Who was Abraham? (8)

Based on the works of scholars, who will be revealed when the blogging for this topic ends. Works of other authors may be included, but where these are done, full acknowledgement will be made.

Advice: Those who may take offence in seeing biblical (OT) quotations or liberal discussion of OT biblical characters should not read this topic.

Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? And shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? (Genesis 17:17)

This tells us that the age gap between Abraham and Sarah was 10 years.

So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him: and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. (Genesis 12:4)

Abraham was already 75 years old when he was instructed by God to leave Haran after his father died. Therefore Sarah was sixty-five years old. It also tells us that there was a gap of at least 25 years between entering Egypt and having their son Isaac.

And it came to pass, that, when Abrams was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.

The princes also of Pharaoh also saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. (Genesis 12:14-14)

When entering Egypt, Abraham wanted Sarah to pretend she was his sister. The biblical reason was that he was afraid of being killed if it was known she was his wife, for he anticipated Sarah would attract lustful attention. And he was right. Pharaoh was told of her beauty, took her into his Palace and rewarded her ‘brother’ generously.

Here, two questions begged to be asked.

(1) What did Egyptians see in a 65 year old Hebrew woman that made them acclaim she was fair, and recommend the beauty to the Pharaoh, and why would a Pharaoh, who could have any woman in the land, want an old crone as his lover?

(2) Did the Pharaoh have his naughty ways with Sarah after taking her into the Palace?

Other questions that popped up are:

(3) What was a pastoralist like Abraham doing in a cosmopolitan city like Ur? One would expect him to live in a tent in a rural area, but we are told he came from Ur of the Chaldees? (Genesis 11:28)

(4) But the Chaldean civilization came about in 900 BC, more than half a thousand years after the biblical Abraham. So, was Abraham really from Ur of the Chaldees?

(5) Then, what would be the likelihood of a foreign commoner, a mere pastoralist even allowing for his beautiful wife, coming into contact with the royal house of Egypt, namely the princes and the Pharaoh? (Genesis 12:15) Can a great empire like Egypt be so 'small' that a mere foreigner, on entering its border, would come into contact with or to the knowledge of its princes?

(6) Why is there a leitmotiv surrounding Abraham and Sarah of the man and wife pretending to be brother and sister, a King taking (or attempting to take her) the wife, God intervening to return the wife to the husband, and the husband profiting greatly from the separation? The leitmotiv may be discerned in:

(a) Abraham and the Pharaoh (Genesis 12:11-20)
(b) Abraham and Abimelech of Gerar (Genesis 20:2-18) – Sarah was even older by then, around 90.
(c) Isaac and Abimelech of Gerar (Genesis 26: 7-16) – we aren’t too sure whether this was the same Abimelech for it was then more than 50 years later, but the King had a chief captain of the army named Phichol (Genesis 26:26) as was in the case of the earlier or Abraham’s Abimelech (Genesis 21:22).

(7) Why was Sarah told to change her name from the original Sarai to Sarah, in Hebrew meaning Princess? (Genesis 17:15)

What were the authors (or author) of Genesis trying to say, or do?

To be continued ……..