Patriarchal age
{{Short description|Biblical era of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob}}
The patriarchal age is the era of the three biblical patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, according to the narratives of Genesis 12–50 (these chapters also contain the history of Joseph, although Joseph is not one of the patriarchs). It is preceded in the Bible by the primeval history and followed by The Exodus.
By the early 21st century, a scholarly consensus emerged rejecting the historicity of the biblical patriarchs following a paradigm shift initiated by Thomas L. Thompson and John van Seters, whose works argued that the patriarchal narratives reflected Iron Age concerns rather than second-millennium BCE history.
Dating
The Bible contains an intricate pattern of chronologies from the creation of Adam, the first man, to the reigns of the later kings of ancient Israel and Judah. Based on this chronology and the Rabbinic tradition, ancient Jewish sources such as Seder Olam Rabbah date the birth of Abraham to 1948 AM ({{circa|1813 BCE}})[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/abraham.html Jewish Virtual Library: Abraham] and place the death of Jacob in 2255 AM ({{circa|1506 BCE}}).
The Bible provides relative dates for the patriarchal period. 1 Kings 6:1 states that King Solomon built the Jerusalem Temple 480 years after the Exodus, and Exodus 12:40 states that the Hebrews lived in Egypt for 430 years. Using the limmu lists of Assyria, these relative dates can be converted into estimated absolute dates. Using this method, it appears that the Bible places the patriarchal age in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE between 2100 and 1500 BCE. Abraham would have been born {{circa|2166 BCE}}, and Jacob and his family would have moved to Egypt {{circa|1876 BCE}}.{{cite book | last = Longman | first = Tremper | author-link = Tremper Longman | title = How to Read Genesis | publisher = InterVarsity Press | series = How to Read Series | year = 2005 | page = 90 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=SKEJ3kT7S2kC | isbn = 9780830875603}}
Biblical archaeology
Following Albright's death, his interpretation of the Patriarchal age came under increasing criticism: such dissatisfaction marked its culmination with the publication of The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives by Thomas L. Thompson{{Cite book|last=Thompson|first=Thomas L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o91vmgEACAAJ&q=The+Historicity+of+the+Patriarchal+Narratives:+The+Quest+for+the+Historical+Abraham|title=The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham. Text|date=1974|publisher=Gruyter, Walter de, & Company |isbn=978-3-11-004096-8 |language=en}} and Abraham in History and Tradition by John van Seters.{{Cite book|last=Seters|first=John Van|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F3fboAEACAAJ&q=Abraham+in+history+and+tradition|title=Abraham in History and Tradition|date=1975|publisher=Echo Point Books and Media|isbn=978-1-62654-910-4|language=en}} Thompson, a literary scholar, argued on the lack of compelling evidence that the patriarchs lived in the 2nd millennium BCE, and noted how certain biblical texts reflected first millennium conditions and concerns, while Van Seters examined the patriarchal stories and argued that their names, social milieu, and messages strongly suggested that they were Iron Age creations.{{sfn|Moore|Kelle|2011|pp=18–19}} Van Seter and Thompson's works were a paradigm shift in biblical scholarship and archaeology, which gradually led scholars to no longer consider the patriarchal narratives as historical.{{Cite book|last=Moorey|first=Peter Roger Stuart|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e1x9Rs_zdG8C&q=A+Century+of+Biblical+Archaeology+by+Roger+Moorey&pg=PP1|title=A Century of Biblical Archaeology|date=1991-01-01|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|isbn=978-0-664-25392-9|language=en}} Some conservative scholars attempted to defend the Patriarchal narratives in the following years,{{Cite web|last=Kitchen|first=Kenneth|date=1995|title=The Patriarchal Age: Myth or History?|url=https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/21/2/3|access-date=2021-07-12|website=Biblical Archaeology Review|language=en}}{{Cite book|last=Kitchen|first=K. A.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kw6U05qBiXcC&q=on+the+reliability+of+the+old+testament|title=On the Reliability of the Old Testament|date=2006-06-09|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|isbn=978-0-8028-0396-2|pages=313|language=en}} but this position has not found acceptance among scholars.{{Cite book|last=Dever|first=William G.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6-VxwC5rQtwC&q=%22respectable+archaeologists%22&pg=PA98|title=What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?: What Archeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel|date=2001-05-10|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|isbn=978-0-8028-2126-3|pages=98|language=en|quote=There are a few sporadic attempts by conservative scholars to "save" the patriarchal narratives as history, such as Kenneth Kitchen [...] By and large, however, the minimalist view of Thompson's pioneering work, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives, prevails.}}{{Cite book|last=Grabbe|first=Lester L.|editor1-first=H. G. M|editor1-last=Williamson|url=https://britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5871/bacad/9780197264010.001.0001/upso-9780197264010-chapter-5|title=Some Recent Issues in the Study of the History of Israel|publisher=British Academy|year=2007|isbn=978-0-19-173494-6|language=en-US|doi=10.5871/bacad/9780197264010.001.0001|quote=The fact is that we are all minimalists -- at least, when it comes to the patriarchal period and the settlement. When I began my PhD studies more than three decades ago in the USA, the 'substantial historicity' of the patriarchs was widely accepted as was the unified conquest of the land. These days it is quite difficult to find anyone who takes this view.}}
By the beginning of the 21st century, archaeologists had given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac or Jacob credible historical figures.{{sfn|Dever|2001|p=98 and fn.2}}{{Cite book|last=Dever|first=William G.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=39HoDwAAQBAJ&q=has+archeology+buried+the+bible|title=Has Archaeology Buried the Bible?|date=2020|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|isbn=978-1-4674-5949-5|language=en|quote="All these stories reflect the geopolitical situation of the Israelite monarchy in the Late Iron Age, not any historical situation in the "Age of Abraham". To be sure, these stories are set in an earlier theoretical context that may have some historical verisimilitude; but in their present form, they are clearly fictitious."}}