Abraham and Sanballat

Bartosz Adamczewski

doi:10.17159/2312-3621/2021/v34n1a3

Abstract

Several important features of the narrative character of Abraham allude to the features of the historical person of Sanballat, the first Israelite governor of the Persian province of Samaria. The most important common features of Abraham and Sanballat are the origin in the city of Haran, a non-Yahwistic name, being related to the cult of the moon god Sin, being given the land of Israel as a hereditary possession, founding the central sanctuary of Yahweh on Mount Gerizim, and respecting an important priest from Jerusalem. These and other common features point to the origin of the book of Genesis in the secular elite of the Persian province of Samaria ca. 350–340 B.C. https://doi.org/10.17159/2312–3621/2021/v34n1a3.

Highlights

In biblical scholarship, Abraham and Sanballat belong to two different worlds— the exegesis of the book of Genesis and the history of the Persian-period Samaria
The most important common features of Abraham and Sanballat are the origin in the city of Haran, a non-Yahwistic name, being related to the cult of the moon god Sin, being given the land of Israel as a hereditary possession, founding the central sanctuary of Yahweh on Mount Gerizim, and respecting an important priest from Jerusalem
The thought that the narrative character of Abraham from the book of Genesis has some features of the historical person of Sanballat is not entirely new

Summary

A INTRODUCTION

In an article published in the year 2013, she wrote, Abraham serves in the narrative as the common ancestor for people living in the territories of Israel/Samerina and Judah/Yehud. He travels through both areas, erecting altars where he calls upon the name of Yhwh, and has a dual origin in “Ur of the Chaldees” and in Haran. She first argues that the activity of the narrative character of Abraham in Shechem and Bethel geographically corresponds to the activity of Sanballat in the territory of the Persian-period Israel/Samerina. She seems to make a linguistic connection between Haran, regarded as one of the places of the origin of Abraham, and the adjectival characterisation of Sanballat as “the Haranite.” Let us look closer at this connection

B SANBALLAT THE HORONITE OR THE HARANITE?

C THE CITY OF UR AND ITS CULT OF THE MOON GOD SIN

E RESPECT FOR THE JUDEAN PRIESTHOOD

F ORIGIN AND DATE OF GENESIS

G BIBLIOGRAPHY