It has already been remarked (page vii) that there are three chief ways in which an oral, and therefore legendary, tradition may yield solid historical results: first, through the retention in the popular memory of the impression caused by real events and personalities; secondly, by the recovery of historic (mainly ethnographic) material from the biographic form of the tradition; and thirdly, through the confirmation of contemporary ‘archæological’ evidence. It will be convenient to start with the last of these, and consider what is known about—
1. The historical background of the patriarchal traditions.—The period covered by the patriarchal narratives¹ may be defined very roughly as the first half of the second millennium (2000–1500) B.C. The upper limit depends on the generally accepted assumption, based (somewhat insecurely, as it seems to us) on chapter 14, that Abraham was contemporary with Ḫammurabi, the 6th king of the first Babylonian dynasty. The date of Ḫammurabi is probably circa 2100 B.C.² The lower limit is determined by the Exodus, which is usually assigned (as it must be if Exodus 1¹¹ is genuine) to the reign of Merneptah of the Nineteenth Egyptian dynasty (circa 1234–1214 B.C.). Allowing a sufficient period for the sojourn of Israel in Egypt, we come back to about the middle of the millennium as the approximate time when the family left Palestine for that country. The Hebrew chronology assigns nearly the same date as above to Abraham, but a much earlier one for the Exodus (circa 1490), and reduces the residence of the patriarchs in Canaan to 215 years; since, however, the chronological system rests on artificial calculations (see pages 135 f., 234), we cannot restrict our survey to the narrow limits which it assigns to the patriarchal period in Palestine. Indeed, the chronological uncertainties are so numerous that it is desirable to embrace an even wider field than the five centuries mentioned above.³
In the opinion of a growing and influential school of writers, this period of history has been so illumined by recent discoveries that it is no longer possible to doubt the essential historicity of the patriarchal tradition.¹ It is admitted that no external evidence has come to light of the existence of such persons as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, or even (with the partial exception of Joseph) of men playing parts at all corresponding to theirs. But it is maintained that contemporary documents reveal a set of conditions into which the patriarchal narratives fit perfectly, and which are so different from those prevailing under the monarchy that the situation could not possibly have been imagined by an Israelite of that later age. Now, that recent archæology has thrown a flood of light on the period in question, is beyond all doubt. It has proved that Palestinian culture and religion were saturated by Babylonian influences long before the supposed date of Abraham; that from that date downwards intercourse with Egypt was frequent and easy; and that the country was more than once subjected to Egyptian conquest and authority. It has given us a most interesting glimpse from about 2000 B.C. of the natural products of Canaan, and the manner of life of its inhabitants (Tale of Sinuhe). At a later time (Tell-Amarna letters) it shows the Egyptian dominion threatened by the advance of Hittites from the north, and by the incursion of a body of nomadic marauders called Ḫabiri (see page 218). It tells us that Jakob-el (and Joseph-el?) was the name of a place in Canaan in the first half of the 15th century (pages 360, 389 f.), and that Israel was a tribe living in Palestine about 1200 B.C.; also that Hebrews (‛Apriw) were a foreign population in Egypt from the time of Ramses II. to that of Ramses IV. (Heyes, Bibel und Ägypten: Abraham und seine Nachkommen in Ägypten 146 ff.; Eerdmans, Alttestamentliche Studien 52 ff.; The Expositor l.c. 197). All this is of the utmost value; and if the patriarchs lived in this age, then this is the background against which we have to set their biographies. But the real question is whether there is such a correspondence between the biographies and their background that the former would be unintelligible if transplanted to other and later surroundings. We should gladly welcome any evidence that this is the case; but it seems to us that the remarkable thing about these narratives is just the absence of background and their general compatibility with the universal conditions of ancient Eastern life.² The case for the historicity of the tradition, based on correspondences with contemporary evidence from the period in question, appears to us to be greatly overstated.
The line of argument that claims most careful attention is to the following effect: Certain legal customs presupposed by the patriarchal stories are now known to have prevailed (in Babylon) in the age of Ḫammurabi; these customs had entirely ceased in Israel under the monarchy; consequently the narratives could not have been invented by legend-writers of that period (Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients², 355 ff.). The strongest case is the truly remarkable parallel supplied by Code of Ḫammurabi 146 to the position of Hagar as concubine-slave in chapter 16 (below, page 285). Here everything turns on the probability that this usage was unknown in Israel in the regal period; and it is surely pressing the argumentum ex silentio too far to assert confidently that if it had been known it would certainly have been mentioned in the later literature. We must remember that Genesis contains almost the only pictures of intimate family life in the Old Testament, and that it refers to many things not mentioned later simply because there was no occasion to speak of them. Were twin-births peculiar to the ♦patriarchal period because two are mentioned in Genesis and none at all in the rest of the Old Testament? The fact that the custom of the concubine-slave has persisted in Mohammedan countries down to modern times, should warn us against such sweeping negations.—Again, we learn (ib. 358) that the simultaneous marriage with two sisters was permitted by ancient Babylonian law, but was proscribed in Hebrew legislation as incestuous. Yes, but the law in question (Leviticus 18¹⁸) is late; and does not its enactment in the Priestly-Code rather imply that the practice against which it is directed survived in Israel till the close of the monarchy?—The distinction between the mōhar, or purchase price of a wife, and the gift to the bride (ib.), should not be cited: the mōhar is an institution everywhere prevailing in early pastoral societies; it is known to Hebrew jurisprudence (Exodus 22¹⁶); its name is not old Babylonian; and even its transmutation into personal service is in accordance with Arab practice (page 383 below).¹—In short, it does not appear that the examples given differ from another class of usages, “die nicht spezifisch altbabylonisch sind, sondern auch spätern bez. intergentilen Rechtszuständen entsprechen, die aber ... wenigstens teilweise eine interessante Beleuchtung durch den Code Ḫammurabi erfahren.” The “interessante Beleuchtung” will be freely admitted.
Still less has the new knowledge of the political circumstances of Palestine contributed to the direct elucidation of the patriarchal tradition, although it has brought to light certain facts which have to be taken into account in interpreting that tradition. The complete silence of the narratives as to the protracted Egyptian dominion over the country is very remarkable, and only to be explained by a fading of the actual situation from the popular memory during the course of oral transmission. The existence of Philistines in the time of Abraham is, so far as archæology can inform us, a positive anachronism. On the whole it must be said that archæology has in this region created more problems than it has solved. The occurrence of the name Yaḳob-el in the time of Thothmes III., of Asher under Seti I. and Ramses II., and of Israel under Merneptah; the appearance of Hebrews (Ḫabiri?) in Palestine in the 15th century, and in Egypt (‛Apriw?) from Ramses II. to Ramses IV., present so many difficulties to the adjustment of the patriarchal figures to their original background. We do not seem as yet to be in sight of a historical construction which shall enable us to bring these conflicting data into line with an intelligible rendering of the Hebrew tradition.
It is considerations such as these that give so keen an edge to the controversy about the genuineness of chapter 14. That is the only section of Genesis which seems to set the figure of Abraham in the framework of world history. If it be a historical document, then we have a fixed centre round which the Abrahamic traditions, and possibly those of the other patriarchs as well, will group themselves; if it be but a late imitation of history, we are cast adrift, with nothing to guide us except an uncertain and artificial scheme of chronology. For an attempt to estimate the force of the arguments on either side we must refer to the commentary below (page 271 ff.). Here, however, it is in point to observe that even if the complete historicity of chapter 14 were established, it would take us but a little way towards the authentication of the patriarchal traditions as a whole. For that episode confessedly occupies a place entirely unique in the records of the patriarchs; and all the marks of contemporary authorship which it is held to present are so many proofs that the remaining narratives are of a different character, and lack that particular kind of attestation. The coexistence of oral traditions and historic notices relating to the same individual proves that the former rest on a basis of fact; but it does not warrant the inference that the oral tradition is accurate in detail, or even that it faithfully reflects the circumstances of the period with which it deals. And to us the Abraham of oral tradition is a far more important religious personality than Abram the Hebrew, the hero of the exploit recorded in chapter 14.
2. Ethnological theories.—The negative conclusion expressed above (page xvii f.) as to the value of ancient Babylonian analogies to the patriarchal tradition, depends partly on the assumption of the school of writers whose views were under consideration: viz., that the narratives are a transcript of actual family life in that remote age, and therefore susceptible of illustration from private law as we find it embodied in the Code of Ḫammurabi. It makes, however, little difference if for family relations we substitute those of clans and peoples to one another, and treat the individuals as representatives of the tribes to which Israel traced its origin. We shall then find the real historic content of the legends in migratory movements, tribal divisions and fusions, and general ethnological phenomena, which popular tradition has disguised as personal biographies. This is the line of interpretation which has mostly prevailed in critical circles since Ewald;¹ and it has given rise to an extraordinary variety of theories. In itself (as in the hands of Ewald) it is not necessarily inconsistent with belief in the individual existence of the patriarchs; though its more extreme exponents do not recognise this as credible. The theories in question fall into two groups: those which regard the narratives as ideal projections into the past of relations subsisting, or conceptions formed, after the final settlement in Canaan;² and those which try to extract from them a real history of the period before the Exodus. Since the former class deny a solid tradition of any kind behind the patriarchal story, we may here pass them over, and confine our attention to those which do allow a certain substratum of truth in the pictures of the pre-Exodus period.
As a specimen of this class of theories, neither better nor worse than others that might be chosen, we may take that of Cornill. According to him, Abraham was a real person, who headed a migration from Mesopotamia to Canaan about 1500 B.C. Through the successive separations of Moab, Ammon, and Edom, the main body of immigrants was so reduced that it might have been submerged, but for the arrival of a fresh contingent from Mesopotamia under the name Jacob (the names, except Abraham’s, are all tribal or national). This reinforcement consisted of four groups, of which the Leah-group was the oldest and strongest. The tribe of Joseph then aimed at the hegemony, but was overpowered by the other tribes, and forced to retire to Egypt. The Bilhah-group, thus deprived of its natural support, was assailed by the Leah-tribes led by Reuben; but the attempt was foiled, and Reuben lost his birthright. Subsequently the whole of the tribes were driven to seek shelter in Egypt, when Joseph took a noble revenge by allowing them to settle by its side in the frontier province of Egypt (History of Israel, 29 ff.).
It will be seen that the construction hangs mainly on two leading ideas: tribal affinities typified by various phases of the marriage relation; and migrations. As regards the first, we have seen (page xii) that there is a true principle at the root of the method. It springs from the personification of a tribe under the name of an individual, male or female; and we have admitted that many names in Genesis have this significance, and probably no other. If, then, two eponymous ancestors (Jacob and Esau) are represented as twin brothers, we may be sure that the peoples in question were conscious of an extremely close affinity. If a male eponym is married to a female, we may presume (though with less confidence) that the two tribes were amalgamated. Or, if one clan is spoken of as a wife and another as a concubine, we may reasonably conclude that the latter was somehow inferior to the former. But beyond a few simple analogies of this kind (each of which, moreover, requires to be tested by the inherent probabilities of the case) the method ceases to be reliable; and the attempt to apply it to all the complex family relationships of the patriarchs only lands us in confusion.¹—The idea of migration is still less trustworthy. Certainly not every journey recorded in Genesis (e.g. that of Joseph from Hebron to Shechem and Dothan, 3714 ff.: pace Steuernagel) can be explained as a migratory movement. Even when the ethnological background is apparent, the movements of tribes may be necessary corollaries of the assumed relationships between them (e.g. Jacob’s journey to Ḥarran: page 357); and it will be difficult to draw the line between these and real migrations. The case of Abraham is no doubt a strong one; for if his figure has any ethnological significance at all, his exodus from Ḥarran (or Ur) can hardly be interpreted otherwise than as a migration of Hebrew tribes from that region. We cannot feel the same certainty with regard to Joseph’s being carried down to Egypt; it seems to us altogether doubtful if this be rightly understood as an enforced movement of the tribe of Joseph to Egypt in advance of the rest (see page 441).
But it is when we pass from genealogies and marriages and journeys to pictorial narrative that the breakdown of the ethnological method becomes complete. The obvious truth is that no tribal relationship can supply an adequate motive for the wealth of detail that meets us in the richly coloured patriarchal legends; and the theory stultifies itself by assigning ethnological significance to incidents which originally had no such meaning. It will have been noticed that Cornill utilises a few biographical touches to fill in his scheme (the youthful ambition of Joseph; his sale into Egypt, etc.), and every other theorist does the same. Each writer selects those incidents which fit into his own system, and neglects those which would ♦embarrass it. Each system has some plausible and attractive features; but each, to avoid absurdity, has to exercise a judicious restraint on the consistent extension of its principles. The consequence is endless diversity in detail, and no agreement even in general outline.¹
It is evident that such constructions will never reach any satisfactory result unless they find some point of support in the history of the period as gathered from contemporary sources. The second millennium B.C. is thought to have witnessed one great movement of Semitic tribes to the north, viz., the Aramæan. About the middle of the millennium we find the first notices of the Aramæans as nomads in what is now the Syro-Arabian desert. Shortly afterwards the Ḫabiri make their appearance in Palestine. It is a natural conjecture that these were branches of the same migration, and it has been surmised that we have here the explanation of the tradition which affirms the common descent of Hebrews and Aramæans. The question then arises whether we can connect this fact with the patriarchal tradition, and if so with what stratum of that tradition. Isaac and Joseph are out of the reckoning, because neither is ever brought into contact with the Aramæans; Rebekah is too insignificant. Abraham is excluded by the chronology, unless (with Cornhill) we bring down his date to circa 1500, or (with Steuernagel) regard his migration as a traditional duplicate of Jacob’s return from Laban. But if Jacob is suggested, we encounter the difficulty that Jacob must have been settled in Canaan some generations before the age of the Ḫabiri. In the case of Abraham there may be a conflation of two traditions,—one tracing his nativity to Ḥarran and the other to Ur; and it is conceivable that he is the symbol of two migrations, one of which might be identified with the arrival of the Ḫabiri, and the other might have taken place as early as the age of Ḫammurabi. But these are speculations no whit more reliable than any of those dealt with above; and it has to be confessed that as yet archæology has furnished no sure basis for the reconstruction of the patriarchal history. It is permissible to hope that further discoveries may bring to light facts which shall enable us to decide more definitely than is possible at present how far that history can be explained on ethnological lines.¹
3. The patriarchs as individuals.—We come, in the last place, to consider the probability that the oral tradition, through its own inherent tenacity of recollection, may have retained some true impression of the events to which it refers. After what has been said, it is vain to expect that a picture true in every detail will be recoverable from popular tales current in the earliest ages of the monarchy. The course of oral tradition has been too long, the disturbing influences to which it has been exposed have been too numerous and varied, and the subsidiary motives which have grafted themselves on to it too clearly discernible, to admit of the supposition that more than a substantial nucleus of historic fact can have been preserved in the national memory of Israel. It is not, however, unreasonable to believe that such a historical nucleus exists; and that with care we may disentangle from the mass of legendary accretions some elements of actual reminiscence of the prehistoric movements which determined the subsequent development of the national life.¹ It is true that in this region we have as a rule only subjective impressions to guide us; but in the absence of external criteria a subjective judgement has its value, and one in favour of the historic origin of the tradition is at least as valid as another to the contrary effect.—The two points on which attention now falls to be concentrated are: (a) the personalities of the patriarchs; and (b) the religious significance of the tradition.
(a) It is a tolerably safe general maxim that tradition does not invent names, or persons. We have on any view to account for the entrance of such figures as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph into the imagination of the Israelites; and amongst possible avenues of entrance we must certainly count it as one, that they were real men, who lived and were remembered. What other explanations can be given? The idea that they were native creations of Hebrew mythology (Goldziher) has, for the present at least, fallen into disrepute; and there remain but two theories as alternatives to the historic reality of the patriarchs: viz., that they were originally personified tribes, or that they were originally Canaanite deities.
The conception of the patriarchs as tribal eponyms, we have already seen to be admissible, though not proved. The idea that they were Canaanite deities is not perhaps one that can be dismissed as transparently absurd. If the Israelites, on entering Canaan, found Abraham worshipped at Hebron, Isaac at Beersheba, Jacob at Bethel, and Joseph at Shechem, and if they adopted the cult of these deities, they might come to regard themselves as their children; and in course of time the gods might be transformed into human ancestors around whom the national legend might crystallise. At the same time the theory is destitute of proof; and the burden of proof lies on those who maintain it. Neither the fact (if it be a fact) that the patriarchs were objects of worship at the shrines where their graves were shown, nor the presence of mythical traits in their biographies, proves them to have been superhuman beings.—The discussion turns largely on the evidence of the patriarchal names; but this, too, is indecisive. The name Israel is national, and in so far as it is applied to an individual it is a case of eponymous personification. Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph (assuming these to be contractions of Yiẓḥaḳ-el, etc.) are also most naturally explained as tribal designations. Meyer, after long vacillation, has come to the conclusion that they are divine names (Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme, 249 ff.); but the arguments which formerly convinced him that they are tribal seem to us more cogent than those to which he now gives the preference. That names of this type frequently denote tribes is a fact; that they may denote deities is only a hypothesis. That they may also denote individuals (Yaḳub-ilu, Yašup-ilu) is true; but that only establishes a possibility, hardly a probability; for it is more likely that the individual was named after his tribe than that the tribe got its name from an individual.—The name Abram stands by itself. It represents no ethnological entity, and occurs historically only as the name of an individual; and though it is capable of being interpreted in a sense appropriate to deity, all analogy is in favour of explaining it as a theophorous human name. The solitary allusion to the biblical Abram in the monuments—the mention of the ‘Field of Abram’ in Shishak’s inscription (see page 244)—is entirely consistent with this acceptation.—It is probably a mistake to insist on carrying through any exclusive theory of the patriarchal personalities. If we have proved that Abram was a historical individual, we have not thereby proved that Isaac and Jacob were so also; and if we succeed in resolving the latter into tribal eponyms, it will not follow that Abraham falls under the same category.
There is thus a justification for the tendency of many writers to put Abraham on a different plane from the other patriarchs, and to concentrate the discussion of the historicity of the tradition mainly on his person. An important element in the case is the clearly conceived type of character which he represents. No doubt the character has been idealised in accordance with the conceptions of a later age; but the impression remains that there must have been something in the actual Abraham which gave a direction to the idealisation. It is this perception more than anything else which invests the figure of Abraham with the significance which it has possessed for devout minds in all ages, and which still resists the attempt to dissolve him into a creation of religious phantasy. If there be any truth in the description of legend as a form of narrative conserving the impression of a great personality on his age, we may venture, in spite of the lack of decisive evidence, to regard him as a historic personage, however dim the surroundings of his life may be.¹
(b) It is of little consequence to know whether a man called Abraham lived about 2000 B.C., and led a caravan from Ur or Ḥarran to Palestine, and defeated a great army from the east. One of the evil effects of the controversial treatment of such questions is to diffuse the impression that a great religious value attaches to discussions of this kind. What it really concerns us to know is the spiritual significance of the events, and of the mission of Abraham in particular. And it is only when we take this point of view that we do justice to the spirit of the Hebrew tradition. It is obvious that the central idea of the patriarchal tradition is the conviction in the mind of Israel that as a nation it originated in a great religious movement, that the divine call which summoned Abraham from his home and kindred, and made him a stranger and sojourner on the earth, imported a new era in God’s dealings with mankind, and gave Israel its mission in the world (Isaiah 418 f.). Is this conception historically credible?
Some attempts to find historic points of contact for this view of Abraham’s significance for religion will be looked at presently; but their contribution to the elucidation of the biblical narrative seems to us disappointing in the extreme. Nor can we unreservedly assent to the common argument that the mission of Moses would be unintelligible apart from that of Abraham. It is true, Moses is said to have appealed to the God of the fathers; and if that be a literally exact statement, Moses built on the foundation laid by Abraham. But that the distinctive institutions and ideas of the Yahwe-religion could not have originated with Moses just as well as with Abraham, is more than we have a right to affirm. In short, positive proof, such as would satisfy the canons of historical criticism, of the work of Abraham is not available. What we can say is, in the first place, that if he had the importance assigned to him, the fact is just of the kind that might be expected to impress itself indelibly on a tradition dating from the time of the event. We have in it the influence of a great personality, giving birth to the collective consciousness of a nation; and this fact is of a nature to evoke that centripetal ‘intensification of memory’ which Höffding emphasises as the distinguishing mark and the preserving salt of legend as contrasted with myth. In the second place, the appearance of a prophetic personality, such as Abraham is represented to have been, is a phenomenon with many analogies in the history of religion. The ethical and spiritual idea of God which is at the foundation of the religion of Israel could only enter the world through a personal organ of divine revelation; and nothing forbids us to see in Abraham the first of that long series of prophets through whom God has communicated to mankind a saving knowledge of Himself. The keynote of Abraham’s piety is faith in the unseen,—faith in the divine impulse which drove him forth to a land which he was never to possess; and faith in the future of the religion which he thus founded. He moves before us on the page of Scripture as the man through whom faith, the living principle of true religion, first became a force in human affairs. It is difficult to think that so powerful a conception has grown out of nothing. As we read the story, we may well trust the instinct which tells us that here we are face to face with a decisive act of the living God in history, and an act whose essential significance was never lost in Israelite tradition.
The significance of the Abrahamic migration in relation to the general movements of religious thought in the East is the theme of Winckler’s interesting pamphlet, Abraham als Babylonier, Joseph als Aegypter (1903). The elevation of Babylon, in the reign of Ḫammurabi, to be the first city of the empire, and the centre of Babylonian culture, meant, we are told, a revolution in religion, inasmuch as it involved the deposition of Sin, the old moon-god, from the supreme place in the pantheon in favour of the ‘Deliverer Marduk,’ the tutelary deity of Babylon. Abraham, a contemporary, and an adherent of the older faith, opposed the reformation; and, after vainly seeking support for his protest at Ur and Ḥarran, the two great centres of the worship of Sin, migrated to Canaan, beyond the limits of Ḫammurabi’s empire, to worship God after his fashion. How much truth is contained in these brilliant generalisations it is difficult for an ordinary man to say. In spite of the ingenuity and breadth of conception with which the theory is worked out, it is not unfair to suggest that it rests mostly on a combination of things that are not in the Bible with things that are not in the monuments. Indeed, the only positive point of contact between the two data of the problem is the certainly remarkable fact that tradition does connect Abraham with two chief centres of the Babylonian moon-worship. But what we chiefly desiderate is some evidence that the worship of the moon-god had greater affinities with monotheism than the worship of Marduk, the god of the vernal sun. [The attempt to connect Joseph with the abortive monotheistic reform of Chuenaten (Amenophis IV.) is destitute of plausibility.]—To a similar effect Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients², 327 ff.: “A reform movement of protest against the religious degeneration of the ruling classes” was the motive of the migration (333), perhaps connected with the introduction of a new astronomical era, the Taurus-epoch (which, by the way, had commenced nearly 1000 years before! compare 66). The movement assumed the form of a migration—a Hegira—under Abraham as Mahdi, who preached his doctrine as he went, made converts in Ḥarran, Egypt, Gerar, Damascus, and elsewhere, finally establishing the worship of Yahwe at the sanctuaries of Palestine. This is to write a new Abrahamic legend, considerably different from the old.