Abraham (/ˈeɪbrəˌhæm, -həm/ abe-raham; Hebrew: אַבְרָהָם, 
listen (help·info)), originally Abram, is the first of the three patriarchs of Judaism. His story features in the holy texts of all the Abrahamic religions and Abraham plays a prominent role as an example of faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.[1]
listen (help·info)), originally Abram, is the first of the three patriarchs of Judaism. His story features in the holy texts of all the Abrahamic religions and Abraham plays a prominent role as an example of faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.[1]
The biblical narrative revolves around the themes of posterity and land. Abraham is called by God to leave the house of his father Terah and settle in the land originally given to Canaan, but which God now promises to Abraham and his progeny. Various candidates are put forward who might inherit the land after Abraham, but all are dismissed except for Isaac, his son by his half-sister Sarah. Abraham purchases a tomb (the Cave of the Patriarchs) at Hebron to be Sarah's grave, thus establishing his right to the land, and in the second generation his heir Isaac is married to a woman from his own kin, thus ruling the Canaanites out of any inheritance. Abraham later marries Keturah and has six more sons, but on his death, when he is buried beside Sarah, it is Isaac who receives "all Abraham's goods", while the other sons receive only "gifts".[2]
The Abraham story cannot be definitively related to any specific time, and it is widely agreed that the patriarchal age, along with the exodus and the period of the judges, is a late literary construct that does not relate to any period in actual history.[3] A common hypothesis among scholars is that it was composed in the early Persian period (late 6th century BCE) as a result of tensions between Jewish landowners who had stayed in Judah during the Babylonian captivity and traced their right to the land through their "father Abraham", and the returning exiles who based their counter-claim on Moses and the Exodus tradition.[4]
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