I9I3] OF THE PATRIARCHAL NARRATIVES. 197 



in the cases of Jacob and Joseph, a Hving person probably existed 

 far back in history about whose name stories, gathered from various 

 quarters, afterward ckistered. 



That such a person may have migrated from Babylonia to Pal- 

 estine, as the Biblical patriarch is said to have done, is clearly attested 

 by an interesting little contract from Sippar, which reads as follows :^° 



^A wagon -from Mannum-balum-Shamash, 'son of Shelibia, ^Khabilkinum, 

 "son of Appanibi "on a lease 'for l year *has hired. "As a yearly rental ^"2lz 

 of a shekel of silver "he shall pay. ^"As the first of the rent "i/6 of a shekel 

 of silver "he has received. '°Unto the land of Kittim "he shall not drive it. 

 (After the names of the witnesses comes the date.) "Month Ulul, day 25th, 

 "^the year the king as a friend protected Erech from the flood of the river. 



The date of this interesting document has not been identified 

 with certainty, but it probably comes from the reign of Shamsuiluna 

 (2080-2043 B.C.). The country Kittim mentioned in it is the Medi- 

 terranean coast, which was sometimes so called by the Hebrews (cf. 

 Isa. 2 : 10, and Eze. 27 : 6). The interesting thing is that intercourse 

 between the Babylonian city of Sippar and the Mediterranean coast 

 was so frequent when this contract was made, that a man could not 

 lease his wagon for a year without running the risk that it might be 

 driven to the Mediterranean coast lands. It was in a period of such 

 frequent intercourse that some Joseph-el and Jacob-el migrated from 

 Babylonia and gave their names to Palestinian cities. And it would 

 seem that some Babylonian Abraham may have done the same, for 

 Sheshonk I., of the twenty-second Egyptian dynasty (the Shishak 

 of the Bible), records as one of the places captured by him in Pal- 

 estine a place called " The field of Abram."^^ This place would 

 seem to have been in southern Judah. It would seem quite as likely 

 that a Babylonian Abraham may have given his name to the place in 

 the same way that a Jacob-el and a Joseph-el did, and that, after 

 Hebrews had settled in the country, they took his name over, just as 

 they did the other two, as to suppose that the name Abraham origi- 

 nated in an epithet of a moon god. 



One cannot well refuse to believe that many of the stories con- 



™ See Beitrage zur Assyriologie, V., p. 488, No. 23; cf. p. 429 ff. 

 " See Breasted, " Ancient Records, Egypt," IV., 352, 353. 



