RCHEOLOGICAL discovery has shed more light on the patriarchal period than on any other biblical age. This is not altogether an accident, for the days of the patriarchs witnessed the great cultural synthesis known as the Amarna Age (15th-14th centuries B.C.) that produced abundant records on imperishable clay, from Assyria to Egypt, from Babylonia to Asia Minor and the Aegean shores. The focal point of this international blending was patriarchal Canaan, where Mesopotamians, Hittites, Hurrians, Caphtorians, Amorites, Arameans and Egyptians made their impact on the native Canaanites. It was such a stage on which Abraham played his role after migrating from Mesopotamia to Palestine. Small wonder then that the rich finds of Babylonian, Hittite, Ugaritic, Egyptian and other texts of the Amarna Age are in the process of illuminating the long misunderstood narratives about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.Biblical tradition attributes the foundation of Hebrew Yahwism to the Patriarchal Period. To be sure, Yahwe had been known in the remote past (Gen. 4:26) but his monotheism, as associated with his people, dates from Abraham. This is in general borne out by extra-biblical sources. Thus Yahwistic personal names of the so-called Amorites occur on Babylonian tablets prior to Abraham's time. On the other hand, it is now clear that the monotheistic crystallization which took place in the patriarchal period fits into a historic context when monotheism was in the air internationally. From prehistoric antiquity the polytheistic Semites had a par excellence; 'el as a common noun designated any god but as a proper noun meant the supreme God. Down to the Amarna Age, individual nations lived more or less to themselves, and El, if not the one and only God, could serve as head of a pantheon. But when all the civilized world became united culturally in the Amarna Age, men became aware of the oneness of the world and were naturally led toward universal monotheism. It was in