Was Abraham a Historical Person?

[Diogenes]

I always assumed Abraham was a real person, a person from history. I assumed the Biblical account was biased or flawed, but had some truth to it, but...

Most historians view the patriarchal age, along with the Exodus and the period of the biblical judges, as a late literary construct that does not relate to any particular historical era; and after a century of exhaustive archaeological investigation, no evidence has been found for a historical Abraham.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham
... citing McNutt, Paula M. (1999). Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel. Westminster John Knox Press. , and
Dever, William G. (2001). What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and when Did They Know It?: What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.

One of the reasons this argument makes sense is the Torah was composed in the 6th century BCE while there were tensions between Jewish landowners who had remained during the Babylonian captivity and the returning exiles. The ones who stayed behind used 'father Abraham' to bolster their claims; the others appealed to the tradition of Moses and the Exodus. This rings true, that justifying land rights would inspire literature.

[Difflugia]

As you phrased the question ("Was Abraham a historical person?") is one of those things that's harder to answer as a binary yes/no than determining whether specific stories are legendary or fictional. Abraham is less likely to have been real than Moses, who is less likely real than David, who is less likely real than Josiah, pretty much just by virtue of the stories being more and more subsumed by legend as time went on.

Pretty much every story about Abraham, though, is almost certainly fictive. Note how the Abimelech story is told about both Abraham and Isaac, for example. It's almost like the stories in Genesis chapters 20-21 and chapter 26 are from a template:

Once upon a time, ${PATRIARCH} and ${WIFE} went to Gerar during a famine. Abimelech took a shine to ${WIFE} and ${PATRIARCH} was worried that the king would kill him, so he told ${WIFE} to pretend to be his sister instead of his wife. Yahweh told Abimelech what was happening in a dream, so Abimelech and Phicol made a deal with ${PATRIARCH} and ${WIFE} and sent them away with gifts. Then ${PATRIARCH} dug some wells, including a really important one named Beersheba. ${PATRIARCH} is the one that named it, in fact.

There's also the weird story of Genesis 14 that reads to me as an alternate version of Abraham rescuing Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah. Source critics assign the chapter to a complely different source than one of the standard JEDP. It's less magical (instead of "don't look back or the angel will kill you," it's "be careful of the tar pits"). Is Genesis 14 closer to a historical version of the narrative or was the story legend from the beginning?

[Diogenes]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #2]

It's funny you mention the way I posed the question. I actually thought about it, and couldn't decide, so I went with the phrase from Wikipedia article. I've never thought about it before, but now it makes me feel silly. Obviously Abraham was not real. The 'binding of Isaac,' the Abimelech story, yes they don't read like historical accounts. The Abimelech tale puzzled me as a college student. Abraham lies. God is still on his side. Abimelech argues with God and appears to change God's mind. Pretty crazy stuff. I knew Job was a screenplay. I just never thought about Abraham. Throw in Jacob wrestling with an angel (or God) and yes, it's obvious these are stories as made up and theatrical as Noah's Ark and the Garden of Eden.
. . .
It's odd... after reflecting I feel like a sucker all over again. Abraham too is a lie. I thought I'd come to terms with the... uh... 'anti factual' text of the Bible... made my peace with it. Realizing again the con was more extensive than I thought brings it back again. The worst is, the community I was raised in, the lovely folks who taught me this stuff as if it were 'gospel' were sincere. They believed it. They weren't trying to take advantage of a kid. But it is all a lie nonetheless. ... a lie passed on innocently. It's sad, but, I am already laughing at myself. Why take any of it seriously? It's just human... all too human... human credulity and tribal rites... a cosmic joke

[TRANSPONDER]

I've sometimes wondered about that. In itself there's no reason why he shouldn't be a real person, even if one doubts some of the stories about him. There's also every reason he should have been invented. Especially is one is toying with a theory of the Origins chapters being written during the Exile and using a Lot of Babylonian ideas. Where else would Abraham come from other than what the Babylonians reckoned was the Origin city of Mesopotamia (though I recall that one of the others - Uruk or Eridu was the first)? To me the conviction ... sorry..make that hypothesis... that Genesis and Exodus are origin stories concocted to give the origins of people and God's people persuade me that Abraham must be an invented forefather.

I have a hope that some genius will work out where the name came from. I have this Theory ... ..that Moses is a borrowing of Ahmose I. That would fit very nicely. But Abraham seems inexplicable. To find it is Babylonian for 'First one out of the box' would be great.

[1213]

I always assumed Abraham was a real person...

I believe he is a real person, where else could have all the Jews come from?

But, I understand also that history can't be proven. In this case, I think Occam's razor points to real Abraham, because it is the simplest and most reasonable explanation for the story. Those who claim he was not real, drown to the swamp of their own imaginary explanations that they make out of thin air, without anything solid to support their wishful thinking.

[Difflugia]

I believe he is a real person, where else could have all the Jews come from?

But, I understand also that history can't be proven. In this case, I think Occam's razor points to real Abraham, because it is the simplest and most reasonable explanation for the story. Those who claim he was not real, drown to the swamp of their own imaginary explanations that they make out of thin air, without anything solid to support their wishful thinking.

Those arguments work just as well (or not) for the historicity of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome or Hellen, eponymous ancestor of the Hellenic Greeks. Whether there was an actual Abraham upon whom the Old Testament character is based, Occam's razor would point to the stories of him in the Bible being legendary. Tribes of people aren't founded by one guy setting off into the wilderness, but by groups of people separating from established populations. If the Abrahamic origin stories are true, then we would believe that though the tribes of Israel were spread across 10,000 square miles, they were each founded by one of a dozen brothers of the same generation. That is the sort of "wishful thinking" that would require, in the language of Occam's razor, the "multiplication of entities" in order to maintain the origin stories as true.

As a concrete example, realize that if the "Joseph in Egypt" story is true as written, then the "caravan of Ishmaelites" in Genesis 37:25 was composed of his literal cousins. Ishmael, the eponymous ancestor of all the Ishmaelites, was the brother of Joseph's grandfather. The story presupposes that the Ishmaelites existed as a nationality despite only being in the second generation from the supposed founder. "Swamp of their own imaginary explanations," indeed! The story's completely anachronistic and the simplest explanation is that it's legend.

[TRANSPONDER]

I always assumed Abraham was a real person...

I believe he is a real person, where else could have all the Jews come from?

But, I understand also that history can't be proven. In this case, I think Occam's razor points to real Abraham, because it is the simplest and most reasonable explanation for the story. Those who claim he was not real, drown to the swamp of their own imaginary explanations that they make out of thin air, without anything solid to support their wishful thinking.

It's a bit like the flat earth isn't it? The simplest and most reasonable explanation is that it looks flat, so it probably is.

But the problem is that evidence shows that the actual answer is more complicated and few would have guessed it without. The way the evidence looks is that the Hebrews never existed other than as a tribe of goat herding hill tribes in the north east. The archaeology and history suggests that there were no Hebrews before the 12th-11th c B.C (1) there were Canaanite city states under Egyptian rule until the bronze age collapse and then the Aramaic -speaking tribes took over. The Hebrews used Phoenecian to write their language. There is no good reason to believe the tales of Moses, the Exodus or Conquest. No reason to believe Lot and the Eponymous founders or rival tribes, all intended to be Israel's slaves nor the image of the clean beast sacrificing proto - Hebrew Noah before there was any Hebrew law and custom. And no reason to believe Joseph, Isaac, Lot or any of that lot. An no reason to suppose the really too easy founder of their tribe coming from the oldest city they knew of. When their language suggests an origin with the northeaster hill tribes.

I also think that the evidence, or at least clues, suggest the books or origins (the first two) were written in Babylon and borrow Babylonian material. It is significant that the Exodus is affected (in the story) by Philistia, which didn't even exist until later. Pretty much proves that it is retrospective and wrong, too. So on the clues and history and archaeology, I'd say the simpler and easier story of Abraham is just not the most probable one.

Not that it really matters even if it was all true up to Habbakuk. The Gospel story and resurrection isn't true, so Christianity fails even if Abrahamic origins didn't.

(1) despite various efforts to try to validate Hebrews enslaved in Egypt - see the inerrancy thread for otseng making the best case for the Exodus you'll ever see, though I think in the end really with nothing substantial.

[1213]

It's a bit like the flat earth isn't it? The simplest and most reasonable explanation is that it looks flat, so it probably is.
...

That is interesting. I don't think earth looks flat.

[JehovahsWitness]

Tribes of people aren't founded by one guy setting off into the wilderness, but by groups of people separating from established populations.

The account doesnt depict Abraham moving alone , the bible account depicts him leaving Ur with his entire family. Thus the story'of Abraham leaving Ur exactly matches what you said, ie it depicts a {to quote you} "[group] of people separating from established populations" {end quote} . By definition a tribe has a common familial, historical and/or cultural link...



As has been said it would be extremely problematic to try to explain a tribe without common ancestors.

...we would believe that ...tribes of Israel .. were each founded by one of a dozen brothers of the same generation.

Just to clarify are you again here suggesting that it is unlikely that the tribes of Israel had common ancestry?




JW









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[JehovahsWitness]

If the Abrahamic origin stories are true, then we would believe that though the tribes of Israel were spread across 10,000 square miles, ...

Could you please explain what this sentence is referring to here (referably with a bible reference - scripture and verses).