Abraham
Abraham names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Abraham in Hebrew lore
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
in Hebrew lore, the father of the Israelites and of the Arabian tribes. According to Genesis xii, he and his immediate household left home and kindred in heathen Mesopotamia and journeyed westward to the Holy Land under a divine command, coupled with a gracious promise, "And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing; And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Some Bible critics are pleased to believe that Abraham was a military leader at the head of a band of nomadic followers, or that he was a mythical personage whose experience at the oak of Mamre, at Hebron, and in Egypt, typifies the early wanderings of the Semitic race. The release of his son Isaac from the altar, and the offering of a ram instead, may indeed be symbolical of the national change from human sacrifice to that of animals; but there is no reason to suppose that Abraham is not in some degree an historical personage, around whom more or less legendary accounts have gathered. The Bible story certainly loses in the reading by regarding Abraham as other than "an honest, peaceable, generous, highminded patriarch; a prince, rich, powerful, and honored, fitted for rule, and exercising power with prudence." Historians place the migration of Abraham, founder of the Hebrew race, at about 2000 B. C. The entire Biblical narrative, to the day when Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah and buried Sarah there, fits in admirably with what we know of Arabic life and manners, and could be identified with southwestern Asia were all mention of place omitted. At all events the Hebrews and Arabs are closely related in language, literary ideals, features, and in many respects intellectually. Whether they are descended from Isaac and Ishmael and the six other sons of Abraham, or whether the Abraham of Scripture refers to an individual ancestor or to a parent people that migrated westward, the Bible story loses none of its interest or instructiveness. See Jews ; Bible
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
son of Terah, and brother of Nahor and Haran, the progenitor of the Hebrew nation and of several cognate tribes. In obedience to a call of God, Abraham, with his father Terah, his wife Sarah, and his nephew Lot, left his native Ur of the Chaldees, and dwelt for a time in Haran, where Terah died. After his father's death, Abraham, now 75 years old, ld, pursued sued his course, with Sarah and Lot, to the land of Canaan, whither he was directed by the divine com mand (Genesis, xii: 5), when he received the general promise that he should become the founder of a great nation, and that all the families of the earth should be blessed in him. As the country was suffering with famine, Abraham journeyed southward to the rich cornlands of Egypt. Abraham left Egypt with great possessions, and, accompanied by Lot, returned to one of his former encampments between Bethel and Ai. Abraham pitched his tent among the oak-groves of Mamre, close to Hebron, where the prommamre, ise that his descendants should become a mighty nation was confirmed. At the suggestion of Sarah, who despaired of having children of her own, he took as his concubine Hagar, her Egyptian maid, who bare him Ishmael, in the 86th year of his age. Thirteen years elapsed, during which revelation was made that a son of Sarah, and not Ishmael, should inherit both the temporal and spiritual blessings. The covenant was renewed, and the rite of circumcision established as its sign. At length, Isaac, the longlooked-for child, was born, and Ishmael was driven out, with his mother Hagar, as a satisfaction to Sarah's jealousy. Some 25 years after this event, Abraham received the strange command to take Isaac and offer him for a burnt-offering at an appointed place. He hesitated not to obey, but the sacrifice was stayed by the angel of Jehovah. Abraham, at the goodly age of 175, was "gathered to his people."
Abraham PLAINS OF and HEIGHTS OF
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
PLAINS OF and HEIGHTS OF, a table-land near Quebec, rising above the St. Lawrence, where the battle of Quebec was fought between the British and French (1759). A noble monument now marks the spot.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's in 1910 conceded that "some Bible critics" call Abraham mythical but insisted there was "no reason to suppose" he was not historical, and dated his migration to about 2000 B.C. That confident dating had one more revival: from the 1930s W. F. Albright and his students argued that archaeology fitted the patriarchs into the early second millennium, but the case was dismantled in the 1970s, notably by Thomas L. Thompson and John Van Seters, who showed the supposed parallels proved nothing about date. Most historians now treat the Genesis narratives as literature shaped in the first millennium B.C., pointing to anachronisms such as domesticated camels and the "Chaldees" of Ur, a people who only reached prominence a thousand years after Abraham's supposed lifetime; Leonard Woolley's excavation of Ur, begun in 1922, revealed a great Sumerian city but nothing bearing on Abraham himself. The tomb Abraham is said to have bought at Machpelah in Hebron is still venerated, now as the Ibrahimi Mosque and Cave of the Patriarchs, and remains one of the most bitterly contested sites in the region.
Written for this edition, 2026.