■913-] OF THE PATRIARCHAL NARRATIVES. 195 



a city was named after him. Later, when the Hebrews settled near 

 this city, they took over the name of its hero in shortened form as 

 a name for tiieir eponymous ancestor. All the reasons quoted above 

 for the name Joseph apply here. Apart from stories of marriages 

 and friction with Esau, which denote tribal relations, the one impor- 

 tant tale connected with Jacob is his dream at Bethel. This was one 

 of the stories by which the Hebrews justified to themselves their 

 adoption of an old Canaanitish shrine. The stories of Isaac seem, 

 in like manner, to be tales of alliance with Aramaeans, and tales of 

 shrines like that at Beersheba. We have no extra Biblical material 

 with which to compare them. 



When the investigator takes up the stories of Abraham, moving 

 back still a generation from the nation Israel, he is confronted with 

 much material and with a wealth of conflicting theories. Of course 

 to Jensen Abraham is a form of the Gilgamesh myth.-^ To Winck- 

 ler and Zimmern Abraham is a moon god. The reasons for this 

 latter view have seemed convincing to many. Abram, of which 

 Abraham was but a variant form, has been held to be of West 

 Semitic origin and to mean " exalted father."-* It is really, as we 

 shall see, of Babylonian origin and has another meaning. Tradition 

 connects him with Ilarran and Ur, both seats of the worship of the 

 moon god. In Babylonian hymns Sin, the moon god. is frequently 

 called Ab or father.-" Sarah or Sarai, the name of Abraham's wife, 

 is the Hebrew equivalent of sarratii, '" queen."' an epithet of the con- 

 sort of the moon god at Harran. Milcah, Abraham's sister-in-law 

 (Gen. II : 29), is Malkatu, the name of a consort of the sun god and 

 perhaps also of the moon god.-'' These are some of the arguments 

 which seem to the adherents of this view conclusive. It must be 

 confessed that many of the stories told of Abraham in Genesis are 

 connected with shrines, and would be explicable on this view. Their 

 purpose was undoubtedly to justify the use by Hebrews of the 

 shrines of Shechem, Bethel, Hebron, and Beersheba. This is not, 

 however, the whole of the matter. We have now evidence that 



^' " Gilgameshepos und der Weltliteratur," I., 256 ff. 



^ Briggs, Brown and Driver, " Hebrew Lexicon," 4. 



^ Cf. Journal of Biblical Literature. XXVIII., p. 166, n. 26. 



-' Schrader, " Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament," 3d ed., 364 fF. 



PKOC. AMER. PHIL. SOC. , I II. 209 M, PRINTED JUNE 6, I9I3. 



