He attached great importance to clearness and exactness; his accounts of things are often cast into the shape of formulas (cf. For it is not merely a matter of the formation of the simple legends separately, but also of the amalgamation of these into more complex legends. Abraham is thus selected as the first beginning or source of the religion of the children of Israel and the origin of its close connection with Jehovah, because of his faith, trust, and obedience to and in Jehovah and because of Jehovah's promises to him and to his seed. He does so, and Agar being with child despises the barren Sarai. It was shown principally when he was willing to sacrifice his only son Isaac, in obedience to a command from God. Jehovah, in an apparition to Isaac, speaks of himself as the God of Abraham (Gen. xxvi, 24), and to Jacob he is "the God of my father Abraham" (Gen. xxxi, 42). Abram married Sarai. Abraham may be looked upon as the starting-point or source of Old Testament religion. It was on that occasion that God said: "Because thou hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake I will bless thee" etc. 1 In the land of the a Chaldeans, at the residence of my fathers, I, b Abraham, saw that it was needful for me to obtain another place of c residence;. Abraham about the future of his race, after his (temporary) ascent into the heavenly regions, under the guidance of the archangel Jaoel, who here seems to play the part of Metatron-Michael. Sarai, who was far advanced in years and had given up the idea of bearing children, persuaded Abram to take to himself her hand-maid, Agar. Probably composed in the 1st or 2nd century CE, it is of Jewish origin and is usually considered to be part of the apocalyptic literature. The first principle enunciated by the critics is that the accounts of the primitive ages and of the patriarchal times originated amongst people who did not practise the art of writing. Whilst he is still young, Sarah is jealous, seeing Ismael playing with the child Isaac, so she procures that Agar and her son shall be cast out. Amongst other collections were those of J in the South and E in the North. This he does in the Magnificat, iii, 55, and in the Benedictus, iii, 73. After this, Abraham moves south to Gerara, and again fearing for his life says of his wife, "she is my sister". Online Resources for Testament of Abraham. So that from the days of Abraham men were wont to speak of God as the God of Abraham, whilst we do not find Abraham referring in the same way to anyone before him. Thirteen years later God appears to Abram and promises him a son by Sarai, and that his posterity will be a great nation. Next morning Abraham, looking from his tent towards Sodom, sees the smoke of destruction ascending to heaven. In setting forth the critical view on the subject, I must not be taken as giving my own views also. Accordingly the traditional view of the life of Abraham, as recorded in Genesis, is that it is history in the strict sense of the word. St. Paul, too, shows that he is a son of Abraham and glories in that fact as in 2 Corinthians 11:22 , when he exclaims: "They are the seed of Abraham, so am I". But, following the teaching of Jesus Christ St. Paul does not attach too much importance to carnal descent from Abraham; for he says ( Galatians 3:29 ): "If you be Christ's, then you are the seed of Abraham", and again ( Romans 9:6 ): "All are not Israelites who are of Israel ; neither are all they who are the seed of Abraham, children". iii, 6). So that no one can any longer assert that the war spoken of in Genesis, xiv, can only be a late reflection of the wars of Sennacherib and others in the times of the kings. The Testament of Abraham is a pseudepigraphic text of the Old Testament. So, too, of the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, which relates the war of Chodorlahomor and his allies in Palestine, it is not so long ago that the advanced critics relegated it to the region of fable, under the conviction that Babylonians and Elamites at that early date in Palestine and the surrounding country was a gross anachronism. God promises Abram that his seed shall be as the stars of heaven, and he shall possess the land of Chanaan. Bib., 26). VIEWPOINT OF OLD TESTAMENT. Writers, accordingly, in complacent ignorance of the cuneiform texts, told the Assyriologists that their translations and interpretations were alike erroneous." One is inclined to ask, when considering the light which profane history may shed on the life of Abraham: Is not the life of the patriarch incredible? It is clear that this language, taken by itself, and apart from the absolute necessity of good works upheld by St. Paul, is liable to mislead and actually has misled many in the history of the Church. With 318 men the patri arch surprises, attacks, and defeats him, he retakes Lot and the spoil, and returns in triumph. They say, in fact, that these discoveries throw a serious element of doubt over many of the conclusions of the higher critics. Your Catholic Voice Foundation has been granted a recognition of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Later, however finding out that she was Abram's wife, he sent her away unharmed, and, upbraiding Abram for what he had done, he dismissed him from Egypt. Very often, where individual names are used these names in reality refer not to individuals but to tribes, as in Genesis 10 , and the names of the twelve Patriarchs, whose migrations are those of the tribes they represent. The view taken by the patient reconstructive criticism of our day is that, not only religiously, but even, in a qualified sense, historically also, the narratives of Abraham have a claim on our attention" (Cheyne, Encyc. 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