ABRAHAM or ABRAM, the progenitor of the Hebrews and the Arab Bedouin. After deriving his genealogy through Shem to his father Terah and his brothers Nahor and Ha ran, the narrative in Gen. xi-xxv proceeds as follows,— each step in the pilgrimage being by express direction of Yahwe., to his purpose of founding the Hebrew nation:— After Haran's death Terah removes with his family from his native Ur of the Chaldees ( ? Mugheir in southern Babylonia), north to Haran, where he dies. Abram then (at 75) takes his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot, Haran's son, and makes his way north by way of Damascus (stopping to build altars to Yahwe at Shechem and Bethel) to Canaan, where he receives the promise that he shall become the founder of a great nation, and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in him. Being a pastoral nomad, a drouth in Canaan forces him to seek forage in fertile Egypt; where he passes off Sarai as his sister, in fear that her beauty will lead to his murder to possess her, and she is taken by Pharaoh, who, on discovering the deception, restores her, but orders Abram out of Egypt. Accompanied by Lot, he returns to a former encampment between Bethel and Ai. The clans of the two kinsmen quarrel over the limited pasturage, as usual with nomad tribes, and Abram proposes that each follow his own fortune. Lot, wishing to quit nomad life, chooses the fertile Jordan plain; Abram pitches his tent among the oak groves of Mainre, close to Hebron, and the previous promise of his posthumous glory is repeated and solemnly covenanted. Lot is captured in a raid of the Babylonian kin?, with his Syrian and other allies, against his revolted vassals of the Dead Sea and Jordan valleys, including the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, who are overthrown; Abram sallies out to his rescue with a band of tribesmen, beats the confederacy and chases them near to Damascus, and not only recovers his nephew but restores the above kings to their thrones, refusing any reward. The property of the childless Abraham is to descend to his trusted servant Eliezer, and Sarai suggests that he avoid this by having a child from a con cubine, a common enough arrangement; ac cordingly he has Ishmael by Sarai's maid Hagar, at 86. Four years later it is revealed by Yahwe in person to Abraham that he shall have a legitimate son by whose name is thenceforth to be Sarah (princess) and his own to be Abraham (father of peoples) ; the promise is afterward repeated by Yahwe and two angels, who visit Abram's tent in human form, the latter going on to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness, and the former staying behind to inform Abram of it. Abram's plea wins a promise of mercy contingent on 10 righteous men being found there, but they are not forthcoming, and only Lot and his family escape. Abram goes to Gerar (Negeb) in southern Palestine, repeats precisely the same performance with the nonagenarian Sarai as before, and the king Abimelech repeats the part of Pharaoh, with the same apologies and re proaches. Isaac is born, Sarah being 90, and
Hagar and her boy Ishmael are driven into the desert by Sarah's jealous fears, where Ishmael becomes ancestor of the Bedouin. Isaac is circumcised at eight days old, as a token of Yahwe's covenant with Abraham. Some time in Isaac's boyhood Abraham is commanded by Yahwe to make a burnt-offering of him, and proceeds to obey, but is spared the sacrifice by Yahwe, who accepts a stray ram instead and blesses him for his faith. Sarah dies in Hebron and is buried in the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham buys of Ephron the Hittite. He later marries Keturah, has six sons by her, dies at 175, and is buried beside Sarah. 'Isaac has previously married Rebekah, so that the suc cession is assured.
The Jewish stories of Abraham were by no means confined to this account in our canonical book; they had many others, associating him with Nimrod, etc., which are collected in the Talmud; and the Mohammedans invented or preserved many more. The critical view is that there was a real Abram or Abraham (the tra ditions existing in both forms), with his home at Hebron, probably a considerable man from the number and persistence of the legends about him; but that this is all we know. The names of his brothers and ancestry are not persons but Arab clans, and their relations and move ments represent what was handed down or believed concerning the North-Arab league that grew into the Hebrew nation, or its original elements. The path of the 'bne Terah* from the southern Euphrates valley into Palestine and elsewhere is certainly a correct type of the actual course, as revealed to us by archaeology, of the Semitic tribes who century after century poured out of the Arabian deserts, into and up through western Mesopotamia, to plunder or share the rich Babylonian civilization and wealth, as the barbarians did that of the Roman empire; according to the resistance they found they stayed in the Moabite district, turned west to overrun the Jordan valley, or moved north into Syria. For the archaeological results con sult the chapters on early times in various his tories of the Hebrews, Kittel's, Stade's, Guthe's, etc.; Sayce's (Patriarchal Palestine' and (Early History of the Hebrews,' reverent in tone; Tompkin's (Studies on the Times of Critical commentaries on Genesis are also serviceable. For the rabbin ical legends, the sources — in German — are Beer on the life of Abraham, and Griinbaum on the Sagas,> which gives the Mohammedan legends likewise. Consult Commentaries on Genesis by Driver, Gunkel, Dillman, Delitzsch, Holzinger, Strack. Histories of the Hebrews by Stade, Kittel, Guthe, Piepenbring. Also Dhorme, in Revue Biblique (1908) ; Gunkel, (in Die Religion in Geschichte) and Genwart (1908) ; Proksch, Was nordhebraische Sagenbuch) (1906) ' • Tomkins, (Studies on the Times of Abraham) (London 1878).