Individual Time: Biblical Abraham in the Historical Landscape of Ancient Civilizations

Having worked through both the Geographical and Social Time aspects of the ancient Near East, this study moves now into Individual or Punctular Time. Where Geographical Time deals with the very slow changing geological and geographical aspects of history, including mountains, rivers, seas, metals, and the like, and where Social Time deals with the somewhat slow changing social aspects of history, including generations of differing people groups, empires, political relationships, types and uses of tools or objects, and the lasting effects of key individuals, Punctular Time deals with the faster changing aspects of history, including those related to individuals, wars, battles, treaties, and more. Punctular Time is that piece of the Braudelian puzzle that most people refer to when they speak of history, the “names and dates.” 

Important Punctular events in modern history may include 1492, 1776, 1914, 1949, and 2001. Avoiding numbers, one may speak of Christopher Columbus, America’s Declaration of Independence and the war that followed, World War I, the founding of Communist China, or the attacks on the War on Terror. These events are Punctular or Individual Time aspects in the Braudelian method. 

As this study involves ancient history, specifically the ancient history of the Near East, key moments will be expounded upon differentiated by way of geographical location, namely Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant. As such, this portion of the study is devoted to key Punctular events involving Mesopotamia. Though it would be impossible to note every single Punctular event, key moments will be pulled out and investigated. The purpose of this last section of the study is to show how Geographical and Social Time help to interpret Individual Time, and as such, this study of Punctular Time begins with biblical Abraham.

The biblical story of Abraham is well known worldwide, Abraham being the progenitor of the three, modern Hebraic Religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. As the narrative informs, Abram was called by the One True God to leave his home, travel to a new place, and then sire a nation, his name being changed to Abraham along the way. 

The events of Abraham’s career are recorded in Genesis 11:27-25:11, which is the largest of the תּוֹלְדֹת (toledot) pericopes in Genesis (DeRemer 2014: 53), these being twelve literary sections of the book of Genesis, the last eleven of which begin with some form of the word toledot or ‘generations,’ as the KJV translates it, in a form such as “these are the generations of …,” including the toledot of the heavens and the earth, Adam, Noah, the sons of Noah, Shem specifically, and then Abraham’s portion as the toledot of Terah, the father of Abraham. The question that concerns this study is this: how does the story of Abraham fit into the historical narrative?

Establishing a Date Range for Abraham

In order to understand how Abraham fits into the historical narrative, one must first establish a date range for the person of Abraham. Much has been written on this topic. Two options will be summarized below, namely placing Abraham in either the Middle Bronze Age or placing him in the Early Bronze Age (Wiseman 1991: 25), though some fringe elements have attempted to date Abraham to the Neolithic or Chalcolithic either by squeezing these periods down to ca. 1800 B.C. (Osgood 1986: 80) or by placing Abraham ca. 5400 B.C. (Alatiqi 2023: 14). The Neolithic/Chalcolithic option will not be entertained here.

Concerning either the Middle or Early Bronze Age positions, much depends on both the length that Israel continued in Egypt, either a 215-year sojourn or one extending 430 years (McClellan 2011: 152), and the date that one assumes of the Exodus (McCarter 1999: 1). As the length of time is counted backwards from a known point, those suggesting a 215-year sojourn argue for a Middle Bronze II birth and life of Abraham, while those suggesting a 430-year sojourn, naturally, argue for a period farther back in time, namely Early Bronze IV. Those who assume a 13th c. Exodus presume a 430 year sojourn. 

Middle Bronze II

Several historical and archaeological evidences are offered in support of the Middle Bronze Age. One such evidence includes the price of slaves, particularly as that historical price relates to the monetary amount that Joseph, the son of Jacob, was sold to passing Ishmaelites in Genesis 37: 28, namely twenty silver shekels. Within the Code of Hammurabi (Line 252), and in documents from Mari, the standard price of a slave during the Middle Bronze II period was one-third of a mina, which equals to about twenty silver shekels (Kitchen 1995: 2). Interestingly, earlier during the Ur III period or EB IV, the cost of a slave was around ten shekels (Zettler 1991: 108), and later in Assyria, the price reaches around thirty shekels of silver (Johns 1924: 545-46). Thus, based on the price of a slave, Joseph would appear to have been sold during the Middle Bronze Age. 

Additionally, there are common features between early second millennium treaties and the differing covenants found in Genesis (Kitchen 1995: 5), and many of the geo-political conditions appear to have been the same during the Middle Bronze II period (Kitchen 1995: 8). Also of note, some arguments against an Early Bronze IV date include the “impossibilities” of the long life spans of the patriarchs, the inconsistent generations assigned to Moses and then Joshua within the biblical texts, and the so-called lack of archaeological evidences ca. 1400 B.C. for the biblical conquest of Canaan (McCarter 1999: 1), this last so-called evidence then argues for a ca. 1200 B.C. Conquest. 

Early Bronze IV Pottery from Ebla

Early Bronze IV

Interestingly, the final argument above, that Abraham must have had his career during MB II because the conquest occurred during the 1200s B.C., is evidence that this author uses to place Abraham in EB IV, namely because the date of 1446 B.C. for the Exodus and 1406 B.C. for the Conquest are such firmly established dates (Wood 2007: 258). From these dates, and using Exodus 12:40-41 and Galatians 3:17, a date 430 years before the Exodus is established as the time that the children of Israel went down into Egypt, a date of 1876 B.C. which is indeed during the Middle Bronze Age but stands as an event outside of the life of Abraham. 

Some argue that Galatians 3:17-18, which makes reference to the Abrahamic Covenant, extends the sojourn not from the time of Jacob and his family entering Egypt but from the covenant made to Abraham and must hence begin when Abraham entered Egypt. This is problematic as Acts 7:6-7, which lists the amount of time passed as 400 years, specifically discusses maltreatment and enslavement of the Israelites, events that did not occur during Abraham’s stay in Egypt (Ray 1986: 235).

Assuming this long chronology, the birth of Abraham could be dated following the standard date of ca. 2170 B.C. (Alatiqi 2023: 2). This would place Abraham’s first year in Canaan ca. 2095 B.C. (Ray 1986: 239), which is either during the First Intermediate Period of Egypt (Maisels 2005: 38) or shortly thereafter (Ray 1986: 240), and therefore a date during Early Bronze IV in the Southern Levant.

Travels

Of course, Abraham did not just appear in Canaan. He began in Ur of Mesopotamia, a city of much importance to the region both before and during Abraham’s life. Having established a birth year for Abraham ca. 2170 B.C., the patriarch appears to have been born during the Semitic Akkadian Empire, which ended ca. 2150 B.C. (Adamo and Al-Ansari 2020: 18). To what extent the family of Abraham was involved in the Semitic government, if at all, is completely unknown and likely to remain that way, but the very concept of internal conflict in the Akkadian Empire (Gregory 2016: 450) necessarily means strife, particularly as the drying phase continued to cause problems in the region even after Abraham had arrived in Canaan (Ur 2015: 75). This is not to say that the collapsing Akkadian Empire was fraught with antisemitism; in fact, statues of Sargonic kings were still being honored after the collapse (Cooper 1983: 10). 

From Ur

Having established a date for Abraham concurrent with the Ur III period, which dates ca. 2112-2004 B.C. (McClellan 2012: 141), Abraham was living in the post-Akkadian capital of the region. Shortly after the defeat of the Gutians at the hands of Utu-hegal of Uruk (Mieroop 2002: 409), who established a rather short-lived power dating ca. 2120-2112 B.C. (McClellan 2012: 141), Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, took power of the region, establishing the Ur III empire (Liverani and Tabatabai 2014: 156). Being seventy-five years old when he left Ḫaran for Canaan (Genesis 12: 4), Abraham left Ur around seventy years old (Kato 2019: 7) and therefore just as the region began to stabilize, ca. 2100 B.C., likely during the reign of Ur-Nammu (Espak 2016: 19).

To Ḫaran

The settlement of Ḫaran is located in modern northern Syria (Schmid 2018: 10), which was a part of northern Mesopotamia, and is the geographical region of the Arameans (McCarter 1999: 1), a people group of whom Abraham belonged (Deuteronomy 26:5). The site was known as an important layover on the road between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers (Blenkinsopp 2015: 28). Archaeologically, there is little to know from Ḫaran during the Patriarchal Age, but there is inscriptional evidence of a temple dedicated to the Mesopotamian moon deity, Sîn, dating back to the early parts of the second millennium (Chavalas 2002A: 379). 

Of particular interest, Ur-Nammu, the founder of the Ur III empire and king of Ur during the later part of Abraham’s life there, built the Ziggurat of Ur dedicated to the same moon god, Sîn (Smoot 2017: 1). As a matter of fact, the city of Ur was the center of worship for the moongod (Stol 1999: 783). This connection is furthered by the possible interrelation between Terah, the father of Abraham, and the deity, Sîn, specifically the linguistic relationships between the family names Sarai, Milcah, Laban, and possibly even Terah himself, with the lunar deity (Chavalas 2002C: 829), for example the name Sarah relating to the Babylonian Šarratu, wife of Sîn (Becking 1999: 724).

The biblical narrative does not explain why Abraham stopped at Ḫaran, and even if the stop was somehow a wrong move, but several theories have arisen, namely that Terah became sick as evidenced by his death at the site, good pasture was located as evidenced by the climate of the region, and the religious consistencies between Ur and Ḫaran. Whatever the reason, Abraham did leave and continued his journey onto Canaan.

At Canaan

Nothing is said of the journey to Canaan, but the story picks up upon reaching the land, specifically Shechem. At Shechem, Abraham hears the voice of Yahweh once again, and he builds an altar to his deity, which may have also acted as a land claim stake as is seen elsewhere within Scripture (Blenkinsopp 2015: 39). 

Key to the story of Abraham is the time period in which Abraham entered the land. Whereas EB III contained fortified, and even a few highly fortified, cities (Greenberg 2013: 273), EB IV in the Southern Levant was a deflated period and the land was scarcely populated (Mazar 1990: 151). Some walled cities did remain in the Levant during EB IV, such as Khirbet el-Meiyiteh, but walled cities were primarily found in the north (Bar, Cohen, and Zertal 2013: 172). The majority of Levantine inhabitants lived as mobile pastoralists or village dwellers (Mazar 1990: 151) living in either small, undefended villages or transitory encampments, establishing new sites at locations different than EB III settlements (Regev et al. 2012: 527).

The pastoralist lifestyle of the Southern Levant during the time of Abraham was connected to the Second Eblaite kingdom in the Northern Levant, which had a strong wool economy (Höflmayer 2017: 13). It is possible that the northern wool economy made a decisive impact on the south’s shift toward pastoralism in the early stages of EB IV (Greenberg 2017: 47), but the southern culture was never truly integrated into northern society (Höflmayer 2017: 13). Instead, it continued as a semi-pastoral society. This was a shift in both the social order and the subsistence economy of the land (Mazar 1990: 170) that might be called a ‘dark age’ (de Miroschedji 2014: 322). Except for only a few sites, most EB IV settlements are established at new locations, though the Transjordan region shows more continuity (Regev et al. 2012: 527). 

Thus, Abraham entered into Canaan at a seemingly perfect time. The pastoral lifestyle of Abraham and his family matched the lifestyle of many of the Southern Levantine inhabitants, and Abraham likely participated in trade with Northern Levantine merchants or other pastoralists selling their flocks to the Eblaites and other northern Levantine cities, the Eblaites specifically reestablishing themselves after the destruction of the city some time before Abraham (Dolce 2016: 293). If Abraham had lived and entered during EB III, he would had been met with a great deal of conflict, particularly by the warring, fortified cities. If he had entered during MB IIA, the Second Eblaite kingdom and its wool economy would not exist (Alkhalid 2015: 9), and Abraham would had faced the ever growing Second Urbanization of the region (D’Andrea 2014: 151-52).

Abraham’s Faith

There is some dispute as to whether Abraham served Yahweh before God had called him, and Joshua 24:2 may or may not reveal that Abraham was included in those who were polytheistic (Schmid 2018: 10), but worship of Yahweh, specifically, dates to the time of Enosh, son of Seth, son of Adam, as evidenced in Genesis 4:26. Whether Abraham was, himself, a polytheist is unimportant to the narrative. What is important to the narrative is the acceptance of the deity who had called him.

Ancient El Worship

The land to which Abraham had arrived was a land centered on the worship of the Semitic deity, El. In Ugaritic texts, El is the chief god (Gray 1957: 115) who is described as an aged, wise, and kindly creator god (Hess 2007: 97; Smith 2002: 2). He is the creator of all things, including all other deities and humanity (Robinson 2010: 28; Tasker : 58), but he stands apart from other deities in that El has no nature-centered symbolism (i.e., storm, sea, death, etc.). The closest nature-centered symbolism for El would be the image of the Bull or perhaps his abode, the mouth of the river as per the Baal Cycle. Thus, El is a different kind of god.

El, as a deity, appears to be an original Semitic god, as per early textual evidence (Gray 1957: 120), appearing in the earliest Old Akkadian texts without case ending, as use of the divine name (Cross 1997: 13). At Ras Shamra, there is clear evidence for the term el being used not as a general conception but as the name of a specific deity (Gray 1957: 119). Thus, originally, el appears to have been a proper noun that eventually became a common noun, and not vice versa.

El and Yahweh: One and the Same

Of particular interest to the subject at hand is that in Genesis 14:22, after Melchizedek offers a blessing upon Abraham by the name of El Most High, Abraham responds by raising his hand in a vow to Yahweh, El Most High, Creator of Heaven and Earth, equating El of the local population with Yahweh in the biblical text (Smith 2002: 213). Interestingly, the phrase in Genesis 14:22 describing Yahweh is reminiscent of one used in the Phoenician Inscription of Azitawadd, which describes El as the creator god (Gordon 1949: 111). 

In these early years of Hebraic tradition, the deity, El, who was worshipped by Semites in the land of Canaan, and likely in fact worshipped since the days of Shem, appears to have been the one true God from whom Abraham received a calling and promise, particularly as seen in the Melchizedek passage. Of note, in addition to worshiping with Canaanites (Gen. 14:22), Abraham makes deals with Canaanites (Gen. 23:17), fights alongside Canaanites (Gen 14:24), and overall has a positive view of his ethnic neighbors. After the patriarchal period, this view became diminished, no doubt linked to the importation of Ba’alism into Canaan at the end of the 19th century B.C. (Oldenburg 1969: 68, 144). Much later, at the time of Asaph, who penned Psalm 82, El had become differentiated from Yahweh altogether. 

A Correction to an Old Faith

Whether or not Abraham worshipped El, the Canaanite god, is not in question. What is important is to note that El, the Canaanite god, was worshipped in Canaan at the time that Abraham entered the land, Abraham even using the language of el in his own worship. This does not mean that Abraham was worshipping foreign gods. It is particularly obvious that Abraham worshiped Yahweh. 

In this writer’s opinion, El was likely not “an” early Semitic god but “the” earliest Semitic God, the God of Shem. This helps to explain the Canaanite dichotomy before and after the Egyptian sojourn. Abraham was with relatives—fellow Semites. Abraham was called by the God of the Semites. From future biblical texts, it is clear that the purpose of this calling was to bring about a more pure form of worship, culminating in the person of Jesus in the New Testament. The clash with the Canaanites comes only after Egypt, and for a very specific reason that includes their religious change from El worship to that of Ba’al, an outsider god.

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[This is a lecture written for the course 'HIST 262: History of the Ancient Near East,' taught Fall 2023 at God's Bible School and College, a regionally accredited College in Cincinnati, Ohio. Bibliographical material will be posted under Research on this site.]