ovde - vera znanje mir

of Isaac's descendants as being surrounded by kindred peoples, who are also more often enemies.
This is because the clans practiced intermarriage. are in the descending scale, perhaps of purity of
blood, or as of purity of relationship, or of connectedness to Sarah: Sarah, her servant, her
husband's other wife. The Bible says of the Hebrew people: "Your father was a wandering
Syrian". Yet to Abraham's face the Hittites said, "You are a great chief among us. Bury your dead
in the choicest of our tombs." (Genesis 23:4 and 5)
As stated above, Abraham came from Ur in Chaldea to Haran and thence to Canaan. Late tradition
supposed that this was to escape Babylonian idolatry (Judith 5, Jubilees 12; cf. Joshua 24:2), and
knew of Abraham's miraculous escape from death (an obscure reference to some act of deliverance
in Isaiah 29:22). The route along the banks of the Euphrates from south to north was so frequently
taken by migrating tribes that the tradition has nothing improbable in itself. It was thence that
Jacob, the father of the tribes of Israel, came, and the route to Shechem and Bethel is precisely the
same in both.
Further, there is yet another parallel in the story of the conquest by Joshua, partly implied and
partly actually detailed (cf. also Joshua 8:9 with Gen. 12:8, 13:3), whence it would appear that too
much importance must not be laid upon any ethnological interpretation which fails to account for
the three versions. That similar traditional elements have influenced them is not unlikely; but to
recover the true historical foundation is difficult. The invasion or immigration of certain tribes
from the east of the Jordan; the presence of Aramean blood among the Israelites; the origin of the
sanctity of venerable sites — these and other considerations may readily be found to account for
the traditions.
Noteworthy coincidences in the lives of Abraham and Isaac, such as the strong parallels between
two tales of a wife confused for a sister, point to the fluctuating state of traditions in the oral stage,
or suggest that Abraham's life has been built up by borrowing from the common stock of popular
lore. More original is the parting of Lot and Abraham at Bethel. The district was the scene of
contests between Moab and the Hebrews (cf. perhaps Judges 3), and if this explains part of the
story, the physical configuration of the Dead Sea may have led to the legend of the destruction of
[citation needed]
inhospitable and vicious cities.
Christianity
Old Testament
Main article: Book of Genesis
New Testament
Laurent de La Hire, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac (1650), Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans