B. Ancestral Period (2000-1550 B.C.E.)It is difficult to determine an exact date for the period of Israel's ancestors, the patriarchs and matriarchs. A widely-held guess is that Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob's family were of the Middle Bronze age, thus living sometime between 2000 and 1550 B.C.E. Historians have also placed them both earlier and later than this. Unfortunately, there is no external evidence that can confirm the existence of any of the ancestors. However, only the historical minimalists argue that they are completely fictitious. Almost everything we know of Israel's ancestors comes from Genesis 12-50 (see Chapter 2), nothing from Mesopotamia or Egypt. From the biblical chapters they appear to have been a semi-nomadic people: Abraham traveled from lower Mesopotamia to upper Mesopotamia, then on to Canaan, and even as far as Egypt.
The God who was later identified as the God of Israel encountered Abraham and made a covenant with him that included promises of future well-being, including the inheritance of Canaan as a family homeland and the growth of the family into an international empire. The stories about Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel detail how those promises began to find fulfillment.
The Joseph story relates that the ancestral clan moved to Egypt because of a prolonged famine in Canaan. They were warmly received there because Joseph, the son of Jacob, held a high position within the Egyptian government. The family grew in number and ended up staying in Egypt for generations. |
