Deciphering the Biblical Text – 9 / End

The Patriarchal Age: Myth or History?  – Mythic Thesis (2)

Searching for the Social Context of the Patriarchs.  One such method, which was especially popular in the middle decades of the 20th century, was based largely on archaeology. The scholars associated with this method took a generally positive view of the historical value of Genesis 12–50. They acknowledged that the patriarchal narratives in their present form were composed no earlier than the United Kingdom (tenth century BCE). Nevertheless, they argued that these materials were based on historically reliable traditions deriving from earlier periods. Excavations had provided extensive new data, including a substantial amount of written material. After studying these texts, many scholars were convinced that the biblical patriarchal stories contained authentic details preserved from the time of their origin. It seemed reasonable, therefore, to suppose that there was a historical patriarchal period and to hope that it might be identified. This point of view is associated most closely with the work of William F. Albright[1]  and his students.[2]  It was also developed and promoted by other prominent scholars, especially Ephraim A. Speiser. In brief, the argument of this “school” was as follows: Certain details in the biblical patriarchal stories—including personal names, social customs, legal practices and aspects of lifestyle—correspond to known features of second-millennium culture in Mesopotamia, Syria and Canaan. Many of the same details, moreover, do not fit into the culture of the Israelite monarchy, the time when the stories were written down. In the judgment of Albright and those who shared his viewpoint, it seemed likely that these details preserved authentic elements of the civilization of the patriarchal period; by studying them and comparing them to surviving second-millennium materials outside the Bible, we should be able to determine the original historical context of the patriarchal traditions. As Albright himself put it,

So many corroborations of detail have been discovered in recent years that most competent scholars have given up the old critical theory according to which the stories of the Patriarchs are mostly retrojections from the time of the Dual Monarchy [late tenth century BCE and later]. [3]

He wrote elsewhere,

As a whole, the picture in Genesis is historical, and there is no reason to doubt the general accuracy of the biographical details and the sketches of personality which make the patriarchs come alive with a vividness unknown to a single extrabiblical figure in the whole vast literature of the ancient Near East. [4]

 In general, Albright’s students did not express this viewpoint quite so strongly. As they acknowledged, archaeology cannot be expected to corroborate biographical details or specific references to private events. Nevertheless, archaeology might be able to shed light on the general historical context of the patriarchal stories. And this is primarily what was claimed by Albright and his students. They argued that the general cultural milieu of the patriarchal stories—as indicated by the details of social, economic and legal customs mentioned in the Bible—could best be identified with an early period and, more particularly, with the early second millennium BCE According to G. Ernest Wright [5] :

We shall probably never be able to prove that Abram really existed, that he did this or that, said thus and so, but what we can prove is that his life and times, as reflected in the stories about him, fit perfectly within the early second millennium, but imperfectly with any later period. [6]

The reconstruction of patriarchal history achieved by Albright, Speiser and others has had far-reaching consequences. It remains widely influential today. Recent research, however, has cast substantial doubt on many of its arguments, and the confidence these arguments inspired in scholars a generation ago has dissipated. To understand why this change has taken place, we must look more closely at their reconstruction and the evidence upon which it was based.

An urban culture flourished in Syria and Canaan during the Early Bronze Age, which spanned much of the third millennium BCE During the last quarter of the third millennium, however, this civilization collapsed and was replaced by a predominantly non-urban, pastoral culture. The factors that produced this change are not fully understood. The third dynasty of the city of Ur held sway in Mesopotamia at the time, and the records of the Ur III rulers complain of chronic trouble with non-urban peoples who were laying claim to lands previously controlled by the city. Scholars long supposed, therefore, that a chief factor in the urban collapse was an invasion—or at least a massive immigration—of nomadic peoples from the desert fringes of the region. These peoples, called Amurru—that is, “Westerners” or “Amorites”—in the Mesopotamian sources, gradually gained ascendancy in the settled portions of both Syria-Canaan and Mesopotamia, so that in the early second millennium they took the leadership in reestablishing urban centers.

The theory that an invasion or immigration of Amorites was responsible for the radical cultural changes that characterized the transition from the Early to Middle Bronze Age is sometimes called “the Amorite hypothesis.” A corollary of this hypothesis identifies the biblical patriarchs as Amorites. Albright associated Abraham’s wanderings with the Amorite movements and dated the Abraham phase of the patriarchal period to the end of the third millennium. He called this period, which he dated to 2100–1900 BCE, Middle Bronze I (MB I), since it represented a break from the preceding Early Bronze Age and was characterized by the arrival of the people who would assume cultural leadership later in the Middle Bronze Age.
The succeeding period, which Albright called MB II A, was an age of unwalled villages in Syria and Canaan. The strong 12th Dynasty kings of Egypt encouraged the gradual development of a system of city-states in Syria and Canaan. Then, as Egypt began to weaken at the end of this period, the new urban centers entered a period of independence, prosperity and high cultural attainment. Albright identified this period, which he called MB II B, as the time of the patriarch Jacob. This was the Old Babylonian period in Mesopotamia, when Hammurabi and his successors ruled. In Syria it is sometimes called “the age of Mari,” after the city attained a position of ascendancy in Syria and western Mesopotamia at the time. The life and history of Mari are recorded in a major cuneiform archive found at the site (see the post about Mari).

Local leadership for the process of re-urbanization came from the previously nomadic Amorite population. We know this because the new ruling dynasties in the city-states of Syria and Mesopotamia have characteristically Amorite names. There remained, however, a substantial nomadic population, which was also Amorite. The royal archives of Mari provide ample illustration of the coexistence of the two groups.

Many scholars—including several of Albright’s own students—were reluctant to be as precise as Albright in dating the Abraham phase of the patriarchal period to MB I and the Jacob phase to MB II B. They preferred a more general date, contending “simply that the Patriarchal stories are best understood in the setting of the early second millennium.” This position had the advantage of avoiding one of the problems of the Amorite hypothesis in its original form: Although MB I (to which Albright assigned the Abraham phase) was a strictly nonurban period, the Abraham narratives in the Bible do mention several cities. Moreover, none of the archaeological sites associated with these biblical cities has yielded any substantial MB I remains. It seemed better, therefore, to identify the patriarchal age with the subsequent period of re-urbanization in MB II and, more particularly, MB II B. Throughout Genesis, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are depicted as living in tents in proximity to urban centers, a situation that may be compared with the coexistence of nomadic and urban peoples at Mari and other cities in MB II B. Thus it was argued that the patriarchal way of life as depicted in the Genesis narratives was especially compatible with what we know of the civilization of the early second millennium.

In addition to general observations of this kind, two arguments were developed to support the association of the patriarchs with the early second millennium. The first was based on the analysis of the personal names found in Genesis 12–50; the second, on studies of the social customs and legal practices mentioned in the patriarchal narratives.

Let us consider the personal names first. As indicated above, Amorite names form a distinctive group. They may be identified by a number of peculiar linguistic features. Names of this type are common in materials from the first half of the second millennium. Advocates of a similar date for the patriarchal age pointed out that the names in the patriarchal narratives are largely of the same type. A form of the name “Jacob,” for example, occurs several times in early-second-millennium materials, and the name “Abram” is said to be attested for the same period (see above). No examples of “Isaac” or “Joseph” have survived, but both of these names are of the Amorite type. The argument, therefore, was that the biblical names from the patriarchal period fit well in the historical context of the early second millennium but could not have originated later, that is, at the time of the biblical writers.

Second, Albright, Speiser and others cited numerous parallels between social and legal practices mentioned in extrabiblical texts from the second millennium and social and legal practices referred to in the biblical patriarchal narratives. Cuneiform texts from Nuzi in Upper Mesopotamia were especially important to this part of the discussion. The Nuzi tablets reflect the practices and customs of the Hurrians, a people who flourished in the eastern Tigris region in the middle of the second millennium. Although no one attempted to associate the patriarchs directly with the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, it was well known that Hurrian influence was widespread in Syria and even Canaan in this period. Thus, numerous connections between the Hurrians and the Bible were proposed. According to the terms of a Nuzi marriage contract, for example, a barren wife is required to provide a slave woman to her husband to bear his children. [7] In Genesis 16:1–4, the barren Sarai sends her maid Hagar to Abram to bear children. The parallel is obvious. At Nuzi, if this union produces a son, the slave woman’s child may not subsequently be expelled; compare Abraham’s unwillingness to send away Hagar and her son, Ishmael, in Genesis 21:10–11. Further, as interpreted by Speiser,

In Hurrian society a wife enjoyed special standing and protection when the law recognized her simultaneously as her husband’s sister, regardless of actual blood ties … This dual role conferred on the wife a superior position in society. [8]

According to Speiser, this custom lies behind those episodes in Genesis in which Abraham (12:10–20, 20:1–18) and later Isaac (26:6–11) introduce their wives as their sisters. The story of Sarai and Hagar and the wife-sister episodes are only two of the numerous details of the patriarchal narratives that were interpreted in light of Middle Bronze Age texts (dating to about 2000–1550 BCE). The general argument was that many social and legal customs referred to in Genesis have parallels in middle- or early-second-millennium practice, but that the same customs are without parallel in later times. From this it was concluded that the presence of these references in Genesis was an indication of the early-second-millennium origin of the biblical traditions.

A Scholarly Failure. 

Despite its attractions, this reconstruction has proved vulnerable to criticism of various kinds. Doubts about the application of the Amorite hypothesis to the problems of the patriarchal period have led to a serious modification and abandonment of many of the positions cited above. It now seems unlikely that an invasion or immigration of nomads was a primary factor in the collapse of urban civilization in the last part of the third millennium. The pastoral peoples so prominent in this period were present in earlier times as well, living alongside the established urban centers. Instead, overpopulation, drought, famine or a combination of such problems may have exhausted the resources necessary to the maintenance of an urban way of life. When the cities disappeared, the nomadic encampments remained. Other nomads, originally living on the fringes of the desert, probably took advantage of the new situation to infiltrate previously settled areas; but there was no widespread immigration, and most of the cultural changes detected by archaeology can best be explained as indigenous, not produced by the arrival of outsiders. The period called MB I by Albright, therefore, was really the last, posturban phase of the Early Bronze Age, and an emerging consensus of scholarship now prefers to call it Early Bronze IV (EB IV).

If no invasion or widespread migration took place in EB IV, there is no reason to associate Abram’s wanderings with the events of that period, especially in view of the difficulty, already noted, created by the absence in this period of the urban centers mentioned in Genesis 12–25.

On the other hand, the circumstances of what we now call late MB I (Albright’s MB II A) and MB II (MB II B), during which nomads and urban dwellers lived side by side in Syria and Canaan, do provide a suitable context for the patriarchal stories. Also, as we have seen, a modified version of the Amorite hypothesis located the patriarchal period more generally in the early second millennium. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that this “dimorphic” pattern—of city dwellers and tribal peoples (including both pastoralists and villagers) living contiguously—has been typical of the Middle East from ancient until modern times.  This pattern prevailed even in the third millennium; after the interruption of EB IV, it resumed in the Middle Bronze Age, as the archives from Mari show. Although we do not have archival evidence for later periods, as we do for the earlier period at Mari, there is no reason to doubt that the pattern persisted throughout the Late Bronze Age and beyond. The archaeological evidence and modern anthropological studies seem to confirm this. That this dimorphic lifestyle is a fitting background for the stories about the patriarchs provides no basis for locating them in MB I and II in preference to other periods.

The other criteria urged in favor of an early second-millennium date for the patriarchal age have also been challenged. In almost every specific instance, the proposed parallels between details of the patriarchal stories and information found in surviving second-millennium documents have now been disputed. Many of the parallels are no longer regarded as valid. In several other cases, the phenomena in question have been identified in texts from one or more later periods, thus diminishing the importance of the parallels for dating the patriarchal tradition. More particularly, the Nuzi evidence, which once figured so prominently in the discussion, has been vitiated by the discovery that the information it provides about private life reflects widespread Mesopotamian practices rather than distinctively Hurrian customs that might be assumed to have penetrated into Canaan.

We can no longer argue, for example, that the patriarchal names fit best into the early second millennium. Names similar or identical to the names found in Genesis are attested from a number of different periods. The identification of the name “Abram” or “Abraham” in Middle Bronze materials is uncertain or dubious, whereas forms of this name (“Abram,” “Abiram”) occur several times in texts from the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE) and later.

Moreover, names with the same structure are exceedingly common, attested in almost all periods.  Similarly, the name type to which “Isaac,” “Jacob” and “Joseph” belong is widely distributed across the history of the ancient Near East. It is especially well known from Middle Bronze sources and, in fact, is the most characteristic type of Amorite name. But there is no reason to believe that its use diminished significantly after the Middle Bronze Age; in the Late Bronze Age, it is well attested in Ugaritic and Amarna Canaanite names; and in the Iron Age it occurs in Hebrew inscriptions as well as in the Bible. While it is true that the name “Jacob” is very common in the Middle Bronze Age, it is also found in Late Bronze sources, and related names occur in both Elephantine (fifth century BCE) and Palmyrene (first century BCE through third century CE) Aramaic.

Similar difficulties arise with the proposition that the legal practices and social customs referred to in the stories in Genesis support a Middle Bronze date for the patriarchs. Reexamination of the second-millennium parallels proposed by Albright, Speiser and others has shown that many cannot be restricted to a single, early period. The Nuzi parallel to Genesis 16:1–4, for example, in which the barren Sarai provides her husband with her bondwoman, is not unique: The responsibility of a barren wife to provide a slave woman to her husband to bear children is cited in Old Babylonian, Old Assyrian and Nuzi texts (all from the Middle Bronze Age), but also in a 12th-century Egyptian document and a marriage contract from Nimrud, dated 648 BCE.  As for the biblical “wife-sister motif,” it now seems doubtful that relevant parallel material is to be found in the Nuzi archives. In the contracts cited by Speiser, the adopting “brother” is usually not the future husband of the adopted woman. Although in one instance a “brother” does subsequently marry his “sister,” this is a special case requiring a document of marriage to replace the earlier document of adoption. In the biblical stories, moreover, the designation of the wives of the patriarchs as sisters is a trick to protect the patriarchs from men who might lust after their wives, not a legal procedure intended to confer status. Speiser recognized this, suggesting that the “original” meaning was lost; but Speiser’s assumption is highly questionable in view of the inapplicability or at least ambiguity of the Nuzi parallels.

NOTES:

[1]  William Foxwell Albright (1891–1971) was an American Orientalist, pioneer archaeologist, biblical scholar, linguist and expert on ceramics. From the early twentieth century until his death, he was the dean of biblical archaeologists and the universally acknowledged founder of the Biblical archaeology movement. His student George Ernest Wright followed in his footsteps as the leader of that movement, while others, notably Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman, became international leaders in the study of the Bible and the ancient Near East, including Northwest Semitic epigraphy and paleography. Nevertheless, although Albright is assured of a place in the history of the development of Middle Eastern archaeology some of  his concepts and conclusions, especially those relating to biblical archaeology, have been overturned after his death.
[2]  Ephraim Avigdor Speiser (1902 – 1965) was a American Assyriologist. He discovered the ancient site of Tepe Gawra in 1927 and supervised its excavation between 1931 and 1938.
 [3] Albright William F. “Tribal Rule and Charismatic Leaders,” in The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra (New York, 1968), pp. 35-52
[4]  Albright, William F. “New Light from Egypt on the Chronology and History of Israel and Judah”. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 130: 4-11. (1953).
 [5] George Ernest Wright (1909-1974), was a leading Old Testament scholar and biblical archaeologist. Expert in Ancient Near Eastern archaeology, he was especially known for his work in the study and dating of pottery.
[6]  Wright Ernest G. An introduction to Biblical archaeology -Studies in theology- (1960)
 [7] Chiera, Edward: Legal and Administrative Documents From Nippur (Philadelphia: University Museum, 1914; and Chiera, Edward: Old Babylonian Contracts (Philadelphia: University Museum, 1922)
 [8] Speiser Ephraim A. At the Dawn of Civilization: a Background of Biblical History Rutgers U. Press 1964

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