(1) Er hat eine Beziehung mit Sarai "Sarah" bat Haran.
Kind(er):
(2) Er hat eine Beziehung mit (Nicht öffentlich).
Kind(er):
(3) Er hat eine Beziehung mit (Nicht öffentlich).
Kind(er):
(4) Er hat eine Beziehung mit (Nicht öffentlich).
Kind(er):
(5) Er hat eine Beziehung mit Hagar.
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Luke 3:34
1. Abraham was born ca 2051BC and died ca 1876BC. He received Priesthood from Melchizedek (In the Old Testament, the high priest and king of Salem who blessed Abraham.
The American Heritage(r) Dictionary of the English Language,
Third Edition copyright (c) 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved..
2. Abraham or Abram, biblical patriarch, according to the Book of Genesis (see 11:27-25:10), progenitor of the Hebrews, who probably lived in the period between 2000 and 1500 BC. Abraham is regarded by Muslims, who call him Ibrahim, as an ancestor of the Arabs through Ishmael. He was once considered a contemporary of Hammurabi, king of Babylonia. Because the biblical account of his life is based on traditions preserved by oral transmission rather than by historical records, no biography in the present sense can be written.
Originally called Abram, Abraham was the son of Terah, a descendant of Shem, and married his half sister Sarai, or Sarah. They left Ur with his nephew Lot and Lot's family under a divine inspiration and went to Haran. Receiving a promise that God would make him a "great nation," Abram moved on to Canaan, where he lived as a nomad. Famine led him to Egypt, but he was driven out for misrepresenting Sarai as his sister. Again in Canaan, after quarrels between Abram and Lot and their herdsmen, they separated, Lot remaining near Sodom and Abram continuing his nomadic life. He later rescued Lot from the captivity of King Chedorlaomer of Elam and was blessed by the priest Melchizedek, king of Salem. Then God promised Abram a son by his wife Sarai, repeated his earlier promises, and confirmed these by a covenant.
When this covenant was later renewed, the rite of circumcision was established, Abram's name became Abraham, and Sarai's became Sarah. God subsequently repeated his promise of a son by Sarah by means of visiting angels.
When God informed Abraham that he intended to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of the wickedness of their inhabitants, Abraham pleaded with him to spare the cities. Eventually it was agreed that God would spare the cities if he could find only ten righteous men. The ten men could not be found, and God destroyed both cities.
Ishmael, first son of Abraham, whose mother was Hagar, an Egyptian slave, was born when Abraham was 86 years old. Isaac, born to Abraham by Sarah in his 100th year, was the first of his legitimate descendants. God demanded that Abraham sacrifice Isaac as a test of faith, but because of Abraham's unquestioning compliance, God permitted him to spare Isaac and rewarded Abraham with a formal renewal of his promise. After Sarah died, Abraham married Keturah. He died at the biblical age of 175.
Christians, Muslims, and Jews accept Abraham as an epitome of the man of unswerving faith, a view reflected in the New Testament.
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Department of Computer Science,
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Hull, UK, HU6 7RX,
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Department of Computer Science,
University of Hull,
Hull, UK, HU6 7RX,
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Department of Computer Science,
University of Hull,
Hull, UK, HU6 7RX,
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The interesting discovery of the name Abi-ramu on Babylonian contracts of about 2000 BCE does not prove the Abraham of the Old Testament to be a historical person, even as the fact that there were Amorites in Babylonia at the same period does not make it certain that the 'patriarch' was one of their number. A fairly lucid treatment of the subject is given by Michael Astour in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (s.v. "Amraphel", "Arioch" and "Chedorlaomer"), who explains the story of Genesis 14 as a product of anti-Babylonian propaganda during the Babylonian captivity of the Jews:
"After Böhl's widely accepted, but wrong, identification of mTu-ud-hul-a with one of the Hittite kings named Tudhaliyas, Tadmor found the correct solution by equating him with the Assyrian king Sennacherib (see Tidal). Astour (1966) identified the remaining two kings of the Chedorlaomer texts with Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria (see Arioch) and with the Chaldean Merodach-baladan (see Amraphel). The common denominator between these four rulers is that each of them, independently, occupied Babylon, oppressed it to a greater or lesser degree, and took away its sacred divine images, including the statue of its chief god Marduk; furthermore, all of them came to a tragic end.
3. Relationship to Genesis 14. All attempts to reconstruct the link between the Chedorlaomer texts and Genesis 14 remain speculative. However, the available evidence seems consistent with the following hypothesis: A Jew in Babylon, versed in Akkadian language and cuneiform script, found in an early version of the Chedorlaomer texts certain things consistent with his anti-Babylonian feelings." (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, s.v. "Chedorlaomer")
Another scholar, criticizing Kitchen's maximalist viewpoint, considers a relationship between the tablet and Gen. speculative, also identifies but identifies Tudhula as a veiled reference to Sennacherib of Assyria, and Chedorlaomer, i.e. Kudur-Nahhunte, as "a recollection of a 12th century BCE king of Elam who briefly ruled Babylon." ("Finding Historical Memories in the Patriarchal Narratives" by Ronald Hindel, BAR, Jul/Aug 1995)
The Anchor Bible Dictionary suggests that the biblical account was in all probability derived from a text very closely related to the Chedorlaomer Tablets, and this in a publication which can be said to do at least a reasonably good job of getting good scholarship. The Chedorlaomer Tablets are thought to be from the 6th or 7th century BCE, well after the time of Hammurabi, at roughly the time when Gen. through Deu. are thought to have come into their present form (e.g. see the Documentary Hypothesis). While Astour's identifications of the figures these tablets refer to is certainly open to question, he does cautiously support a link between them and Gen. 14:1. Hammurabi is never known to have campaigned near the Dead Sea at all, although his son had. Writes Astour, "This identification, once widely accepted, was later virtually abandoned, mainly because Hammurabi was never active in the West." The Chedorlaomer Tablets, then, appear to still be the closest archaeological parallel to the kings of the Eastern coalition mentioned in Gen. 14:1. The only problem is, that in all probability, they refer to kings that were from widely separated times, having conquered Babylon in different eras. Linguistically, it seems, there is little reason to reject the identification of Hammurabi with Amraphel, but the narrative does not make sense in light of modern archeology when it is made. A number of scholars also say that the connection does not make sense on chronological grounds, since it would place Abram later than the traditional date, but on this, see the section on chronology below.
If Gen. ch. 14 is a historical romance (cf., e.g., the Book of Judith), it is possible that a writer who lived in an exilic or post-exilic age (i.e. during or after the Babylonian Captivity), and who was acquainted with Babylonian history, decided to enhance the greatness of Abraham by claiming his military success against the monarchs of the Tigris and Euphrates, the high esteem he enjoyed in Canaan, and the practical character displayed in his brief exchange with Melchizedek. The historical section of the article Tithe deals more extensively with the historicity of the meeting with Melchizedek.
Many scholars claim, on the basis of archaeological and philological evidence, that many stories in the Pentateuch, including the accounts about Abraham and Moses, were written under King Josiah (7th century BCE) or King Hezekiah (8th century BCE) in order to provide a historical framework for the monotheistic belief in Yahweh. Some scholars point out that the archives of neighboring countries with written records that survive, such as Egypt, Assyria, etc., show no trace of the stories of the Bible or its main characters before 650 BCE. Such claims are detailed in "Who Were the Early Israelites?" by William G. Dever (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2003). Another similar book by Neil A. Silberman and Israel Finkelstein is "The Bible Unearthed" (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001). Even so, the Moabite Stele mentions king Omri of Israel, and many scholars draw parallels between the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I and the Shishaq of the Bible (1 Ki. 11:40; 14:25; and 2 Chr. 12:2-9), and between the king David of the Bible and a stone inscription from 835 BCE that appears to refer to "house of David"--although some would dispute the last two correspondences.
Dating and historicity
Traditional dating
According to calculations directly derived from the Masoretic Hebrew Torah, Abraham was born 1,948 years after biblical creation and lived for 175 years (Genesis 25:7), which would correspond to a life spanning from 1812 BCE to 1637 BCE by Jewish dating. The figures in the Book of Jubilees have Abraham born 1,876 years after creation, and 534 years before the Exodus; the ages provided in the Samaritan version of Genesis agree closely with those of Jubilees before the Deluge, but after the Deluge, they add roughly 100 years to each of the ages of the Patriarchs in the Masoretic Text, resulting in the figure of 2,247 years after creation for Abraham's birth. The Greek Septuagint version adds around 100 years to nearly all of the patriarchs' births, producing the even higher figure of 3,312 years after creation for Abraham's birth.
Other interpretations of Biblical chronology place Abraham's birth at 2008 AM (Anno Mundi). In Genesis 11:32 : Abraham was the youngest son of Terah who died in Haran aged 205, in year 2083 AM. In Gen.12:4 we learn that at that time Abraham was 75 years old. In other words Abraham was born when his father Terah was 130 years old. (205-75 = 130). Therefore Abraham was born in year 2008 AM.
History of dating attempts
When cuneiform was first deciphered, Theophilus Pinches translated some Babylonian tablets which were part of the Spartoli collection in the British Museum. In particular, he believed he found in the Chedorlaomer Text, currently thought to have been written in the 6th to the 7th century BCE, the names of three of the kings of the Eastern coalition fighting against the five kings from the Vale of Siddim in Gen. 14:1.
In 1887, Schrader then was the first to propose that Amraphel could be an alternate spelling for Hammurabi (cf. the ISBE of 1915, s.v. "Hammurabi").
Vincent Scheil subsequently found a tablet in the Imperial Ottoman Museum in Istanbul from Hammurabi to a king of the very same name, i.e. Kuder-Lagomer, as in Pinches' tablet. Thus are achieved the following correspondences:
Name from Gen. 14:1 Name from Archaeology
Amraphel king of Shinar Hammurabi (="Ammurapi") king of Babylonia
Arioch king of Ellasar Eri-aku king of Larsa (i.e. Assyria)
Chedorlaomer king of Elam (= Chodollogomor in the LXX) Kudur-Lagamar king of Elam
Tidal, king of nations (i.e. goyim, lit. 'nations') Tudhulu, son of Gazza
By 1915, many scholars had become largely convinced that the kings of Gen. 14:1 had been identified (cf. again the ISBE of 1915, s.v. Hammurabi, which mentions the identification as doubtful, and also The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917, s.v. "Amraphel", and Donald A. MacKenzie's 1915 Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, who has (p. 247) "The identification of Hammurabi with Amraphel is now generally accepted"). The terminal -bi on the end of Hammurabi's name was seen to parallel Amraphel since the cuneiform symbol for -bi can also be pronounced -pi. Tablets were known in which the initial symbol for Hammurabi, pronounced as kh to yield Khammurabi, had been dropped, such that Ammurapi was a viable pronunciation. Supposing him to have been deified in his lifetime or afterwards yielded Ammurabi-il, which was suitable close to the Bible's Amraphel.
Albright was instrumental in synchronizing Hammurabi with Assyrian and Egyptian contemporaries, such that Hammurabi is now thought to have lived in the late 18th century, not in the 19th as assumed by the long chronology. Since many ecumenical theologians may not hold that the dates of the Bible could be in error, they began synchronizing Abram with the empire of Sargon I (23rd century in the short chronology), and the work of Schrader, Pinches and Scheil fell out of favor with them.
The objection[citation needed] resurfaced that Amraphel could not be derived from Khammurabi, in spite of the Ammurabi/Ammurapi spelling for Hammurabi that had already been found. More substantial objections were later made, including the finding that the days of the Kuder-Lagomer of Hammurabi's letter preceded the writing of the letter early in Hammurabi's reign led some to speculate that the Kuder-Lagomer of Gen. 14:1 should be associated with later Hittite or Akkadian kings with similar names. These scholars[citation needed] thus generally considered the passage anachronistic - the product of a much later period, such as during or after the Babylonian Captivity. Others[citation needed] pointed out that the Lagomer of Kuder-Lagomer was an Elamite deity's name, instead of the king's actual name, which some believe referred to a king that must have preceded Hammurabi. Other misreadings of the Chedorlaomer Text[citation needed] were pointed out, causing them to be associated with entirely different personages known from archaeology. It seemed that the theory of Schrader, Pinches and Scheil had fallen utterly apart.
Mainstream scholarship in the course of the 20th century has given up attempts to identify Abraham and his contemporaries in Genesis with historical figures.[16] While it is widely admitted that there is no archaeological evidence to prove the existence of Abraham, apparent parallels to Genesis in the archaeological record assure that speculations on the patriarch's historicity and on the period that would best fit the account in Genesis remain alive in religious circles. "The Herald of Christ's Kingdom" in Abraham - Father of the Faithful (2001) implies a historical Abraham by stating "At one time it was popular to connect Amraphel, king of Shinar, with Hammurabi, king of Babylon, but now it is generally conceded that Hammurabi was much later than Abraham."
A traditional chronology can be constructed from the MT as follows: If Solomon's temple was begun when most scholars put it, ca. 960-970 BCE, using e.g. 966, we get 1446 for the Exodus (I Ki. 6:1). There were 400 years reportedly spent in Egypt (Ex. 12:40), and then we only need add years from Jacob's going into Egypt to Abraham. So, we can add that Jacob was supposedly 130 when he came to Egypt (Gen. 47:9), Isaac was 60 years old when he had Jacob (Gen. 25:26) and Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born, and we get 1446 + 400 + 130 + 60 + 100 = 2136 BCE for Abram's birth.
A considerable variety of scriptural chronologies is possible. For example, unlike most modern translations, according to all the oldest Bible versions not dependent on the mediaeval rabbis -- the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls -- the 430 years of the sojourn is the period "in Canaan and Egypt" (probable text of Exodus 12: 42), thus reckoning from the time of Abraham. Cf Paul's belief in Gal 3:17. Therefore the figure is more than two hundred years less (1446 + 430 = 1876 BCE).
Thus, if one adheres to an Early Exodus theory, then Abram is usually synchronized with Sargon I, or sometimes other figures in the Sumerian Empire. If one favors a Late Exodus theory, and then Abraham's life could overlap that of Hammurabi's empire.
Gen. 10:10 has it that Babel was the beginning of Nimrod's empire. Before the location of Sargon's capital city, Agade, was identified, it was sometimes supposed that Nimrod was Sargon I, and that Agade was Babel. But even so, there are reasons to prefer the equation of Hammurabi with Amraphel. The Nimrod of Gen. ch. 10 precedes the Amraphel of ch. 14, and Nimrod's kingdom began with "Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh, in Shinar" (Gen. 10:10). Mentions of Nimrod both precede and follow those of Abram. Furthermore, Nimrod is associated with the Tower of Babel, not the Tower of Agade, in the Bible.
Rabbinic materials are full of an accounts of Abram being thrown into the furnace used for making bricks for the Tower of Babel by Nimrod, but Abram was miraculously unharmed, while the furnace spread to the rest of the city, causing the "Fire of the Chasdim".[citation needed] The conclusion then, based on these assertions, would be that Nimrod and Abram were more or less contemporaries. But only during the time of Hammurabi did Babylon become the beginning of an Empire in its own right.
If one insists that Gen. Ch. 14 reads as a testament of historical authenticity, then the Old Babylonian Empire, like Nimrod's, extended into the Trans-Jordan, but only during the reign of Hammurabi's son; whereas the Sumerian Empire by contrast did not. The city of Babel was not only the beginning of the Old Babylonian Empire, it was its capitol. After the end of the Old Babylonian Empire with the defeat of Hammurabi's son by the Elamites, there was not another empire ruled from the city of Babel until the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which was much too late to be synchronized with Abraham.
There are no archaeological correlates for the life of Abram, whereas the Exodus can be correlated with traces of a Semitic presence in Egypt, as per Bietak, as well as numerous transitions in Israel from Egypto-Canaanite material culture to proto-Israelite. An Early Exodus would preclude synchronizing Abram with Hammurabi's empire, pushing him back to Sumerian times.
Modern reception
In philosophy
Abraham, as a man communicating with God or the divine, has inspired some fairly extensive discussion in some philosophers, such as Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre. Kierkegaard goes into Abraham's plight in considerable detail in his work Fear and Trembling. Sartre understands the story not in terms of Christian obedience or a "teleological suspension of the ethical", but in terms of mankind's utter behavioral and moral freedom. God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son. Sartre doubts that Abraham can know that the voice he hears is really the voice of his God and not of someone else, or the product of a mental condition. Thus, Sartre concludes, even if there are signs in the world, humans are totally free to decide how to interpret them.
Latter-Day Saint Book of Abraham
The Book of Abraham is a scriptural text for some denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement (also know as Mormons). The LDS version of the Abrahamic story includes material not present in Genesis. [17] For example; Abraham is described as seeking the "blessings of the fathers" (priesthood), using the Urim and Thummim to receive a vision of the history of the universe and humanity's relationship to God, being saved by an angel from being sacrificed on an altar by Pharaoh's priests, and teaching Pharaoh's court about astronomy. Chapters 1 and 2 include details about Abraham’s early life and his fight against the idolatry of Egypt (under rule of Pharaoh) and within his own family.[18] Chapter 2 includes information about God’s covenant with Abraham and how it would be fulfilled.
Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Latter-Day Saint movement, claimed to have translated the Book of Abraham from papyri scrolls which came into the church's possession in 1835. While the scrolls were reported to be longer than the Bible,[19] only a portion was initially published in 1842,[20] in the Latter-Day Saint newspaper The Times and Seasons. The Book of Abraham was incorporated into the canon of LDS scripture in 1880 as part of the Pearl of Great Price.
In addition to the text, there are three facsimiles of vignettes from the papyrus included in the Book of Abraham. The first and most disputed facsimile supposedly depicts Abraham about to be sacrificed by a priest; the second is in the form of a hypocephalus, which Smith said contained important insights about the organization of the heavens (Cosmos) and material associated with LDS Temple ordinances. Smith described the third vignette as showing Abraham teaching in Pharaoh’s court.
The LDS Bible Dictionary states:
"Abraham is always regarded in the [Old Testament] as founder of the covenant race, which is personified in the house of Israel. He is the “father of the faithful.” John the Baptist and Paul rebuked those holding the erroneous idea that natural descent from Abraham was by itself sufficient to secure God’s favor (Matt. 3: 9; Rom. 9: 7). [...] Latter-day revelation has clarified the significance of the Abrahamic covenant and other aspects of Abraham’s life and ministry. We learn that he was greatly blessed with divine revelation concerning the planetary system, the creation of the earth, and the premortal activities of the spirits of mankind. One of the most valiant spirits in the premortal life, he was chosen to be a leader in the kingdom of God before he was born into this world (Abr. 1 - 5). We also learn from latter-day revelation that because of Abraham’s faithfulness he is now exalted and sits upon a throne in eternity (D&C 132: 29, 37)."[17]
Speculations on Hindu connections
In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were isolated speculations about an identity of Abraham and Brahma, or of Abraham and Rama. This was based on the similarities of the names (Abraham is a near anagram of Brahma and his wife Sarah is a near anagram of Saraswati, Brahma's wife/consort). Voltaire summarised such speculations:
This name Bram, Abram, was famous in India and Persia: some learned men even allege that he was the same legislator as the one the Greeks called Zoroaster. Others say that he was the Brahma of the Indians.[21]
Such arguments were taken up by later religious synchretists such as Godfrey Higgins, who argued in 1834 that "The Arabian historians contend that Brahma and Abraham, their ancestor, are the same person. The Persians generally called Abraham Ibrahim Zeradust. Cyrus considered the religion of the Jews the same as his own. The Hindus must have come from Abraham, or the Israelites from Brahma…"[22]
One may also consider noteworthy the similarity of the names of Brahma's wife Sarasvati[23] compared to Abraham's wife Sarah.
The argument has been used by Biblical literalists to prove that Brahma is a corrupted memory of Abraham and by certain Hindu nationalists to suggest the converse.[24]
The argument has been used by Muslim missionaries to prove that Brahma is a corrupted memory of Abraham. They also have claimed that other characters in Hindu scripture are actually people mentioned in the Quran.[25] A. D. Pusalker, whose essay "Traditional History From the Earliest Times" appeared in The Vedic Age, claims a historical Rama dated to 1950 BCE. So hence this cannot be true, since the historical dating of these scriptures were long before the biblical age.[26]
See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
AbrahamWikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Abraham1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Abraham's bosom
Abrahamic religions
Biblical criticism
Brahama
Bram
Gathering of Israel
Genealogies of Genesis
Islamic view of Abraham
Kabbalah
List of founders of major religions
Sons of Noah
The Book of Genesis
The Pearl of Great Price, Book of Abraham
Notes
^ Genesis 25:9
^ The city of Haran was not named after this brother, and is spelled differently in Hebrew.
^ Hasel, G. F. - Chronogenealogies of Genesis 5 and 11
^ JewishEncyclopedia.com Many interpretations were offered based on modern textual and linguistic analysis, including an analysis of a first element abr- "chief", which however yields a meaningless second element. Keil suggests there was once a word raham (רָהָם) in Hebrew, meaning "multitude", even though it has not survived into any attested text. The word ruhâm has this meaning in Arabic. (K.F. Keil (1869), Biblical commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 1, p. 224)
^ Aegypt. Randglossen zum Altes Testament, 14
^ David Rosenberg, Abraham, the First Historical Biography 23 (2006)
^ "Patriarchal Age Biblical archeology (Archaeology ) Truthnet".
^ Abraham was 10 years senior to Sarah, who died at age 127. (Gen 23:1).
^ Gen 25:7
^ *Holweck, F. G., A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints. St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co. 1924.
^ Ibrahim, Encyclopedia of Islam
^ "USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts".
^ Antiquities of the Jews, book 1, 12:4
^ Antiquities of the Jews, book 1, 12:2
^ The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya), Volume I, translated by professor Trevor Le Gassick, reviewed by Dr. Ahmed Fareed Garnet Publishing Limited, 8 Southern Court, South Street Reading RG1 4QS, UK; The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, 1998, pp. 50-52;
^ The Encyclopedia Britannica[citation needed] article on "Amraphel" has: "Scholars of previous generations tried to identify these names with important historical figures—e.g., Amraphel with Hammurabi of Babylon—but little remains today of these suppositions."
^ a b "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Abraham.” Bible Dictionary. Intellectual Reserve, 1979.".
^ Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism, 70–72; Beer, Leben Abraham's, 9–14
^ Peterson, H. Donl. The Story of the Book of Abraham, 25. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1995.
^ "Pearl of Great Price, Introductory Note".
^ "Voltaire's article".
^ Higgins, G., Anacalypsis; Vol. I, p. 396.
^ Padma Purana, Srishtikhand, Chapter 17. "Accompanied by brahmanas and other devas, or demigods, Lord Brahma once went to Pushkara to perform a sacrifice. Such sacrifices are to be performed along with one’s wife, so when the arrangements for the sacrifice were complete, Lord Brahma sent Narada Muni, the sage among the devas, to bring Sarasvati, Lord Brahma’s consort. But Sarasvati was not ready to leave, so Narada returned to Punkara alone." Translation quoted from Back to Godhead magazine, #32-01, 1998.
^ "The Vedic Past of Pre-Islamic Arabia - Part 1".
^ "Prophet Muhammad (s) in Hindu Scriptures".
^ Gene D. Matlock. "Who Was Abraham?". Viewzone.com.
[edit] References
Rosenberg, David. Abraham: The First Historical Biography. Basic Books/Perseus Books Group, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2006. ISBN 0-465-07094-9.
Holweck, F. G. A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints. St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co. 1924.
Latter-day Saint Bible Dictionary
Nibley, Hugh W. Abraham's Temple Drama
Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism
Beer, Leben Abraham's
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, trans. Henrietta Szold (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909)
Book of Abraham LDS scripture Pearl of Great Price
Bloch, Israel und die Völker (Berlin: Harz, 1922)
Torcszyner, "The Riddle in the Bible," Hebrew Union College Annual 1 (1924)
Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews
Kohler, "The Pre-Talmudic Haggada," Jewish Quarterly Review 7 (July 1895): 587.
André Flury-Schölch: Abrahams Segen und die Völker. Synchrone und diachrone Untersuchungen zu Gen 12,1-3 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der intertextuellen Beziehungen zu Gen 18, 22, 26, 28, Sir 44, Jer 4 und Ps 72 (Forschung zur Bibel 115), Würzburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-429-02738-4
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
Preceded by
Terah Abraham Succeeded by
Isaac
[show]v • d • eGenealogy of Adam to David according to the Hebrew Bible
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آدم إدريس نوح هود صالح إبراهيم لوط إسماعيل إسحاق يعقوب يوسف أيوب
Adam
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Ishmael
Is'haq
Isaac
Yaqub
Jacob
Yusuf
Joseph
Ayoub
Job
شُعيب موسى هارون ذو الكفل داود سليمان إلياس إليسع يونس زكريا يحيى عيسى مُحمد
Shoaib
Jethro
Musa
Moses
Harun
Aaron
Dhul-Kifl
Ezekiel
Daud
David
Sulayman
Solomon
Ilyas
Elijah
Al-Yasa
Elisha
Yunus
Jonah
Zakariya
Zechariah
Yahya
John
Isa
Jesus
Muhammad
Mohammad
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham"
Categories: Prophets of the Hebrew Bible | History of Iraq | Biblical patriarchs | Old Testament saints | Founders of religions | Manifestations of God in the Bahá'í Faith | Jewish religious leaders
The interesting discovery of the name Abi-ramu on Babylonian contracts of about 2000 BCE does not prove the Abraham of the Old Testament to be a historical person, even as the fact that there were Amorites in Babylonia at the same period does not make it certain that the 'patriarch' was one of their number. A fairly lucid treatment of the subject is given by Michael Astour in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (s.v. "Amraphel", "Arioch" and "Chedorlaomer"), who explains the story of Genesis 14 as a product of anti-Babylonian propaganda during the Babylonian captivity of the Jews:
"After Böhl's widely accepted, but wrong, identification of mTu-ud-hul-a with one of the Hittite kings named Tudhaliyas, Tadmor found the correct solution by equating him with the Assyrian king Sennacherib (see Tidal). Astour (1966) identified the remaining two kings of the Chedorlaomer texts with Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria (see Arioch) and with the Chaldean Merodach-baladan (see Amraphel). The common denominator between these four rulers is that each of them, independently, occupied Babylon, oppressed it to a greater or lesser degree, and took away its sacred divine images, including the statue of its chief god Marduk; furthermore, all of them came to a tragic end.
3. Relationship to Genesis 14. All attempts to reconstruct the link between the Chedorlaomer texts and Genesis 14 remain speculative. However, the available evidence seems consistent with the following hypothesis: A Jew in Babylon, versed in Akkadian language and cuneiform script, found in an early version of the Chedorlaomer texts certain things consistent with his anti-Babylonian feelings." (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, s.v. "Chedorlaomer")
Another scholar, criticizing Kitchen's maximalist viewpoint, considers a relationship between the tablet and Gen. speculative, also identifies but identifies Tudhula as a veiled reference to Sennacherib of Assyria, and Chedorlaomer, i.e. Kudur-Nahhunte, as "a recollection of a 12th century BCE king of Elam who briefly ruled Babylon." ("Finding Historical Memories in the Patriarchal Narratives" by Ronald Hindel, BAR, Jul/Aug 1995)
The Anchor Bible Dictionary suggests that the biblical account was in all probability derived from a text very closely related to the Chedorlaomer Tablets, and this in a publication which can be said to do at least a reasonably good job of getting good scholarship. The Chedorlaomer Tablets are thought to be from the 6th or 7th century BCE, well after the time of Hammurabi, at roughly the time when Gen. through Deu. are thought to have come into their present form (e.g. see the Documentary Hypothesis). While Astour's identifications of the figures these tablets refer to is certainly open to question, he does cautiously support a link between them and Gen. 14:1. Hammurabi is never known to have campaigned near the Dead Sea at all, although his son had. Writes Astour, "This identification, once widely accepted, was later virtually abandoned, mainly because Hammurabi was never active in the West." The Chedorlaomer Tablets, then, appear to still be the closest archaeological parallel to the kings of the Eastern coalition mentioned in Gen. 14:1. The only problem is, that in all probability, they refer to kings that were from widely separated times, having conquered Babylon in different eras. Linguistically, it seems, there is little reason to reject the identification of Hammurabi with Amraphel, but the narrative does not make sense in light of modern archeology when it is made. A number of scholars also say that the connection does not make sense on chronological grounds, since it would place Abram later than the traditional date, but on this, see the section on chronology below.
If Gen. ch. 14 is a historical romance (cf., e.g., the Book of Judith), it is possible that a writer who lived in an exilic or post-exilic age (i.e. during or after the Babylonian Captivity), and who was acquainted with Babylonian history, decided to enhance the greatness of Abraham by claiming his military success against the monarchs of the Tigris and Euphrates, the high esteem he enjoyed in Canaan, and the practical character displayed in his brief exchange with Melchizedek. The historical section of the article Tithe deals more extensively with the historicity of the meeting with Melchizedek.
Many scholars claim, on the basis of archaeological and philological evidence, that many stories in the Pentateuch, including the accounts about Abraham and Moses, were written under King Josiah (7th century BCE) or King Hezekiah (8th century BCE) in order to provide a historical framework for the monotheistic belief in Yahweh. Some scholars point out that the archives of neighboring countries with written records that survive, such as Egypt, Assyria, etc., show no trace of the stories of the Bible or its main characters before 650 BCE. Such claims are detailed in "Who Were the Early Israelites?" by William G. Dever (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2003). Another similar book by Neil A. Silberman and Israel Finkelstein is "The Bible Unearthed" (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001). Even so, the Moabite Stele mentions king Omri of Israel, and many scholars draw parallels between the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I and the Shishaq of the Bible (1 Ki. 11:40; 14:25; and 2 Chr. 12:2-9), and between the king David of the Bible and a stone inscription from 835 BCE that appears to refer to "house of David"--although some would dispute the last two correspondences.
Dating and historicity
Traditional dating
According to calculations directly derived from the Masoretic Hebrew Torah, Abraham was born 1,948 years after biblical creation and lived for 175 years (Genesis 25:7), which would correspond to a life spanning from 1812 BCE to 1637 BCE by Jewish dating. The figures in the Book of Jubilees have Abraham born 1,876 years after creation, and 534 years before the Exodus; the ages provided in the Samaritan version of Genesis agree closely with those of Jubilees before the Deluge, but after the Deluge, they add roughly 100 years to each of the ages of the Patriarchs in the Masoretic Text, resulting in the figure of 2,247 years after creation for Abraham's birth. The Greek Septuagint version adds around 100 years to nearly all of the patriarchs' births, producing the even higher figure of 3,312 years after creation for Abraham's birth.
Other interpretations of Biblical chronology place Abraham's birth at 2008 AM (Anno Mundi). In Genesis 11:32 : Abraham was the youngest son of Terah who died in Haran aged 205, in year 2083 AM. In Gen.12:4 we learn that at that time Abraham was 75 years old. In other words Abraham was born when his father Terah was 130 years old. (205-75 = 130). Therefore Abraham was born in year 2008 AM.
History of dating attempts
When cuneiform was first deciphered, Theophilus Pinches translated some Babylonian tablets which were part of the Spartoli collection in the British Museum. In particular, he believed he found in the Chedorlaomer Text, currently thought to have been written in the 6th to the 7th century BCE, the names of three of the kings of the Eastern coalition fighting against the five kings from the Vale of Siddim in Gen. 14:1.
In 1887, Schrader then was the first to propose that Amraphel could be an alternate spelling for Hammurabi (cf. the ISBE of 1915, s.v. "Hammurabi").
Vincent Scheil subsequently found a tablet in the Imperial Ottoman Museum in Istanbul from Hammurabi to a king of the very same name, i.e. Kuder-Lagomer, as in Pinches' tablet. Thus are achieved the following correspondences:
Name from Gen. 14:1 Name from Archaeology
Amraphel king of Shinar Hammurabi (="Ammurapi") king of Babylonia
Arioch king of Ellasar Eri-aku king of Larsa (i.e. Assyria)
Chedorlaomer king of Elam (= Chodollogomor in the LXX) Kudur-Lagamar king of Elam
Tidal, king of nations (i.e. goyim, lit. 'nations') Tudhulu, son of Gazza
By 1915, many scholars had become largely convinced that the kings of Gen. 14:1 had been identified (cf. again the ISBE of 1915, s.v. Hammurabi, which mentions the identification as doubtful, and also The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917, s.v. "Amraphel", and Donald A. MacKenzie's 1915 Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, who has (p. 247) "The identification of Hammurabi with Amraphel is now generally accepted"). The terminal -bi on the end of Hammurabi's name was seen to parallel Amraphel since the cuneiform symbol for -bi can also be pronounced -pi. Tablets were known in which the initial symbol for Hammurabi, pronounced as kh to yield Khammurabi, had been dropped, such that Ammurapi was a viable pronunciation. Supposing him to have been deified in his lifetime or afterwards yielded Ammurabi-il, which was suitable close to the Bible's Amraphel.
Albright was instrumental in synchronizing Hammurabi with Assyrian and Egyptian contemporaries, such that Hammurabi is now thought to have lived in the late 18th century, not in the 19th as assumed by the long chronology. Since many ecumenical theologians may not hold that the dates of the Bible could be in error, they began synchronizing Abram with the empire of Sargon I (23rd century in the short chronology), and the work of Schrader, Pinches and Scheil fell out of favor with them.
The objection[citation needed] resurfaced that Amraphel could not be derived from Khammurabi, in spite of the Ammurabi/Ammurapi spelling for Hammurabi that had already been found. More substantial objections were later made, including the finding that the days of the Kuder-Lagomer of Hammurabi's letter preceded the writing of the letter early in Hammurabi's reign led some to speculate that the Kuder-Lagomer of Gen. 14:1 should be associated with later Hittite or Akkadian kings with similar names. These scholars[citation needed] thus generally considered the passage anachronistic - the product of a much later period, such as during or after the Babylonian Captivity. Others[citation needed] pointed out that the Lagomer of Kuder-Lagomer was an Elamite deity's name, instead of the king's actual name, which some believe referred to a king that must have preceded Hammurabi. Other misreadings of the Chedorlaomer Text[citation needed] were pointed out, causing them to be associated with entirely different personages known from archaeology. It seemed that the theory of Schrader, Pinches and Scheil had fallen utterly apart.
Mainstream scholarship in the course of the 20th century has given up attempts to identify Abraham and his contemporaries in Genesis with historical figures.[16] While it is widely admitted that there is no archaeological evidence to prove the existence of Abraham, apparent parallels to Genesis in the archaeological record assure that speculations on the patriarch's historicity and on the period that would best fit the account in Genesis remain alive in religious circles. "The Herald of Christ's Kingdom" in Abraham - Father of the Faithful (2001) implies a historical Abraham by stating "At one time it was popular to connect Amraphel, king of Shinar, with Hammurabi, king of Babylon, but now it is generally conceded that Hammurabi was much later than Abraham."
A traditional chronology can be constructed from the MT as follows: If Solomon's temple was begun when most scholars put it, ca. 960-970 BCE, using e.g. 966, we get 1446 for the Exodus (I Ki. 6:1). There were 400 years reportedly spent in Egypt (Ex. 12:40), and then we only need add years from Jacob's going into Egypt to Abraham. So, we can add that Jacob was supposedly 130 when he came to Egypt (Gen. 47:9), Isaac was 60 years old when he had Jacob (Gen. 25:26) and Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born, and we get 1446 + 400 + 130 + 60 + 100 = 2136 BCE for Abram's birth.
A considerable variety of scriptural chronologies is possible. For example, unlike most modern translations, according to all the oldest Bible versions not dependent on the mediaeval rabbis -- the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls -- the 430 years of the sojourn is the period "in Canaan and Egypt" (probable text of Exodus 12: 42), thus reckoning from the time of Abraham. Cf Paul's belief in Gal 3:17. Therefore the figure is more than two hundred years less (1446 + 430 = 1876 BCE).
Thus, if one adheres to an Early Exodus theory, then Abram is usually synchronized with Sargon I, or sometimes other figures in the Sumerian Empire. If one favors a Late Exodus theory, and then Abraham's life could overlap that of Hammurabi's empire.
Gen. 10:10 has it that Babel was the beginning of Nimrod's empire. Before the location of Sargon's capital city, Agade, was identified, it was sometimes supposed that Nimrod was Sargon I, and that Agade was Babel. But even so, there are reasons to prefer the equation of Hammurabi with Amraphel. The Nimrod of Gen. ch. 10 precedes the Amraphel of ch. 14, and Nimrod's kingdom began with "Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh, in Shinar" (Gen. 10:10). Mentions of Nimrod both precede and follow those of Abram. Furthermore, Nimrod is associated with the Tower of Babel, not the Tower of Agade, in the Bible.
Rabbinic materials are full of an accounts of Abram being thrown into the furnace used for making bricks for the Tower of Babel by Nimrod, but Abram was miraculously unharmed, while the furnace spread to the rest of the city, causing the "Fire of the Chasdim".[citation needed] The conclusion then, based on these assertions, would be that Nimrod and Abram were more or less contemporaries. But only during the time of Hammurabi did Babylon become the beginning of an Empire in its own right.
If one insists that Gen. Ch. 14 reads as a testament of historical authenticity, then the Old Babylonian Empire, like Nimrod's, extended into the Trans-Jordan, but only during the reign of Hammurabi's son; whereas the Sumerian Empire by contrast did not. The city of Babel was not only the beginning of the Old Babylonian Empire, it was its capitol. After the end of the Old Babylonian Empire with the defeat of Hammurabi's son by the Elamites, there was not another empire ruled from the city of Babel until the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which was much too late to be synchronized with Abraham.
There are no archaeological correlates for the life of Abram, whereas the Exodus can be correlated with traces of a Semitic presence in Egypt, as per Bietak, as well as numerous transitions in Israel from Egypto-Canaanite material culture to proto-Israelite. An Early Exodus would preclude synchronizing Abram with Hammurabi's empire, pushing him back to Sumerian times.
Modern reception
In philosophy
Abraham, as a man communicating with God or the divine, has inspired some fairly extensive discussion in some philosophers, such as Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre. Kierkegaard goes into Abraham's plight in considerable detail in his work Fear and Trembling. Sartre understands the story not in terms of Christian obedience or a "teleological suspension of the ethical", but in terms of mankind's utter behavioral and moral freedom. God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son. Sartre doubts that Abraham can know that the voice he hears is really the voice of his God and not of someone else, or the product of a mental condition. Thus, Sartre concludes, even if there are signs in the world, humans are totally free to decide how to interpret them.
Latter-Day Saint Book of Abraham
The Book of Abraham is a scriptural text for some denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement (also know as Mormons). The LDS version of the Abrahamic story includes material not present in Genesis. [17] For example; Abraham is described as seeking the "blessings of the fathers" (priesthood), using the Urim and Thummim to receive a vision of the history of the universe and humanity's relationship to God, being saved by an angel from being sacrificed on an altar by Pharaoh's priests, and teaching Pharaoh's court about astronomy. Chapters 1 and 2 include details about Abraham’s early life and his fight against the idolatry of Egypt (under rule of Pharaoh) and within his own family.[18] Chapter 2 includes information about God’s covenant with Abraham and how it would be fulfilled.
Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Latter-Day Saint movement, claimed to have translated the Book of Abraham from papyri scrolls which came into the church's possession in 1835. While the scrolls were reported to be longer than the Bible,[19] only a portion was initially published in 1842,[20] in the Latter-Day Saint newspaper The Times and Seasons. The Book of Abraham was incorporated into the canon of LDS scripture in 1880 as part of the Pearl of Great Price.
In addition to the text, there are three facsimiles of vignettes from the papyrus included in the Book of Abraham. The first and most disputed facsimile supposedly depicts Abraham about to be sacrificed by a priest; the second is in the form of a hypocephalus, which Smith said contained important insights about the organization of the heavens (Cosmos) and material associated with LDS Temple ordinances. Smith described the third vignette as showing Abraham teaching in Pharaoh’s court.
The LDS Bible Dictionary states:
"Abraham is always regarded in the [Old Testament] as founder of the covenant race, which is personified in the house of Israel. He is the “father of the faithful.” John the Baptist and Paul rebuked those holding the erroneous idea that natural descent from Abraham was by itself sufficient to secure God’s favor (Matt. 3: 9; Rom. 9: 7). [...] Latter-day revelation has clarified the significance of the Abrahamic covenant and other aspects of Abraham’s life and ministry. We learn that he was greatly blessed with divine revelation concerning the planetary system, the creation of the earth, and the premortal activities of the spirits of mankind. One of the most valiant spirits in the premortal life, he was chosen to be a leader in the kingdom of God before he was born into this world (Abr. 1 - 5). We also learn from latter-day revelation that because of Abraham’s faithfulness he is now exalted and sits upon a throne in eternity (D&C 132: 29, 37)."[17]
Speculations on Hindu connections
In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were isolated speculations about an identity of Abraham and Brahma, or of Abraham and Rama. This was based on the similarities of the names (Abraham is a near anagram of Brahma and his wife Sarah is a near anagram of Saraswati, Brahma's wife/consort). Voltaire summarised such speculations:
This name Bram, Abram, was famous in India and Persia: some learned men even allege that he was the same legislator as the one the Greeks called Zoroaster. Others say that he was the Brahma of the Indians.[21]
Such arguments were taken up by later religious synchretists such as Godfrey Higgins, who argued in 1834 that "The Arabian historians contend that Brahma and Abraham, their ancestor, are the same person. The Persians generally called Abraham Ibrahim Zeradust. Cyrus considered the religion of the Jews the same as his own. The Hindus must have come from Abraham, or the Israelites from Brahma…"[22]
One may also consider noteworthy the similarity of the names of Brahma's wife Sarasvati[23] compared to Abraham's wife Sarah.
The argument has been used by Biblical literalists to prove that Brahma is a corrupted memory of Abraham and by certain Hindu nationalists to suggest the converse.[24]
The argument has been used by Muslim missionaries to prove that Brahma is a corrupted memory of Abraham. They also have claimed that other characters in Hindu scripture are actually people mentioned in the Quran.[25] A. D. Pusalker, whose essay "Traditional History From the Earliest Times" appeared in The Vedic Age, claims a historical Rama dated to 1950 BCE. So hence this cannot be true, since the historical dating of these scriptures were long before the biblical age.[26]
See also
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AbrahamWikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Abraham1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Abraham's bosom
Abrahamic religions
Biblical criticism
Brahama
Bram
Gathering of Israel
Genealogies of Genesis
Islamic view of Abraham
Kabbalah
List of founders of major religions
Sons of Noah
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The Pearl of Great Price, Book of Abraham
Notes
^ Genesis 25:9
^ The city of Haran was not named after this brother, and is spelled differently in Hebrew.
^ Hasel, G. F. - Chronogenealogies of Genesis 5 and 11
^ JewishEncyclopedia.com Many interpretations were offered based on modern textual and linguistic analysis, including an analysis of a first element abr- "chief", which however yields a meaningless second element. Keil suggests there was once a word raham (רָהָם) in Hebrew, meaning "multitude", even though it has not survived into any attested text. The word ruhâm has this meaning in Arabic. (K.F. Keil (1869), Biblical commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 1, p. 224)
^ Aegypt. Randglossen zum Altes Testament, 14
^ David Rosenberg, Abraham, the First Historical Biography 23 (2006)
^ "Patriarchal Age Biblical archeology (Archaeology ) Truthnet".
^ Abraham was 10 years senior to Sarah, who died at age 127. (Gen 23:1).
^ Gen 25:7
^ *Holweck, F. G., A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints. St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co. 1924.
^ Ibrahim, Encyclopedia of Islam
^ "USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts".
^ Antiquities of the Jews, book 1, 12:4
^ Antiquities of the Jews, book 1, 12:2
^ The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya), Volume I, translated by professor Trevor Le Gassick, reviewed by Dr. Ahmed Fareed Garnet Publishing Limited, 8 Southern Court, South Street Reading RG1 4QS, UK; The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, 1998, pp. 50-52;
^ The Encyclopedia Britannica[citation needed] article on "Amraphel" has: "Scholars of previous generations tried to identify these names with important historical figures—e.g., Amraphel with Hammurabi of Babylon—but little remains today of these suppositions."
^ a b "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Abraham.” Bible Dictionary. Intellectual Reserve, 1979.".
^ Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism, 70–72; Beer, Leben Abraham's, 9–14
^ Peterson, H. Donl. The Story of the Book of Abraham, 25. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1995.
^ "Pearl of Great Price, Introductory Note".
^ "Voltaire's article".
^ Higgins, G., Anacalypsis; Vol. I, p. 396.
^ Padma Purana, Srishtikhand, Chapter 17. "Accompanied by brahmanas and other devas, or demigods, Lord Brahma once went to Pushkara to perform a sacrifice. Such sacrifices are to be performed along with one’s wife, so when the arrangements for the sacrifice were complete, Lord Brahma sent Narada Muni, the sage among the devas, to bring Sarasvati, Lord Brahma’s consort. But Sarasvati was not ready to leave, so Narada returned to Punkara alone." Translation quoted from Back to Godhead magazine, #32-01, 1998.
^ "The Vedic Past of Pre-Islamic Arabia - Part 1".
^ "Prophet Muhammad (s) in Hindu Scriptures".
^ Gene D. Matlock. "Who Was Abraham?". Viewzone.com.
[edit] References
Rosenberg, David. Abraham: The First Historical Biography. Basic Books/Perseus Books Group, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2006. ISBN 0-465-07094-9.
Holweck, F. G. A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints. St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co. 1924.
Latter-day Saint Bible Dictionary
Nibley, Hugh W. Abraham's Temple Drama
Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism
Beer, Leben Abraham's
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, trans. Henrietta Szold (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909)
Book of Abraham LDS scripture Pearl of Great Price
Bloch, Israel und die Völker (Berlin: Harz, 1922)
Torcszyner, "The Riddle in the Bible," Hebrew Union College Annual 1 (1924)
Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews
Kohler, "The Pre-Talmudic Haggada," Jewish Quarterly Review 7 (July 1895): 587.
André Flury-Schölch: Abrahams Segen und die Völker. Synchrone und diachrone Untersuchungen zu Gen 12,1-3 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der intertextuellen Beziehungen zu Gen 18, 22, 26, 28, Sir 44, Jer 4 und Ps 72 (Forschung zur Bibel 115), Würzburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-429-02738-4
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
Preceded by
Terah Abraham Succeeded by
Isaac
[show]v • d • eGenealogy of Adam to David according to the Hebrew Bible
Creation to Flood [[:Template:Nowrap begin]] Adam · Seth · Enos · Kenan · Mahalalel{{·w}} Jared · [[Enoch (ancestor of Noah)|Enoch]] · Methuselah · Lamech · Noah · Shem
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Sarah (rl) · Rachel· Rebecca · Joseph · Eli · Elkanah · Hannah (mother of Samuel) · Abigail · Amoz (father of Isaiah) · Beeri (father of Hosea) · Hilkiah (father of Jeremiah) · Shallum (uncle of Jeremiah) · Hanamel (cousin of Jeremiah) · Buzi · Mordecai · Esther · (Baruch) Christianity:
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[show]v • d • eProphets of Islam in the Qur'an
آدم إدريس نوح هود صالح إبراهيم لوط إسماعيل إسحاق يعقوب يوسف أيوب
Adam
Adam
Idris
Enoch
Nuh
Noah
Hud
Eber
Saleh
Shelah
Ibrahim
Abraham
Lut
Lot
Ismail
Ishmael
Is'haq
Isaac
Yaqub
Jacob
Yusuf
Joseph
Ayoub
Job
شُعيب موسى هارون ذو الكفل داود سليمان إلياس إليسع يونس زكريا يحيى عيسى مُحمد
Shoaib
Jethro
Musa
Moses
Harun
Aaron
Dhul-Kifl
Ezekiel
Daud
David
Sulayman
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Ilyas
Elijah
Al-Yasa
Elisha
Yunus
Jonah
Zakariya
Zechariah
Yahya
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Jesus
Muhammad
Mohammad
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham"
Categories: Prophets of the Hebrew Bible | History of Iraq | Biblical patriarchs | Old Testament saints | Founders of religions | Manifestations of God in the Bahá'í Faith | Jewish religious leaders
Hebrew: מערת המכפלה, Me'arat HaMachpela, Translation "Cave of the Double Tombs;
Arabic: المغارة Al Magr, "the Cave
Cave of the Patriarchs
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The Enclosure of the Cave of the PatriarchsThe Cave of the Patriarchs (Hebrew: מערת המכפלה, Me'arat HaMachpela, Trans. "Cave of the Double Tombs"; Arabic: المغارة Al Magr, "the Cave") is a series of subterranean caves located in a complex called by Muslims the Ibrahimi Mosque or Sanctuary of Abraham (Arabic: الحرم الإبراهيمي, Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi (help·info)). The name is either a reference to the layout of the burial chamber, or alternatively refers to the biblical couples, i.e: cave of the tombs of couples.
The compound, located in the ancient city of Hebron, is the second holiest site for Jews (after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem) and is also venerated by Christians and Muslims all of whose traditions maintain that the site is the burial place of four Biblical couples: (1) Adam and Eve; (2) Abraham and Sarah; (3) Isaac and Rebekah; (4) Jacob and Leah, though some early Christians asserted that Adam lies buried under Golgotha.[1] According to Midrash and other sources the Cave of the Patriarchs also contains the head of Esau[2], and according to some Islamic sources it is also the tomb of Joseph. Though the Bible has Joseph buried in Shechem (the present-day Palestinian city of Nablus), Jewish aggadic tradition conserved the idea that he wished to be interred at Hebron, and the Islamic version may reflect this.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Biblical origin
2 Post-Biblical history
2.1 Structural changes
2.2 Security and conflict
3 Present structure
3.1 The caves
4 Religious stances
4.1 Judaism
4.2 Islam
5 See also
6 Citations and notes
7 External links
[edit] Biblical origin
Painting by Gustave Doré depicting the burial of Sarah in the cave.According to the Book of Genesis, the Biblical patriarch Abraham purchased the site from Ephron the Hittite as a family burial plot after the death of his wife Sarah. The Bible gives the sum Abraham paid for the cave as 400 silver shekels.[4] The text refers to the cave as the cave of Machpelah, and elsewhere designates it as the cave of the field of the Machpelah, suggesting that the term Machpelah may actually be intended to describe the area in which the field containing the cave was located, near Mamre.[5]
The Hittite empire did not extend into Canaan until the late 14th century BCE, only just before The Exodus (which the Bible places many generations after Abraham) in traditional chronologies, and over a century after the date in the New Chronology of David Rohl. In the 19th century BCE, or 21st century BCE, the dates in the respective chronologies for Abraham, Hittites barely existed as a distinct people. It is also possible, however, that Hittite, in this case, does not refer to the distinct national group. The Hebrew word can also be rendered Son of Heth and so could refer only to Heth's children and/or grandchildren.
[edit] Post-Biblical history
[edit] Structural changes
Herod the Great built a large rectangular enclosure over the caves, the only fully surviving Herodian structure. Herod's building, with 6-foot-thick stone walls made from stones that were at least 3 feet tall and sometimes reach a length of 24 feet, did not have a roof. Archæologists are not certain where the original entrance to the enclosure was located, or even if there was one.[6]
Until the era of the Byzantine Empire, the interior of the enclosure remained exposed to the sky. Under Byzantine rule, a simple basilica was constructed at the southeastern end, and the enclosure was roofed everywhere except at the centre. In 614, the Persians conquered the area and destroyed the church, leaving only ruins; but in 637, the area came under the control of the Muslims, and the building was reconstructed as a roofed mosque.
During the 10th century, an entrance was pierced through the north-eastern wall, some way above the external ground level, and steps from the north and from the east were built up to it (one set of steps for entering, the other for leaving).[6] A building known as the kalah (castle) was also constructed near the middle of the southwestern side; its purpose is unknown but one historic account claims that it marked the spot where Joseph was buried (cf Joseph's tomb), the area having been excavated by a muslim caliph, under the influence of a local tradition regarding Joseph's tomb.[6] Some archaeologists believe that the original entrance to Herod's structure was in the location of the kalah, and that the northeastern entrance was created so that the kalah could be built by the former entrance.[6]
In 1100, the enclosure once again became a church, after the area was captured by the Crusaders, and Muslims were no longer permitted to enter; during this period the area was given a new gabled roof, clerestory windows, and vaulting. However, in 1188, Saladin conquered the area, reconverting the enclosure to a mosque, but allowing Christians to continue worshipping there. Saladin also added a minaret at each corner - two of which still survive - and the minbar.[6]
In the late 14th century, under the Mamluks, two additional entrances were pierced into the western end of the south western side, and the kalah was extended upwards to the level of the rest of the enclosure; a cenotaph in memory of Joseph was created in the upper level of the kalah, so that visitors to the enclosure would not need to leave and travel round the outside just to pay respects.[6] The Mamluks also built the northwestern staircase and the six cenotaphs (for Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Leah, Abraham, and Sarah, respectively), distributed evenly throughout the enclosure. The Mamluks forbade Jews from entering the site, only allowing them as close as the 5th step on a staircase at the southeast, but after some time this was increased to the 7th step.
[edit] Security and conflict
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (April 2007)
A security camera watches 24 hours a day inside the Tomb of Abraham MosqueAfter the Six Day War, the area came under the control of Israel, and the restriction limiting Jews to the 7th step was lifted. In 1994 Baruch Goldstein took an assault rifle into the enclosure and killed 29 Palestinian Muslims at prayer, as well as injuring 125 others, before being bludgeoned to death by survivors. The resulting riots left an additional 26 Palestinians and 9 Israelis dead, and the incident provoked national and international condemnation of Goldstein's actions.
The increased sensitivity of the site meant that in 1995 the Wye River Accords, part of the Arab-Israeli peace process, included a temporary status agreement for the site, restricting access for both Jews and Muslims. As part of this agreement, the waqf- a traditional "trust" holding land for Islamic religious purposes- controls 81% of the building. This includes the whole of the southeastern section, which lies above the only known entrance to the caves, and possibly over the entirety of the caves themselves. In consequence, Jews are not permitted to visit the Cenotaphs of Isaac or Rebekah, which lie entirely within the southeastern section, except for 10 days a year which hold special significance in Judaism. One of these days is the Shabbat of Chayei Sarah, when the Jews read the Torah portion concerning the death of Abraham and Sarah, and that concerning the purchase by Abraham of the land in which the caves are situated.
The Israeli authorities do not allow Jewish religious authorities the right to maintain the site, and only allow the waqf to do so. Tourists are permitted to enter the site. Security at the site has increased since the Intifada, and the Israel Defense Forces surround the site with soldiers, and control access to the shrine; there are additional restrictions placed on access by Palestinians beyond the restrictions imposed on Muslims in general by the Wye River Accords.
[edit] Present structure
The rectangular stone enclosure lies on a northwest-southeast axis, and is divided into two sections by a wall running between the northwestern three fifths, and the southeastern two fifths. The northwestern section is roofed on three sides, the central area and north eastern side being open to the sky; the southeastern section is fully roofed, the roof being supported by four columns evenly distributed through the section.
Cenotaph of AbrahamIn the northwestern section are four cenotaphs, each housed in a separate octagonal room, those dedicated to Jacob and Leah being on the northwest, and those to Abraham and Sarah on the southeast. A corridor runs between the cenotaphs on the northwest, and another between those on the southeast. A third corridor runs the length of the southwestern side, through which access to the cenotaphs, and to the southeastern section, can be gained. An entrance to the enclosure exists on the southwestern side, entering this third corridor; a mosque outside this entrance must be passed through to gain access.
At the centre of the northeastern side, there is another entrance, which enters the roofed area on the southeastern side of the northwestern section, and through which access can also be gained to the southeastern (fully roofed) section. This entrance is approached on the outside by a corridor which leads from a long staircase running most of the length of the northwestern side.[7] The southeastern section, which functions primarily as a mosque, contains two cenotaphs, symmetrically placed, near the centre, dedicated to Isaac and Rebekah. Between them, in the southeastern wall, is a mihrab. The cenotaphs have a distinctive red and white horizontal striped pattern to their stonework, but are usually covered by decorative cloth.
Under the present arrangements, Jews are restricted to entering by the southwestern side, and limited to the southwestern corridor and the corridors which run between the cenotaphs, while Muslims may only enter by the northeastern side, and are restricted to the remainder of the enclosure.
[edit] The caves
The more visible known entrance to the caves.[8]The caves under the enclosure are not themselves generally accessible; the waqf have historically prevented access to the actual tombs out of respect for the dead. Only two entrances are known to exist, the most visible of which is located to the immediate southeast of Abraham's cenotaph on the inside of the southeastern section. This entrance is a narrow shaft covered by a decorative grate, which itself is covered by an elaborate dome. The other entrance is located to the southeast, near the minbar, and is sealed by a large stone, and usually covered by prayer mats; this is very close to the location of the seventh step on the outside of the enclosure, beyond which the Mamelukes forbade Jews from approaching.
When the enclosure was controlled by crusaders, access was occasionally possible. One account, by Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela dating from 1163 CE, states that after passing through an iron door, and descending, the caves would be encountered. According to Benjamin of Tudela, there was a sequence of three caves, the first two of which were empty; in the third cave were six tombs, arranged to be opposite to one another.[9]
These caves had only been rediscovered in 1119 CE, by a monk named Arnoul, who had noticed a draught in the area near where the minbar is at present, and had removed the flagstones and found a room lined with Herodian masonry. Arnoul, still searching for the source of the draught, hammered on the cave walls until he heard a hollow sound, pulled down the masonry in that area, and discovered a narrow passage. The narrow passage, which subsequently became known as the serdab (Arabic for passage), was similarly lined with masonry, but partly blocked up; having unblocked the passage Arnoul discovered a large round room with plastered walls. In the floor of the room he found a square stone slightly different from the others, and upon removing it found the first of the caves. The caves were filled with dust, and after removing the dust, Arnoul found bones; believing the bones to be those of the Biblical Patriarchs, Arnoul washed them in wine, and stacked them neatly. Arnoul carved inscriptions into the caves describing whose bones he believed them to be.[6]
This passage to the caves was sealed at some time after Saladin had recaptured the area, though the roof of the circular room was pierced, and a decorative grate was placed over it. In 1967, after the Six Day War, the area fell into the hands of the Israeli Defence Force, and Moshe Dayan, the Defence Minister, and an amateur archaeologist, attempted to regain access to the tombs. Dayan, not knowing about the serdab entrance, started investigating the shaft visible beyond the decorative grate, and came up with the idea of sending someone thin enough through the shaft and down into the chamber below. Dayan eventually found a slim 12 year old girl named Michal and sent her into the chamber with a camera.[10][11]
Michal explored the round chamber, but failed to spot the stone in the floor that led to the caves; Michal did however explore the passage and find steps leading up to the surface, though the exit was blocked by a large stone (this is the entrance near the minbar).[6] According to the report of her findings, which Michal gave to Dayan after having been lifted back through the shaft, there are 16 steps leading down into the passage, which is 1 cubit wide, 17.37 m and 1 m high. In the round chamber, which is 12 m below the entrance to the shaft, there are three stone slabs, the middle one of which contains a partial inscription of Sura 2, verse 255, from the Qu'ran.[6]
A few English language Christian Zionist websites [1][2], claim that Seev Jevin, a former director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, gave an interview to Nachrichten aus Israel, a German Christian Fundamentalist news website, in which he claimed to have entered the passage in 1981. According to these reports, Jevin was permitted by the waqf to enter the chamber via the entrance near the mihrab, and upon doing so discovered the square stone in the round chamber that concealed the cave entrance; the reports state that after entering the first cave, which Jevin regarded as empty, he found a passage leading to a second oval chamber, smaller than the first, which contained shards of pottery and a wine jug. The claims concerning this interview and its accuracy are unconfirmed.
[edit] Religious stances
Both Judaism and Islam agree that entombed within are the Biblical and Qur'anic patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) as well as three matriarchs (Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah), and also Adam and Eve.
[edit] Judaism
In Judaism, the Tombs of the Patriarchs is the second most sacred site in the world, after Temple Mount,[3][4]. It represents the first material purchase of real estate by Abraham in the Land of Canaan (the "Promised Land") and according to Jewish tradition, four patriarchal couples mentioned in the Book of Genesis are buried there:
Adam and Eve
Abraham and Sarah
Isaac and Rebekah
Jacob and Leah - Jacob's other wife, Rachel, being buried near Bethlehem according to tradition.
According to the midrash, the Patriarchs were buried in the cave because the cave is the threshold to the Garden of Eden. The Patriarchs are said not to be dead but "sleeping". They rise to beg mercy for their children throughout the generations. According to the Zohar,[12] this tomb is the gateway through which souls enter into Gan Eden—heaven.
There is a Jewish tradition that praying at the Tomb will bring good fortune in finding a proper spouse.[citation needed] There are Hebrew prayers of supplication for marriage on the walls of the Sarah cenotaph.
[edit] Islam
The enclosure is known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, as Abraham is a revered prophet of Islam who, according to the Qur'an, built the Kaaba in Mecca with his son Ishmael. After the conquest of the city by Umar the Herodian enclosure was rebuilt as a mosque for this reason, and placed under the control of a waqf. The waqf continues to control and maintain most of the site.
[edit] See also
Burial places of founders of world religions
Herodian architecture
[edit] Citations and notes
^ Joan E. Taylor, Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins, Oxford University Press, 1993 pp.129-130
^ The Sefer Ha-yashar has the head buried ‘in that place where the battle had been in Hebron’ (Kiryat Arba, before the cave of Machpelah) Mordecai Manuel Noah (tr.) Book of Jasher, M.M. Noah & A.S. Gould, 1840, chapters 56,50: 57:4, pp.184-5
^ Shalom Goldman, 'The Wiles of Women/the Wiles of Men: Joseph and Potiphar's Wife in Ancient Near Eastern, Jewish, and Islamic Folklore,SUNY Press, 1995 pp.126-7
^ Genesis 22
^ "Genesis 22:17-18", Holy Bible. "So Ephron's field in Machpelah near Mamre--both the field and the cave in it, and all the trees within the borders of the field--was deeded to Abraham as his property in the presence of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of the city."
^ a b c d e f g h i Biblical Archaeology Review, Patriarchal Burial Site Explored for First Time in 700 Years, May/June 1985
^ "a floorplan".
^ "A wider image of the same side.".
^ International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
^ "photograph of Michal descending through the grated shaft".
^ Joseph Free and Howard F. Vos (1992) Archaeology and Bible History Zondervan, ISBN 0310479614 p 62
^ Zohar 127a
[edit] External links
Official Website (Israeli)
The Cave of Machpelah Tomb of the Patriarch Jewish Virtual Library
Tombs of the Patriarchs Article and Photos Sacred Destinations
Demands for Equal Rights for the Jewish People at Ma'arat HaMachpela Hebron.org.il
Aerial Photograph Google Maps
"Machpelah". Catholic Encyclopedia. (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Bible Land Library
[show]v • d • eMosques in the Palestinian territories
West Bank Great Mosque of Nablus • al-Hamadiyya Mosque • Jamal Abdel Nasser Mosque • al-Khadra Mosque • Ibrahimi Mosque • an-Nasr Mosque • Mosque of Omar • Sultan Ibrahim Ibn Adham Mosque
Gaza Strip Great Mosque of Gaza • Mosque of al-Sayed Hashem • Umm al-Naser Mosque • Welayat Mosque
East Jerusalem al-Aqsa Mosque • Marwani Mosque • Mosque of Omar
[show]v • d • eHoly sites in Judaism
Locations: Foundation Stone • Temple Mount • Western Wall • Land of Israel
Tombs: Cave of the Patriarchs • David's Tomb • Joseph's Tomb • Tomb of the Matriarchs • Rachel's Tomb
See also: List of burial places of Biblical figures
Four Holy Cities: Jerusalem • Hebron • Safed • Tiberias
Coordinates: 31°31′27″N 35°06′42″E / 31.5243, 35.1118
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs"
Categories: Caves of the West Bank | Conversion of non-Muslim places of worship into mosques | Hebrew Bible places | Hebron | Islamic holy places | Mosques in the Palestinian territories | Saintly person tombs in the Palestinian territories | Torah places |
Hebrew: מערת המכפלה, Me'arat HaMachpela, Translation "Cave of the Double Tombs;
Arabic: المغارة Al Magr, "the Cave
Cave of the Patriarchs
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The Enclosure of the Cave of the PatriarchsThe Cave of the Patriarchs (Hebrew: מערת המכפלה, Me'arat HaMachpela, Trans. "Cave of the Double Tombs"; Arabic: المغارة Al Magr, "the Cave") is a series of subterranean caves located in a complex called by Muslims the Ibrahimi Mosque or Sanctuary of Abraham (Arabic: الحرم الإبراهيمي, Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi (help·info)). The name is either a reference to the layout of the burial chamber, or alternatively refers to the biblical couples, i.e: cave of the tombs of couples.
The compound, located in the ancient city of Hebron, is the second holiest site for Jews (after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem) and is also venerated by Christians and Muslims all of whose traditions maintain that the site is the burial place of four Biblical couples: (1) Adam and Eve; (2) Abraham and Sarah; (3) Isaac and Rebekah; (4) Jacob and Leah, though some early Christians asserted that Adam lies buried under Golgotha.[1] According to Midrash and other sources the Cave of the Patriarchs also contains the head of Esau[2], and according to some Islamic sources it is also the tomb of Joseph. Though the Bible has Joseph buried in Shechem (the present-day Palestinian city of Nablus), Jewish aggadic tradition conserved the idea that he wished to be interred at Hebron, and the Islamic version may reflect this.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Biblical origin
2 Post-Biblical history
2.1 Structural changes
2.2 Security and conflict
3 Present structure
3.1 The caves
4 Religious stances
4.1 Judaism
4.2 Islam
5 See also
6 Citations and notes
7 External links
[edit] Biblical origin
Painting by Gustave Doré depicting the burial of Sarah in the cave.According to the Book of Genesis, the Biblical patriarch Abraham purchased the site from Ephron the Hittite as a family burial plot after the death of his wife Sarah. The Bible gives the sum Abraham paid for the cave as 400 silver shekels.[4] The text refers to the cave as the cave of Machpelah, and elsewhere designates it as the cave of the field of the Machpelah, suggesting that the term Machpelah may actually be intended to describe the area in which the field containing the cave was located, near Mamre.[5]
The Hittite empire did not extend into Canaan until the late 14th century BCE, only just before The Exodus (which the Bible places many generations after Abraham) in traditional chronologies, and over a century after the date in the New Chronology of David Rohl. In the 19th century BCE, or 21st century BCE, the dates in the respective chronologies for Abraham, Hittites barely existed as a distinct people. It is also possible, however, that Hittite, in this case, does not refer to the distinct national group. The Hebrew word can also be rendered Son of Heth and so could refer only to Heth's children and/or grandchildren.
[edit] Post-Biblical history
[edit] Structural changes
Herod the Great built a large rectangular enclosure over the caves, the only fully surviving Herodian structure. Herod's building, with 6-foot-thick stone walls made from stones that were at least 3 feet tall and sometimes reach a length of 24 feet, did not have a roof. Archæologists are not certain where the original entrance to the enclosure was located, or even if there was one.[6]
Until the era of the Byzantine Empire, the interior of the enclosure remained exposed to the sky. Under Byzantine rule, a simple basilica was constructed at the southeastern end, and the enclosure was roofed everywhere except at the centre. In 614, the Persians conquered the area and destroyed the church, leaving only ruins; but in 637, the area came under the control of the Muslims, and the building was reconstructed as a roofed mosque.
During the 10th century, an entrance was pierced through the north-eastern wall, some way above the external ground level, and steps from the north and from the east were built up to it (one set of steps for entering, the other for leaving).[6] A building known as the kalah (castle) was also constructed near the middle of the southwestern side; its purpose is unknown but one historic account claims that it marked the spot where Joseph was buried (cf Joseph's tomb), the area having been excavated by a muslim caliph, under the influence of a local tradition regarding Joseph's tomb.[6] Some archaeologists believe that the original entrance to Herod's structure was in the location of the kalah, and that the northeastern entrance was created so that the kalah could be built by the former entrance.[6]
In 1100, the enclosure once again became a church, after the area was captured by the Crusaders, and Muslims were no longer permitted to enter; during this period the area was given a new gabled roof, clerestory windows, and vaulting. However, in 1188, Saladin conquered the area, reconverting the enclosure to a mosque, but allowing Christians to continue worshipping there. Saladin also added a minaret at each corner - two of which still survive - and the minbar.[6]
In the late 14th century, under the Mamluks, two additional entrances were pierced into the western end of the south western side, and the kalah was extended upwards to the level of the rest of the enclosure; a cenotaph in memory of Joseph was created in the upper level of the kalah, so that visitors to the enclosure would not need to leave and travel round the outside just to pay respects.[6] The Mamluks also built the northwestern staircase and the six cenotaphs (for Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Leah, Abraham, and Sarah, respectively), distributed evenly throughout the enclosure. The Mamluks forbade Jews from entering the site, only allowing them as close as the 5th step on a staircase at the southeast, but after some time this was increased to the 7th step.
[edit] Security and conflict
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (April 2007)
A security camera watches 24 hours a day inside the Tomb of Abraham MosqueAfter the Six Day War, the area came under the control of Israel, and the restriction limiting Jews to the 7th step was lifted. In 1994 Baruch Goldstein took an assault rifle into the enclosure and killed 29 Palestinian Muslims at prayer, as well as injuring 125 others, before being bludgeoned to death by survivors. The resulting riots left an additional 26 Palestinians and 9 Israelis dead, and the incident provoked national and international condemnation of Goldstein's actions.
The increased sensitivity of the site meant that in 1995 the Wye River Accords, part of the Arab-Israeli peace process, included a temporary status agreement for the site, restricting access for both Jews and Muslims. As part of this agreement, the waqf- a traditional "trust" holding land for Islamic religious purposes- controls 81% of the building. This includes the whole of the southeastern section, which lies above the only known entrance to the caves, and possibly over the entirety of the caves themselves. In consequence, Jews are not permitted to visit the Cenotaphs of Isaac or Rebekah, which lie entirely within the southeastern section, except for 10 days a year which hold special significance in Judaism. One of these days is the Shabbat of Chayei Sarah, when the Jews read the Torah portion concerning the death of Abraham and Sarah, and that concerning the purchase by Abraham of the land in which the caves are situated.
The Israeli authorities do not allow Jewish religious authorities the right to maintain the site, and only allow the waqf to do so. Tourists are permitted to enter the site. Security at the site has increased since the Intifada, and the Israel Defense Forces surround the site with soldiers, and control access to the shrine; there are additional restrictions placed on access by Palestinians beyond the restrictions imposed on Muslims in general by the Wye River Accords.
[edit] Present structure
The rectangular stone enclosure lies on a northwest-southeast axis, and is divided into two sections by a wall running between the northwestern three fifths, and the southeastern two fifths. The northwestern section is roofed on three sides, the central area and north eastern side being open to the sky; the southeastern section is fully roofed, the roof being supported by four columns evenly distributed through the section.
Cenotaph of AbrahamIn the northwestern section are four cenotaphs, each housed in a separate octagonal room, those dedicated to Jacob and Leah being on the northwest, and those to Abraham and Sarah on the southeast. A corridor runs between the cenotaphs on the northwest, and another between those on the southeast. A third corridor runs the length of the southwestern side, through which access to the cenotaphs, and to the southeastern section, can be gained. An entrance to the enclosure exists on the southwestern side, entering this third corridor; a mosque outside this entrance must be passed through to gain access.
At the centre of the northeastern side, there is another entrance, which enters the roofed area on the southeastern side of the northwestern section, and through which access can also be gained to the southeastern (fully roofed) section. This entrance is approached on the outside by a corridor which leads from a long staircase running most of the length of the northwestern side.[7] The southeastern section, which functions primarily as a mosque, contains two cenotaphs, symmetrically placed, near the centre, dedicated to Isaac and Rebekah. Between them, in the southeastern wall, is a mihrab. The cenotaphs have a distinctive red and white horizontal striped pattern to their stonework, but are usually covered by decorative cloth.
Under the present arrangements, Jews are restricted to entering by the southwestern side, and limited to the southwestern corridor and the corridors which run between the cenotaphs, while Muslims may only enter by the northeastern side, and are restricted to the remainder of the enclosure.
[edit] The caves
The more visible known entrance to the caves.[8]The caves under the enclosure are not themselves generally accessible; the waqf have historically prevented access to the actual tombs out of respect for the dead. Only two entrances are known to exist, the most visible of which is located to the immediate southeast of Abraham's cenotaph on the inside of the southeastern section. This entrance is a narrow shaft covered by a decorative grate, which itself is covered by an elaborate dome. The other entrance is located to the southeast, near the minbar, and is sealed by a large stone, and usually covered by prayer mats; this is very close to the location of the seventh step on the outside of the enclosure, beyond which the Mamelukes forbade Jews from approaching.
When the enclosure was controlled by crusaders, access was occasionally possible. One account, by Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela dating from 1163 CE, states that after passing through an iron door, and descending, the caves would be encountered. According to Benjamin of Tudela, there was a sequence of three caves, the first two of which were empty; in the third cave were six tombs, arranged to be opposite to one another.[9]
These caves had only been rediscovered in 1119 CE, by a monk named Arnoul, who had noticed a draught in the area near where the minbar is at present, and had removed the flagstones and found a room lined with Herodian masonry. Arnoul, still searching for the source of the draught, hammered on the cave walls until he heard a hollow sound, pulled down the masonry in that area, and discovered a narrow passage. The narrow passage, which subsequently became known as the serdab (Arabic for passage), was similarly lined with masonry, but partly blocked up; having unblocked the passage Arnoul discovered a large round room with plastered walls. In the floor of the room he found a square stone slightly different from the others, and upon removing it found the first of the caves. The caves were filled with dust, and after removing the dust, Arnoul found bones; believing the bones to be those of the Biblical Patriarchs, Arnoul washed them in wine, and stacked them neatly. Arnoul carved inscriptions into the caves describing whose bones he believed them to be.[6]
This passage to the caves was sealed at some time after Saladin had recaptured the area, though the roof of the circular room was pierced, and a decorative grate was placed over it. In 1967, after the Six Day War, the area fell into the hands of the Israeli Defence Force, and Moshe Dayan, the Defence Minister, and an amateur archaeologist, attempted to regain access to the tombs. Dayan, not knowing about the serdab entrance, started investigating the shaft visible beyond the decorative grate, and came up with the idea of sending someone thin enough through the shaft and down into the chamber below. Dayan eventually found a slim 12 year old girl named Michal and sent her into the chamber with a camera.[10][11]
Michal explored the round chamber, but failed to spot the stone in the floor that led to the caves; Michal did however explore the passage and find steps leading up to the surface, though the exit was blocked by a large stone (this is the entrance near the minbar).[6] According to the report of her findings, which Michal gave to Dayan after having been lifted back through the shaft, there are 16 steps leading down into the passage, which is 1 cubit wide, 17.37 m and 1 m high. In the round chamber, which is 12 m below the entrance to the shaft, there are three stone slabs, the middle one of which contains a partial inscription of Sura 2, verse 255, from the Qu'ran.[6]
A few English language Christian Zionist websites [1][2], claim that Seev Jevin, a former director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, gave an interview to Nachrichten aus Israel, a German Christian Fundamentalist news website, in which he claimed to have entered the passage in 1981. According to these reports, Jevin was permitted by the waqf to enter the chamber via the entrance near the mihrab, and upon doing so discovered the square stone in the round chamber that concealed the cave entrance; the reports state that after entering the first cave, which Jevin regarded as empty, he found a passage leading to a second oval chamber, smaller than the first, which contained shards of pottery and a wine jug. The claims concerning this interview and its accuracy are unconfirmed.
[edit] Religious stances
Both Judaism and Islam agree that entombed within are the Biblical and Qur'anic patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) as well as three matriarchs (Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah), and also Adam and Eve.
[edit] Judaism
In Judaism, the Tombs of the Patriarchs is the second most sacred site in the world, after Temple Mount,[3][4]. It represents the first material purchase of real estate by Abraham in the Land of Canaan (the "Promised Land") and according to Jewish tradition, four patriarchal couples mentioned in the Book of Genesis are buried there:
Adam and Eve
Abraham and Sarah
Isaac and Rebekah
Jacob and Leah - Jacob's other wife, Rachel, being buried near Bethlehem according to tradition.
According to the midrash, the Patriarchs were buried in the cave because the cave is the threshold to the Garden of Eden. The Patriarchs are said not to be dead but "sleeping". They rise to beg mercy for their children throughout the generations. According to the Zohar,[12] this tomb is the gateway through which souls enter into Gan Eden—heaven.
There is a Jewish tradition that praying at the Tomb will bring good fortune in finding a proper spouse.[citation needed] There are Hebrew prayers of supplication for marriage on the walls of the Sarah cenotaph.
[edit] Islam
The enclosure is known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, as Abraham is a revered prophet of Islam who, according to the Qur'an, built the Kaaba in Mecca with his son Ishmael. After the conquest of the city by Umar the Herodian enclosure was rebuilt as a mosque for this reason, and placed under the control of a waqf. The waqf continues to control and maintain most of the site.
[edit] See also
Burial places of founders of world religions
Herodian architecture
[edit] Citations and notes
^ Joan E. Taylor, Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins, Oxford University Press, 1993 pp.129-130
^ The Sefer Ha-yashar has the head buried ‘in that place where the battle had been in Hebron’ (Kiryat Arba, before the cave of Machpelah) Mordecai Manuel Noah (tr.) Book of Jasher, M.M. Noah & A.S. Gould, 1840, chapters 56,50: 57:4, pp.184-5
^ Shalom Goldman, 'The Wiles of Women/the Wiles of Men: Joseph and Potiphar's Wife in Ancient Near Eastern, Jewish, and Islamic Folklore,SUNY Press, 1995 pp.126-7
^ Genesis 22
^ "Genesis 22:17-18", Holy Bible. "So Ephron's field in Machpelah near Mamre--both the field and the cave in it, and all the trees within the borders of the field--was deeded to Abraham as his property in the presence of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of the city."
^ a b c d e f g h i Biblical Archaeology Review, Patriarchal Burial Site Explored for First Time in 700 Years, May/June 1985
^ "a floorplan".
^ "A wider image of the same side.".
^ International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
^ "photograph of Michal descending through the grated shaft".
^ Joseph Free and Howard F. Vos (1992) Archaeology and Bible History Zondervan, ISBN 0310479614 p 62
^ Zohar 127a
[edit] External links
Official Website (Israeli)
The Cave of Machpelah Tomb of the Patriarch Jewish Virtual Library
Tombs of the Patriarchs Article and Photos Sacred Destinations
Demands for Equal Rights for the Jewish People at Ma'arat HaMachpela Hebron.org.il
Aerial Photograph Google Maps
"Machpelah". Catholic Encyclopedia. (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Bible Land Library
[show]v • d • eMosques in the Palestinian territories
West Bank Great Mosque of Nablus • al-Hamadiyya Mosque • Jamal Abdel Nasser Mosque • al-Khadra Mosque • Ibrahimi Mosque • an-Nasr Mosque • Mosque of Omar • Sultan Ibrahim Ibn Adham Mosque
Gaza Strip Great Mosque of Gaza • Mosque of al-Sayed Hashem • Umm al-Naser Mosque • Welayat Mosque
East Jerusalem al-Aqsa Mosque • Marwani Mosque • Mosque of Omar
[show]v • d • eHoly sites in Judaism
Locations: Foundation Stone • Temple Mount • Western Wall • Land of Israel
Tombs: Cave of the Patriarchs • David's Tomb • Joseph's Tomb • Tomb of the Matriarchs • Rachel's Tomb
See also: List of burial places of Biblical figures
Four Holy Cities: Jerusalem • Hebron • Safed • Tiberias
Coordinates: 31°31′27″N 35°06′42″E / 31.5243, 35.1118
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs"
Categories: Caves of the West Bank | Conversion of non-Muslim places of worship into mosques | Hebrew Bible places | Hebron | Islamic holy places | Mosques in the Palestinian territories | Saintly person tombs in the Palestinian territories | Torah places |