Editing Abraham (section)

===Historicity===
[[File:PikiWiki Israel 11347 Abrams well.jpg|thumb|upright=1|[[Abraham's Well]] at [[Beersheba]], Israel]]

In the early and middle 20th century, leading archaeologists such as [[William F. Albright]] and [[G. Ernest Wright]] and biblical scholars such as [[Albrecht Alt]] and [[John Bright (biblical scholar)|John Bright]] believed that the patriarchs and matriarchs were either real individuals or believable composites of people who lived in the "[[patriarchal age]]", the 2nd millennium BCE.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bright|first=John|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0VG67yLs-LAC&q=Abraham|title=A History of Israel|date=1959|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|isbn=978-0-664-22068-6|page=93|language=en}}</ref> But, in the 1970s, new arguments concerning Israel's past and the biblical texts challenged these views; these arguments can be found in [[Thomas L. Thompson]]'s ''[[The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives]]'' (1974),<ref>{{Cite book|last=Thompson|first=Thomas L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o91vmgEACAAJ&q=The+Historicity+of+the+Patriarchal+Narratives:+The+Quest+for+the+Historical+Abraham|title=The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham|date=1974|publisher=Gruyter, Walter de, & Company |isbn=9783110040968 |language=en}}</ref> and [[John Van Seters]]' ''[[Abraham in History and Tradition]]'' (1975).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Seters|first=John Van|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MySUQgAACAAJ&q=Abraham+in+history+and+tradition|title=Abraham in History and Tradition|date=1975|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-01792-2|archive-date=7 December 2024|access-date=13 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241207061533/https://books.google.com/books?id=MySUQgAACAAJ&q=Abraham+in+history+and+tradition|url-status=live}}</ref> Thompson, a literary scholar, based his argument on archaeology and ancient texts. His thesis centered on the lack of compelling evidence that the patriarchs lived in the 2nd millennium BCE, and noted how certain biblical texts reflected first millennium conditions and concerns. Van Seters examined the patriarchal stories and argued that their names, social milieu, and messages strongly suggested that they were [[Iron Age]] creations.{{sfn|Moore|Kelle|2011|pp=18–19}} Van Seters' and Thompson's works were a [[paradigm shift]] in biblical scholarship and archaeology, which gradually led scholars to no longer consider the patriarchal narratives as historical.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Moorey|first=Peter Roger Stuart|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e1x9Rs_zdG8C&q=A+Century+of+Biblical+Archaeology|title=A Century of Biblical Archaeology|date=1991|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|isbn=978-0-664-25392-9|pages=153–154}}</ref> Some conservative scholars attempted to defend the Patriarchal narratives in the following years, but this has not found acceptance among scholars.<ref>{{harvnb|Dever|2001|p=98}}: "There are a few sporadic attempts by conservative scholars to "save" the patriarchal narratives as history, such as [[Kenneth Kitchen]] [...] By and large, however, the minimalist view of Thompson's pioneering work, ''The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives'', prevails."</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Grabbe|first=Lester L.|editor1-first=H. G. M|editor1-last=Williamson|title=Understanding the History of Ancient Israel|url=https://britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5871/bacad/9780197264010.001.0001/upso-9780197264010-chapter-5|chapter=Some Recent Issues in the Study of the History of Israel|publisher=British Academy|year=2007|isbn=978-0-19-173494-6|language=en-US|doi=10.5871/bacad/9780197264010.001.0001|quote=The fact is that we are all minimalists – at least, when it comes to the patriarchal period and the settlement. When I began my PhD studies more than three decades ago in the USA, the 'substantial historicity' of the patriarchs was widely accepted as was the unified conquest of the land. These days it is quite difficult to find anyone who takes this view.|archive-date=28 March 2022|access-date=12 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220328134917/https://britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5871/bacad/9780197264010.001.0001/upso-9780197264010-chapter-5|url-status=live}}</ref> By the beginning of the 21st century, archaeologists had stopped trying to recover any context that would make Abraham, Isaac or Jacob credible historical figures.{{sfn|Dever|2001|p=98 and fn.2}}