exhibits in his character the appropriate virtues of one so highly favored:
faith, righteousness, purity of heart, gratitude, fidelity, compassion. He receives marked tokens of the Divine favor in the shape of deliverance, guidance, visions, angelic messengers (no theophanies for Mohammed!), miracles, assurance of resurrection and entrance into paradise. He is called
“Imam of the peoples” (2 118)
7. INTERPRETATIONS OF THE STORY OTHER
than to the others, that it has been rejected in Abraham’s case even by some who have adopted it for figures like Isaac, Ishmael and Jacob. Thus Meyer (Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstamme, 250; compare also note on p. 251), speaking of his earlier opinion, acknowledges that, at the time when he “regarded the assertion of Stade as proved that Jacob and Isaac were tribes,” even then he “still recognized Abraham as a mythical figure and originally a god.” A similar differentiation of Abraham from the rest is true of most of the other adherents of the views about to be mentioned.
Hence also Wellhausen says (Prolegomena 6, 317): “Only Abraham is certainly no name of a people, like Isaac and Lot; he is rather ambiguous anyway. We dare not of course on that account hold him in this connection as an historical personage; rather than that he might be a free creation of unconscious fiction. He is probably the youngest figure in this company and appears to have been only at a relatively late date put before his son Isaac.”
3. The Mythical Theory:
Urged popularly by Noldeke (Im neuen Reich (1871), I, 508 ff) and taken up by other scholars, especially in the case of Abraham, the view gained general currency among those who denied the historicity of Genesis, that the patriarchs were old deities. From this relatively high estate, it was held, they had fallen to the plane of mere mortals (though with remnants of the hero or even demigod here and there visible) on which they appear in Genesis. A new phase of this mythical theory has been developed in the elaboration by Winckler and others of their astral-theology of the
Babylonian world, in which the worship of Abraham as the moon-god by the Semites of Palestine plays a part. Abraham’s traditional origin
connects him with Ur and Haran, leading centers of the moon-cult. Apart from this fact the arguments relied upon to establish this identification of Abraham with Sin may be judged by the following samples: “When further the consort of Abraham bears the name Sarah, and one of the women among his closest relations the name Milcah, this gives food for thought, since these names correspond precisely with the titles of the female deities worshipped at Haran alongside the moongod Sin. Above all, however, the number 318, that appears in <011414>
Genesis 14:14 in connection with the figure of Abraham, is convincing because this number, which surely has no historical value, can only be satisfactorily explained from the circle of ideas
of the moon-religion, since in the lunar year of 354 days there are just 318 days on which the moon is visible — deducting 36 days, or three for each of the twelve months, on which the moon is invisible” (Baentsch,
Monotheismus, 60 f). In spite of this assurance, however, nothing could exceed the scorn with which these combinations and conjectures of
Winckler, A. Jeremias and others of this school are received by those who in fact differ from them with respect to Abraham in little save the answer to the question, what deity was Abraham (see e.g. Meyer, op. cit., 252 f, 256 f).
4. The “Saga” Theory:
Gunkel (Genesis, Introduction), in insisting upon the resemblance of the patriarchal narrative to the “sagas” of other primitive peoples, draws attention both to the human traits of figures like Abraham, and to the very early origin of the material embodied in our present book of Genesis. First as stories orally circulated, then as stories committed to writing, and finally as a number of collections or groups of such stories formed into a cycle, the Abraham-narratives, like the Jacob-narratives and the Joseph- narratives , grew through a long and complex literary history. Gressmann (op. cit, 9-34) amends Gunkel’s results, in applying to them the principles of primitive literary development laid down by Professor Wundt in his Volkerpsychologie. He holds that the kernel of the Abraham-narratives is a series of fairy-stories, of international diffusion and unknown origin, which have been given “a local habitation and a name” by attaching to them the (ex hypothesi) then common name of Abraham (similarly Lot, etc.) and associating them with the country nearest to the wilderness of Judea, the home of their authors, namely, about Hebron and the Dead Sea. A high antiquity (1300-1100 BC) is asserted for these stories, their astonishing accuracy in details wherever they can be tested by extra-Biblical tradition is conceded, as also the probability that, “though many riddles still remain unsolved, yet many other traditions will be cleared up by new discoveries”
of archaeology.
J. Oscar Boyd ABRAHAM, BOOK OF
See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE.
ABRAHAM’S BOSOM
<booz’-um> ([ko>lpv ∆Abraa>m, kolpos Abraam]; [ko>lpoi kolpoi Abraam]): Figurative. The expression occurs in <421622>
Luke 16:22,23, in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, to denote the place of repose to which Lazarus was carried after his death. The figure is suggested by the practice of the guest at a feast reclining on the breast of his neighbor. Thus, John leaned on the breast of Jesus at supper (<432120>
John 21:20). The rabbis divided the state after death ([Sheol]) into a place for the righteous and a place for the wicked (see ESCHATOLOGY OF OLD TESTAMENT;
SHEOL); but it is doubtful whether the figure of Jesus quite corresponds with this idea. “Abraham’s bosom” is not spoken of as in “Hades,” but rather as distinguished from it (<421623>
Luke 16:23) — a place of blessedness by itself. There Abraham receives, as at a feast, the truly faithful, and admits them to closest intimacy. It may be regarded as equivalent to the
“Paradise” of <422343>
Luke 23:43.
See HADES; PARADISE.
James Orr
ABRAM
<a’-bram>.
See ABRAHAM.
ABRECH
<a’-brek>: Transliteration of the Hebrew
˚]reb]a”
[’abhrekh], in<014143>
Genesis 41:43 the Revised Version, margin, of which both the origin and meaning are uncertain. It was the salutation which the Egyptians addressed to Joseph, when he was made second to Pharaoh, and appeared in his official chariot.
(1) The explanations based upon Hebrew derivation are unsatisfactory, whether as the King James Version “bow the knee,” from
˚]rb
[barakh] (hiphil imperative) or marginal “tender father,” or “father of a king” of the Targum. The form as Hiphil Imperative instead of
˚]rEb]h”
[habhrekh], is indefensible, while the other two derivations are fanciful.(2) The surmises of Egyptologists are almost without number, and none are conclusive. Skinner in his Commentary on Genesis selects
“attention!” after Spiegelberg, as best. Speaker’s Commentary suggests
“rejoice thou” from ab-nek. BDB gives preference to the Coptic a-bor- k, “prostrate thyself.”
(3) The most satisfying parallel is the Assyrian abarakku, meaning
“grand vizier” or “friend of a king,” as suggested by Fried. Delitzsch;
for Babylonian laws and customs were dominant in western Asia, and the Hyksos, through whom such titles would have been carried into Egypt, were ruling there at that time.
Edward Mack
ABROAD
<a-brod>: An idiomatic rendering of [ajfi>keto aphiketo] (literally,
“arrived”), “come abroad” is used in <451619>
Romans 16:19 to indicate a report that has been most widely diffused (literally, “did reach unto all”). Similar idiomatic translations of the King James Version have been replaced in the Revised Version (British and American) by those more literal, as in
<410422>
Mark 4:22; <420817>
Luke 8:17; <410614>
Mark 6:14; <520108>
1 Thessalonians 1:8. Used also in other idiomatic renderings, as “spread abroad” diaphemizo, <410145>
Mark 1:45; “noised abroad” dialaleo, <420165>
Luke 1:65; “scattered abroad,” <431152>
John 11:52; <440801>
Acts 8:1, etc.; in all these cases for the pervasive meaning of the Greek preposition in composition. In <011505>
Genesis 15:5, [chuts] means
“outside.”
H. E. Jacobs ABROAD, SCATTERED
See DISPERSION.
ABRONAH
<a-bro’-na>, the King James Version Ebronah (
hn:rob][“
[`abhronah]):One of the stations of Israel in the wilderness on the march from Sinai to Kadesh — the station next before that at Ezion-geber on the eastern arm of the Red Sea (<043334>
Numbers 33:34,35).
ABSALOM (1)
<ab’-sa-lom> (
µwOv;b]a”
[’abhshalom], “father is peace,” written also Abishalom, <111502>1 Kings 15:2,10): David’s third son by Maacah, daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, a small territory between Hermon and Bashan.