ABRAHAM. The Father of the Hebrews, whose story is given in Genesis xi-xxv. It con sists of a series of incidents in the patriarch's life, put together in a consecutive narrative and emanating from different literary sources. In Genesis xi : 10 the genealogy of the Shemites (or sons of Shem) is taken up, leading up to Terah, the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. The home of Terah and his sons is Ur of the Cbaldees—a place commonly identified with the site of the mound Mugheir, in southern Baby lonia—but after the death of Haran the Tern bites journey northward to Haran and take up their settlements at that place. Terah dies in IIaran, and Abram, accompanied by his wife Sara' and his nephew Lot (the son of Haran), quits Babylonia by divine command and pro ceeds by a circuitous northern route via Damas cus to Canaan. He halts at various places, nota bly Shechem and Bethel, where he erects altars to Yahweh (chap. xii.). Leading a pastoral life, we next find him in Egypt, whither be has been driven in consequence of a famine in Palestine. Sarai's beauty attracts the attention of the Pharaoh, and but for Yahweh's intervention Abram would have been obliged to give up his wife, whom he had represented to be his sister. Pharaoh obliges Abram to leave Egypt, and he accordingly returns to Bethel with Lot. At this juncture the separation between Abram and Lot takes place in consequence of quarrels between the followers of the two chiefs. Lot chooses for Himself the rich pasture land of the Jordan Val ley, while Abram remains in Canaan proper, though removing to Hebron. He becomes in volved in a war with the kings of the Jordan Valley in order to rescue Lot, who had been taken captive. Be not only succeeds in this en terprise, but aids in restoring the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah to power and magnanimously re fuses any compensation for his services (chap. xiv). At the time that Abram left Haran he was seventy-five years old. At Damascus he is joined by Eliezer, who becomes his trusted servant, and on whom the succession to Abram's property would fall in the event of Abram remaining childless. This contingency is eliminated by the birth of Ishmael, a son by Hagar, a concubine of Abram, and an Egyptian maid-servant of Sarai. Subsequently, however, when Abram is ninety-nine years old and Sarai ninety, a son, who is called Isaac, is horn to them (chap. xvii), and who becomes the heir of Abram in preference to Ishmael. At the time that this son is prom ised to Abram and Sarai, through the appearance of Yahweh himself to Abram, the names of the patriarch and his wife are changed by the Lord to Abraham and Saran, respectively, the former being interpreted as embodying the promise that the patriarch will become "the father of a mul titude of nations." The promise of a son to be born to Sarah is confirmed by a visit of Yahweh accompanied by two angels, all three in hu man form, who partake of Abraham's hospitality and make a similar announcement. The two angels proceed to Sodom and Gomorrah, while Yahweh remains behind and reveals to Abraham the intended destruction of the cities of the plain because of the wickedness and corruption pre vailing there. Abraham pleads with Yahweh to save the cities for the sake of the righteous, and Yahweh agrees to do so provided only ten right eous men are found in the district. As a matter of fact, the cities are destroyed and only Lot and his family are permitted to escape (chap. xvii).
Before Isaac is actually born, Abraham is rep resented as proceeding to the extreme south of Palestine, known as the Negcb, and at Gerar en counters the King (Abimelech) ,who takes into his harem Sarah, whom Abraham again passes off as his sister, Jehovah warns Abimelech,and Sarah is released (chap. xx). The birth of Isaac is re counted in the 21st chapter. Eight days after his birth he is circumcised—an act which is re garded as symbolizing the covenant established between Jehovah and those descended from Abra ham (Genesis xvii : 23-27). Some years later
the faith of Abraham is put to a severe trial by the divine command to sacrifice his beloved son (chap. xxii). Abraham proceeds to carry out the decree, but is withheld from doing so by Jehovah himself, who, satisfied with the test, accepts a rain which providentially makes its appearance. The last three chapters of the nar rative are taken up with the account of Sarah's death, her burial in the cave of Machpelah at Hebron, purchased by Abraham from Ephron the Hittite, the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, and the death of Abraham, which, however, does not take place until his marriage to Keturah, by whom two sons are born to him. The death of Abraham takes place when he has reached the age of one hundred and seventy-five years, and he is interred by the side of Sarah at Machpelah. Many modern Bible critics regard this cycle of Abrahamic stories as embodying a mixture of early and late traditions, a recast with a view of presenting Abraham as a type of the pious, ob servant Jew. Besides the biblical stories, other tales were current, or became current among the Jews of post-exile days, ninny of which were taken up into that portion of rabbinical literature known as the Midrash. In this way the biblical narrative was supplemented by incidents in the early career of Abraham, on which Genesis has nothing to say. These stories bring Abraham into association with Nimrod. The historical kernel in the Genesis chapters is quite insignifi cant. The genealogical lists are fietitiou., the names representing in most cases not individuals but clans, of whom some faint traditions have survived. There is. however, no reason to doubt the existence of an ancient hero whose name was preserved in two forms, Abram and Abra ham, the former representing perhaps a contrac tion or dialectical variation of the latter, and to whom as a popular personage various sto ries that had come down from various periods were attached. Of the "historical" Abram or Abraham hardly anything more can be asserted than that his home appears to have been Hebron. The wandering; of the Terahites, among whom Abram is reckoned, reflect the faint recollection of the origin of the Hebrews. or of some of the claws who subsequently formed part of the coali• tion known as Hebrews from the Mesopotamian district. The story of the wanderings of the Te rahites along the Euphrates and thence into Palestine is typical of the manner in which nomadic bands in the early and the late days of Babylonian history proceeded from the Arab. ian desert, and, attracted by Babylonian •ul ture, skirted the western borders of this culture. some making more or less permanent settlements, while others pass on to the north. A signifieant passage in Deuteronomy (xxvi : 5) designates the ancestors of the Hebrews as "nomadic Ara. mzeans." Aram here is a designation for Mesopo tamia, and the chief value of the story of Abra ham's wanderings lies accordingly in thus pre serving a picture of conditions prevailing at the earliest period of which any recollection survived among the people.
Ihmaomutrnv. For the rabbinical legends and traditions about Abraham, consult : Beer. Das Le ben. Abrahams in Lcbcnsgemablen biblisehcr Per sonen. each Auffassaing der judisehen Sage zig. 1859) ; a:tint:num, Nruc Beit•lige zu• semi tiehcn Sageokundc (Leipzig, 1893), which also contains the Alohammedan legends about Abra ham. For archleologieal aspects, see Tomkins's Studies on the Times of .4 bra ham (London. 1878); Sayee. Patriarchal Palestine IITtreeht, 1S95) (to he used with caution), as well as the early chapters in histories of the Hebrews by Stade, Kittel, Gnthe, Piepenbring, as well as the eommentaries on Genesis by Gunkel, Dilhnann, Delitzseh. etc.