ABRAHAM

flourished early 2nd millennium BC Hebrew Avraham, also called Abram, Hebrew Avram first of the Hebrew patriarchs and a figure revered by the three great monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. According to the biblical book of Genesis, Abraham left Ur, in Mesopotamia, because God called him to found a new nation in an undesignated land that he later learned was Canaan. He obeyed unquestioningly the commands of God, from whom he received repeated promises and a covenant that his "seed" would inherit the land. Additional reading A study of the patriarch Abraham is based on scriptural documentation and particularly on Genesis. One should therefore first consult a critical translation of the first book of the Old Testament such as E.A. Speiser (ed. and trans.), Genesis, 3rd ed. (1979, reissued 1985); Gerhard von Rad, Genesis, rev. ed. (1972, reprinted 1985); and Claus Westermann, Genesis 12-36 (1985). The world of the patriarchs has inspired numerous works; those which take into account recent archaeological discoveries include William F. Albright, The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra (1963); and Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, 2nd ed. (1965, reissued 1973). Centred on the city of Ur and the discoveries that were made there is Leonard Woolley, Abraham: Recent Discoveries and Hebrew Origins (1936), but some of his analogies must be rejected. Andr Parrot, Abraham and His Times (1968), presents a synthesis of the double archaeological and epigraphical documentation. Critical reappraisals of Abraham as a historical figure include Thomas L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham (1974); and John Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (1975, reissued 1987), which includes a discussion of literary tradition.