Transcript The Patriarchs and Matriarchs

The Patriarchs and Matriarchs
Their Historicity from the Point-ofView of the Biblical Conservatives,
the Centrists, and Minimalists
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 landpurchase 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);
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Bedouin Encampment in the Desert.
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Chronology – Traditional:
- Early Bronze IV=Intermediate Bronze Period (22002000 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);
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Cities of Mesopotamia (= modern Iraq) ca. 2000
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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;
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- the mention of Gerar=Tel Haror in Genesis as a Philistine
city.
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).
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