The Call of Abraham

Genesis traces Abram’s family from Noah’s son Shem down to Terah, who had three sons: Abram, Nahor and Haran. Haran, the father of Lot, died in the family’s homeland, Ur of the Chaldees. Abram’s wife Sarai had no child (Genesis 11:10–30). Terah set out from Ur for Canaan with Abram, Sarai and Lot, but they settled on the way at Haran, and there Terah died (Genesis 11:31–32). Joshua later recalls that Terah’s family “served other gods” in their old home beyond the River (Joshua 24:2–3).

Then, Genesis says, the Lord spoke to Abram: “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you.” He promised to make of him a great nation, to bless him and make his name great, and added: “All the families of the earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:1–3). Abram went. He was seventy-five years old, and he took with him Sarai, Lot, their possessions and their household (Genesis 12:4–5).

In Canaan he travelled as far as Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. There the Lord appeared to him and said, “I will give this land to your offspring”, and Abram built an altar. He built another in the hills east of Bethel and then moved on by stages toward the south (Genesis 12:6–9).

Stephen’s speech in Acts puts the call earlier, in Mesopotamia, before the family lived in Haran (Acts 7:2–4). Genesis itself later has God say that he brought Abram out of Ur (Genesis 15:7).

The promise of land, descendants and blessing for all nations runs through the rest of Genesis and is repeated to Isaac and to Jacob (Genesis 26:3–4) (Genesis 28:13–14). Paul quotes it as the gospel announced beforehand to Abraham (Galatians 3:8), and Hebrews makes Abraham’s departure a model of faith: “He went out, not knowing where he went” (Hebrews 11:8).

How this is dated

Traditional date. From later tradition or from internal biblical chronology, with no outside anchor.

No inscription or record from his own time names Abraham, so the date rests on the Bible’s own figures, counted back from a later anchor. Solomon began the temple in the fourth year of his reign, 480 years after the exodus (1 Kings 6:1). Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (3rd ed., 1983), dates the division of the kingdom after Solomon’s death to 931/930 BC. Solomon reigned forty years (1 Kings 11:42), so his fourth year falls about 966 BC, and counting back 480 years from it gives 1446 BC for the exodus. Israel had lived in Egypt for 430 years (Exodus 12:40–41); Jacob was 130 when he arrived there (Genesis 47:9); Isaac was 60 when Jacob was born (Genesis 25:26); Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born (Genesis 21:5) and 75 when he left Haran (Genesis 12:4). The sum is 2091 BC.

Each link can be questioned. A date for the exodus in the thirteenth century BC, argued for example by Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003), lowers every date in this era by nearly two centuries if the other figures are kept. The Greek Septuagint makes the 430 years cover the time in Canaan as well as in Egypt (Septuagint Exodus 12:40); Josephus counts in the same way and allows 215 years for Egypt (Josephus, Antiquities 2.318), and Paul sets the law 430 years after the promise (Galatians 3:17). On that count Abraham left Haran about 1876 BC.

Historians also disagree on whether the stories can be dated at all. Kitchen argues that they fit the early second millennium BC; Thomas L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (1974), and John Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (1975), argue that they were composed in the first millennium BC and cannot be tied to any earlier period. The timeline follows the Hebrew figures and marks the result as traditional.

The Call of Abraham

How this is dated

Primary sources

Scripture

The Septuagint

Jewish Antiquities

In context

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