The Patriarchs and Matriarchs

Their Historicity from the Point-of-View of the Biblical Conservatives,

the Centrists, and Minimalists

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The Biblical Texts on the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs:

Genesis 11.27-50.26: The Story of the Ancestors of Israel;

Genesis 11.27-25.18: The Story of Abraham and Sarah;

Genesis 11.27-32: Introduction of the Abraham story;

Genesis 12.1-3: The LORD’s call and promise to Abraham;

Genesis 12.4-9: Abraham’s first journey to the land;

Gen 16.1-16: Hagar bears Abraham a son;

Gen 19.30-38: Lot the father of Moab and the Ammonites;

Gen 21.1-21: The Birth of Isaac and the Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael;

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The Biblical Texts (Contd.):

Gen 24.1-67: A Wife for Isaac;

Gen 24.62-67: The marriage of Isaac and Rebekah;

Gen 25.19-36.43: The Story of Isaac and Jacob;

Gen 25.19-34: The Birth of Esau and Jacob/Israel – twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah;

Gen 29.1-30: Jacob’s Marriages: Leah and Rachel; and then Zilpah and Bilhah;

(The Ancestors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel are the sons of Jacob and four women.)

Gen 37.1-50.26: The Story of Joseph – a Son of Jacob and Rachel

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Abraham’s Route – Traditional View.

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The Conservatives’ Position Relative to the Stories of the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs:

- See the position of R. de Vaux and W. F. Albright on this on pp. 42-44 of the Textbook;

- Many convinced that new discoveries would prove that the Patriarchs were historical figures (Textbook, p. 42);

-They found support in that the personal names and land-purchase laws in Genesis are similar to those found in 2nd millennium B.C. Mesopotamian texts;

- a Bedouin way of life practiced by the Patriarchs and Matriarchs and pastoral groups of Mesopotamian origin in Canaan around 2000 B.C.;

- The “Amorite Hypothesis”’ (Albright and the Intermediate Period between the Early and Middle Bronze Age);

8Bedouin Encampment in the Desert.

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Chronology – Traditional:

- Early Bronze IV=Intermediate Bronze Period (2200-2000 BC);

- Middle Bronze II Period (2000-1550 BC);

- Late Bronze Period (1550-1200 BC);

- Iron Age I (1200-1000 BC);

- Iron Age II (1000-586 BC);

- Babylonian and Persian Periods (586-332 BC);

- Hellenistic Period (332-63 BC).

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The Conservative Position Relative to the Stories of the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs:

- R. de Vaux and the identification of the age of the Patriarchs to the Middle Bronze Age;

- Gordon and Speiser: the similarities between social and legal practices in 2nd m. B.C. Near Eastern texts, e.g., the Nuzi Tablets (Textbook, p. 44);

12Cities of Mesopotamia (= modern Iraq) ca. 2000 B.C.

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Nuzi Tablets (Late Bronze Age).

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Difficulties with the Conservative/Traditional Dating of the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs (Finkelstein):

- The nomadic way of life – pastoralists (sheep,goats);

- The “Amorite Hypothesis”;

- Important sites, e.g., Shechem, Beer-sheba, and Hebron, mentioned in the stories of Abraham did not yield finds from the Intermediate Bronze Age (Textbook, p. 44);

- the problem with using the Nuzi Texts to date the period of the Patriarchs;

- “Anachronisms” in the text, e.g., mention of the Philistines and the Arameans;

- Camels in the stories;

- the mention of Gerar=Tel Haror in Genesis as a Philistine city.

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Finkelstein’s Centrist Position:

- Stories of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs written from the point-of-view of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah;

- The Arameans and the early 9th century BC;

- Stories also reflect the relations that Israel had with its neighbours, namely, Ammon and Moab, in the 8th and 7th centuries BC;

- Stories of relationships between the brothers Jacob and Esau, the fathers of Israel and Edom, reflect what was happening between Israel and Edom in late-monarchic times (Textbook, p. 47);

- the Arabian caravan trade of the 8th and 7th centuries BC;

- The stories and similarities to the Assyrian and Babylonian empires of the 9th-6th centuries BC.

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The Land of Biblical Israel.

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Finkelstein’s Position:

- The Patriarchal traditions must be considered as a sort of pious “prehistory” of Israel in which Judah played a decisive role (Textbook, p. 50).

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Martin Noth’s Position:

-The Patriarchal stories were separate regional traditions that were assembled into a unified narrative to serve the purpose of politically unifying a heterogeneous Israelite population (Textbook, p. 49);

- the geographical focus of the stories provide a clue as to where each of the traditions come from;

- the Patriarchs were originally separate regional ancestors which were eventually brought together in a single genealogy in an effort to create a unified history (Textbook, p. 49);

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Mazar’s Centrist Position:

- Parallels between the 2nd millennium BC culture of the Levant and the cultural background portrayed in the Patriarchal stories are too close to be ignored;

- Examples: The MB II period as a time when most of the cities mentioned in the Patriarchal stories, e.g., Shechem, Bethel, Jerusalem, and Hebron, were settled and fortified;

- the personal names in the stories are mostly of the “Amorite” type known from the 2nd millennium BC;

- the stories find parallels in the texts from Mari and Nuzi;

- the high position of Joseph in Egypt and the presence of the Hyksos in Egypt;

- acknowledgement of the anachronisms in the stories, e.g. camels, Philistines, and Arameans;

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Mazar’s Position:

-The kernels of these stories are generally considered to be rooted in the MB II period (Textbook, p. 58);

(M. Weippert’s position: Patriarchs who lived as Shasu or nomadic people mentioned in the Egyptian texts of the Late Bronze Age.)

-See Textbook, p. 59 for a summary of Mazar’s position;

- he acknowledges what happened to the Patriarchal stories in the process of oral transmission and editorial work reflecting much later historical situations;

- Patriarchal narratives contain kernels of old traditions and stories rooted in 2nd millennium BC realia (Textbook, p. 59).

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The Minimalists’ Position (Textbook, pp. 12-13):

- P. Davies’s position (Textbook, p. 12);

- J. Van Seters and T. Thompson (Textbook, p. 58);

- Exilic or post-exilic dates for the entirety of the Patriarchal traditions;

- No affinity to any 2nd millennium BC backgrounds;

- Today most scholars define the Patriarchal traditions as a late invention with no historical validity (Textbook, p. 50).