angel appeared and rescued him. Chapter 2 includes information about God’s covenant with Abraham, and how it would be fulfilled: "And thou shalt be a blessing unto thy seed after thee, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and Priesthood unto all nations; And I will bless them through thy name; for as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father;...and in thy seed after thee ... shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal." (Abraham 2:9-11)

Thus, Mormonism considers Abraham the "father of the faithful," who was blessed with covenant promises because he sought to regain the true priesthood and the true gospel possessed by others on earth such as Melchizedek, and because he was willing to follow the Lord's guidance and direction in all things, not withholding anything.

Chapters 3 through 5 are a vision in which God reveals much about astronomy, the creation of the world, foreordination, and the creation of man. It agrees closely with Moses’ account of the creation, but gives more detail.

In addition to the text, there are three facsimiles of vignettes from the papyrus. One depicts Abraham about to be sacrificed by a priest; the second is the hypocelaphus which contains important insights about the organization of the heavens. The final picture shows Abraham teaching in the Pharaoh’s court.

The Book of Jacob, part of the Book of Mormon, claims that God's commandment that Abraham sacrifice Isaac was "a similitude of God and his Only Begotten Son" (Jacob 4:5).

In philosophy

Abraham, as a man communicating with God or the divine, has inspired some fairly extensive discussion in some philosophers, such as Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre. Kierkegaard goes into Abraham's plight in considerable detail in his work Fear and Trembling. Sartre understands the story not in terms of Christian obedience or a "teleological suspension of the ethical", but in terms of mankind's utter behavioral and moral freedom. God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son. Sartre doubts that Abraham can know that the voice he hears is really the voice of his God and not of someone else, or the product of a mental condition. Thus, Sartre concludes, even if there are signs in the world, humans are totally free to decide how to interpret them.

Textual criticism

this is boring so i didnt wright anything

Dating and historicity

Traditional dating

According to calculations directly derived from the Masoretic Hebrew Torah, Abraham was born 1,948 years after biblical creation and lived for 175 years (Genesis 25:7), which would correspond to a life spanning from 1812 BC/BCE to 1637 BC/BCE by Jewish dating; or from 2166 BC/BCE to 1991 BC/BCE by other calculations. The figures in the Book of Jubilees have Abraham born 1,876 years after creation, and 534 years before the Exodus; the ages provided in the Samaritan version of Genesis agree closely with those of Jubilees before the Deluge, but after the Deluge, they add roughly 100 years to each of the ages of the Patriarchs in the Masoretic Text, resulting in the figure of 2,247 years after creation for Abraham's birth. The Greek Septuagint version adds around 100 years to nearly all of the patriarchs' births, producing the even higher figure of 3,312 years after creation for Abraham's birth.

History of dating attempts

When cuneiform was first deciphered, Theophilus Pinches translated some Babylonian tablets which were part of the Spartoli collection in the British museum. In one, referred to as the Chedorlaomer Text, currently thought to have been written in the 6th to the 7th Century BCE, he believed that he recognized the names of three of the kings of the Eastern coalition fighting against the five kings from the Vale of Siddem in Gen. 1:14. In 1887, Schrader then was the first to propose that Amraphel could be an alternate spelling for Hammurabi (cf. the ISBE of 1915, s.v. "Hammurabi"). Vincent Scheil subsequently found a tablet in the Imperial Ottoman Museum in Constantinople from Hammurabi to a king of the very same name, i.e. Kuder-Lagomer, as in Pinches' tablet (see this website for a quote from a book by Zacheriah Sitchen on the subject, although Sitchen is by no means mainstream). Thus are achieved the following correspondences:

Many scholars by 1915 had become largely convinced that the kings of Gen. 14:1 had been identified (cf. again the ISBE of 1915, s.v. Hammurabi, which mentions the identification as doubtful, and also The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917, s.v. "Amraphel", and Donald A. MacKenzie's 1915 Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, who has (p. 247) "The identification of Hammurabi with Amraphel is now generally accepted"). The terminal -bi on the end of Hammurabi's name was seen to parallel Amraphel since the cuneiform symbol for -bi can also be pronounced -pi. Tablets were known in which the initial symbol for Hammurabi, pronounced as kh to yield Khammurabi, had been dropped, such that Ammurapi was a viable pronunciation. Supposing him to have been deified in his lifetime or afterwards yielded Ammurabi-il, which was suitable close to the Bible's Amraphel.

Archaeology subsequently discovered that the Babylonian king lists had been padded in a later era with extra names, and Albright was instrumental in synchronizing Hammurabi with Assyrian and Egyptian contemporaries, such that Hammurabi is now thought to have lived centuries later. Since many ecumenical theologians may not hold that the dates of the Bible could be in error, they began synchronizing Abram with the empire of Sargon on chronological grounds, and the work of Schrader, Pinches and Scheil fell out of favor with them. The objection resurfaced that Amraphel could not derived from Khammurabi, in spite of the Ammurabi/Ammurapi spelling for Hammurabi that had already been found. More substantial objections were later made, including the finding that the days of the Kuder-Lagomer of Hammurabi's letter preceded the writing of the letter early in Hammurabi's reign led some to speculate that the Kuder-Lagomer of Gen. 14:1 should be associated with later Hittite or Akkadian kings with similar names, and these scholars thus generally considered the passage anachronistic - the product of a much later period, such as during or after the Babylonian Captivity. Others pointed out that the Lagomer of Kuder-Lagomer was an Elamite deity's name, instead of the king's actual name, which some believe referred to a king that must have preceded Hammurabi. Other misreadings of the Chedorlaomer Text were pointed out, causing them to be associated with entirely different personages known from archaeology. It seemed that the theory of Schrader, Pinches and Scheil had fallen utterly apart.

Mainstream scholarship in the course of the 20th century has given up attempts to identify Abraham and his contemporaries in Genesis with historical figures. While it is widely admitted that there is no archaeological evidence to prove the existence of Abraham, apparent parallels to Genesis in the archaeological record assure that speculations on the patriarch's historicity and on the period that would best fit the account in Genesis remain alive in religious circles. "The Herald of Christ's Kingdom" in Abraham - Father of the Faithful (2001) implies a historical Abraham by stating "At one time it was popular to connect Amraphel, king of Shinar, with Hammurabi, king of Babylon, but now it is generally conceded that Hammurabi was much later than Abraham."

There are two main eras with which Abram is usually associated by those postulating his historicity: that of king Sargon of the Sumerian Empire (ca. 2334–2279), and that of king Hammurabi (ca. 1792–50, middle chronology) and his son (ca. 1749-1712) of the Old Babylonian Empire.

A traditional chronology can be constructed from the MT as follows: If Solomon's temple was begun when most scholars put it, ca. 960-970 BCE, using e.g. 966, we get 1446 for the Exodus (I Ki. 6:1). There were 400 years reportedly spent in Egypt (Ex. 12:40), and then we only need add years from Jacob's going into Egypt to Abraham. So, we can add that Jacob was supposedly 130 when he came to Egypt (Gen. 47:9), Isaac was 60 years old when he had Jacob (Gen. 25:26) and Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born, and we get 1446 + 400 + 130 + 60 + 100 = 2136 BCE for Abram's birth. (A considerable variety of scriptural chronologies are possible, however.) Thus, if one adheres to an Early Exodus theory, then Abram is usually synchronized with Sargon I, or sometimes other figures in the Sumerian Empire. If one favors a Late Exodus theory, we should subtract roughly two centuries, and then Abraham's life would overlap that of Hammurabi's empire (died at 175 years, cf. Gen. 25:7, so 2135 - 175 - 200 = 1761).

Gen. 10:10 has it that Babel was the beginning of Nimrod's empire. Since Sargon's capitol city, Agade, has not yet been found, it is easy to suppose that Nimrod was not Hammurabi, that there is a remote chance that Agade is Babel, or that somehow Bable got substituted for Agade somewhere along the way. Even so, there are reasons to prefer the equation of Hammurabi with Amraphel. The Nimrod of Gen. ch. 10 precedes the Amraphel of ch. 14, and Nimrod's kingdom began with "Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh, in Shinar" (Gen. 10:10). Mentions of Nimrod both precede and follow those of Abram. Furthermore, Nimrod is associated with the Tower of Babel, not the Tower of Agade, in the Bible. Rabinnic materials are full of an account of Abram being thrown into the furnace used for making bricks for the Tower of Babel by Nimrod, but Abram was miraculously unharmed, while the furnace spread to the rest of the city, causing the "Fire of the Chasdim". It seems safe to conclude that Nimrod and Abram were more or less contemporaries. While it is easy to hypothesize that Agade was Babylon, the Britannica says that Babylon was a vassal kingdom during this period, and only during the time of Hammurabi did it become the beginning of an Empire in its own right (s.v. "Babylon", whereas the city of Babel = Babylon); and so we can conclude that Babylon was probably not the same as the Sumerian capitol. This surely matches the biblical description of Nimrod's empire far better. If we wish to belabor that Gen. ch. 14 still retains any historical authenticity, the Old Babylonian Empire, like Nimrod's, extended into the Trans-Jordan, but only during the reign of Hammurabi's son; whereas the Sumerian Empire by contrast did not. The city of Babel was not only the beginning of the Old Babylonian Empire, it was its capitol. After the end of the Old Babylonian Empire with the defeat of Hammurabi's son by the Elamites, there was not another empire ruled from the city of Babel until the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which was much too late to be synchronized with Abraham. True, the capitol of the Kassite Empire was near the city of Babel, but the Britannica has it that it was not ruled from Babel itself; and synchronizing Abram with the Kassite Empire would only compound the problem by requiring Abram to have lived even more recently.

Archaeological correlates for the life of Abram are relatively scarce, whereas the Exodus can be correlated with Semite remains in Egypt, as per Bietak, as well as numerous transitions in Palestine from Egypto-Canaanite material culture to proto-Israelite. There is a reasonably broad although loose consensus of archaeologists who favor a Late Exodus, and this would place Abram closer to the time of Hammurabi than of Sargon. If an Early Exodus can be proven, it would rule out synchronizing Abram with Hammurabi's empire, and then some time during the Sumerian Empire would be by far the best remaining parallel. Since the archaeological correlates of the Exodus are more plentiful than for Abram, the fixing of the era of Abram/Abraham must rely on the eventual outcome of the Early/Late Exodus debate.

Speculations on Hindu connections

This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Abraham" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In the 19th century, there were isolated speculations about an identity of Abraham and Brahma, or Abraham and Rama: "The Arabian historians contend that Brahma and Abraham, their ancestor, are the same person. The Persians generally called Abraham Ibrahim Zeradust. Cyrus considered the religion of the Jews the same as his own. The Hindus must have come from Abraham, or the Israelites from Brahma…" (Anacalypsis; Vol. I, p. 396.) A. D. Pusalker, whose essay "Traditional History From the Earliest Times" appeared in The Vedic Age, claims a historical Rama dated to 1950 BC.

Notes

1. JewishEncyclopedia.com states, "The form 'Abraham' yields no sense in Hebrew". Many interpretations were offered, including an analysis of a first element abr- "chief", which however yields a meaningless second element.
2. Antiquities of the Jews, book 1, 12:4
3. Antiquities of the Jews, book 1, 12:2
4. The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya), Volume I, translated by professor Trevor Le Gassick, reviewed by Dr. Ahmed Fareed , pp. 50-52;
5. The Encyclopedia Britannica article on "Amraphel" has: "Scholars of previous generations tried to identify these names with important historical figures—e.g., Amraphel with Hammurabi of Babylon—but little remains today of these suppositions."

References

• 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
• Genesis
• Rosenberg, David. Abraham: The First Historical Biography. Basic Books/Perseus Books Group, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2006. ISBN 0-465-07094-9.

See also

• Abrahamic religions
• Abraham's bosom
• Bram
• Biblical criticism
• List of founders of major religions
• The Pearl of Great Price, Book of Abraham
• Genealogies of Genesis

External links

• The Jewish History Resource Center Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Early Wars of Israel Abraham's Wars & others
• Abraham in all three Abrahamic faiths
• Abraham's sacrifice: an Islamic perspective
• GospelTruth -- God's promises to Abraham according to Christian belief
• Biblical Archeology -- Bible-related article about Abraham
• The Legacy of Abraham -- Time magazine cover story
• Abraham's vision in the Qur'an
• Millat-e-Ibrahim: Prophet Abraham's Way by ClearVision Pakistan
• Children of Abraham -- episode of the weekly Minnesota Public Radio show Speaking of Faith
• Abraham by Rob Bradshaw An extensive dictionary-style article.
• A.R. Millard & D.J. Wiseman, eds., Essays on the Patriarchal Narratives. Leicester: IVP, 1980. Hbk. ISBN 0851117430.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

• Articles to be merged from June 2006
• Abrahamic religions
• Biblical prophets
• Christian prophets
• Islamic prophets
• Major Torah figures
• Polygamists
• Biblical patriarchs