The Evolution of Abraham

Every superhero has an origin story that explains how they got their superpowers or what motivates them. Nations also have origin stories. Israel has more than one origin story.

This seems like a curious claim. Isn’t the Bible the origin story of Israel? Yes, but as we have seen, the Bible has preserved competing traditions.

Competing Origins

The oldest origin story for Israel is the cycle of narratives surrounding Jacob in Gen 25-35. Judging by the historical context, the substance of the Jacob cycle appears to have been written down at the end of the 8th or the beginning of the 7th century BCE. After cheating his older brother of birthright and blessing, Jacob flees to the land of the Arameans, acquires wives and children and livestock, and obtains recognition as his own tribe (Gen 31). The final chapters have Jacob reconciling with his brother and connect him to sacred sites such as Peniel, Shechem and Bethel.

The Jacob cycle is a complete legend of Israel’s origin. On its own, it explains the existence of the twelve tribes and which are the most important, proves their rights to the hill country of central Palestine, recounts the founding of the main sanctuary at Bethel, and so on. But this Israel is not the one we know from other traditions in the Bible. This Israel is not a community of believers nor a warring nation, but a tribe struggling for recognition.

Compare the origin story of Jacob with the better-known origin story of Moses and the Exodus. Moses, too, had to flee to a foreign land where he married the daughter of a desert sheikh, only to finally return to his homeland with a mission. But Moses is not a patriarch, his sons play no role in the formation of Israel. According to the Exodus story, one is not a son of Israel through genealogy but by hearing the call from YHWH through his prophet Moses. Israel’s origins lie not in the tents of Laban, but in Egypt and the desert.

If this theory of competing origin stories sounds highly speculative to you, there is some hard evidence to support it. In chapter 12 of the Book of Hosea (end of 8^th century BCE), the prophet invites his audience to choose between the competing and conflicting legends of origins. Hosea’s challenge closes with this:

Jacob fled to the land of Aram,
there Israel served for a wife,
and for a wife he guarded sheep.

By a prophet YHWH brought Israel up from Egypt,
and by a prophet he was guarded.

Hosea seems to be asking his audience: Who do you want to be? Biological descendants of a scoundrel or a people called by God? He hoped to persuade his audience to choose Moses but, in the end, Israel refused to choose one origin story over the other and kept both.

Abraham: The Promise by Israeli artist Zvi Leonhard (https://zviandariane.com/). God uses the dust of the earth and stars of the heavens as metaphors for descendants beyond measure (Gen 13:16; 15:5)

Growth of the Abraham Legend

Is the Abraham cycle yet another origin story?

First of all, the Abraham cycle is not as old as the Jacob cycle. References to Abraham don’t appear outside Genesis until Ezek 33:23-29 and Is 51:1-3 (both 6^th century). The Ezekiel reference says Abraham came to possess the land. The reference from Isaiah says YHWH blessed Abraham and Sarah and made them parents of multitudes. In both citations we see expressed the dual theme of the Abraham cycle: the land and offspring.

Despite the fact that the references are 6^th century, biblical scholars believe that the origins of the Abraham legend were formed around the same time as the Jacob cycle (8^th-7^th centuries BCE). The core set of narratives (Gen 13; 16; 18-19; and 21:1-4) is centered on Hebron and the sacred oak of Mamre. Abraham (under his original name of “Abram”) has two sons, but only one belongs to Israel. Through Lot, Abraham is also related to the Moabite and Ammonite people. If the Abraham cycle is an origin story, it is not just an origin story of Israel.

Based on the core narratives, Abraham is an indigenous hero of the south. Isaac, too, is a legendary hero of the south, centered around Beersheba. Early on, Isaac was joined to the Abraham cycle as Abraham’s son. What remains of Isaac’s story (Gen 26) and was recast as narratives involving Abraham (Gen 20 and 21:22-34). Outside of Gen 26, Isaac only appears as either a son of Abraham or a father of Jacob.

After the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians in 721 BCE, the survivors brought their national origin story (the Jacob cycle) to the southern kingdom of Judah where it was merged with the combined Abraham-Isaac cycle. During the Babylonian exile, the conjoined Abraham/Jacob cycle of stories was modified to reflect a promise of land because the Israelites were no longer in possession of the land. A Babylonian backstory was provided for Abraham. The divine command that came to Abraham in Ur to go forth to Canaan was a call for the exiles to leave Babylon and return to the promised land.

With the addition of the primeval history and Joseph narrative, Genesis became a prequel to the Exodus story.

The Ecumenical Patriarch

While it may have started as legends of a southern hero, the Abraham cycle evolved into something else. What is his ultimate role in the OT?

One clue can be found in  a curious note (Gen 15:9) made upon the death of Abraham:

His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre, the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites.

We thought we had seen the last of Ishmael back in Gen 21:8-21 when he and his mother Hagar had been expelled to the desert. At a story level, the purpose of Ishmael's exile was leave Abraham only one remaining son when God called for a sacrifice (Gen 22). Yet the P source brings Ishmael back into the story as a reminder that Abraham is not only the father of Israel or Judah or the Jews, but is the ancestor of many nations.

According to an interesting article by Albert de Pury, Professor for OT studies at the University of Geneva, Abraham was ultimately seen as an “ecumenical patriarch.” In contrast to other traditions that found their way into the Bible insisting the promised land must be taken from the Canaanites in a war of conquest that ends in the extermination of all the land’s former inhabitants, Abraham is seen as peacefully co-existing with the various Canaanite clans. He is the father of or is closely related to neighboring nations such as the Arabs (Ishmael is the ancestor of the twelve tribes of the Arab federation), the twelve tribes of Israel (through his grandson Jacob), Edomites (through his grandson Esau), Midianites (through his second wife Keturah), and Ammonites and Moabites (through Lot).

De Pury uses the adjective “ecumenical” in the sense of “worldwide or general in extent, influence, or application.” As the father of many nations (Gen 17:5), perhaps a better adjective – although more technical – for Abraham’s role in Genesis would be “transethnic” or “transnational” patriarch.

The more commonly-used meaning of the word “ecumenical” is “of, relating to, or representing the whole of a body of churches.” It is in this sense that the term “ecumenical patriarch” is appropriate for how Abraham is viewed today.  Abraham is venerated by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. If the children of Abraham can focus on him as a symbol of what we have in common rather than what divides us, the world will be a better place.