אברהם בסקירות ההיסטוריות בספרות הבית השני

This paper examines the representation of Abraham in historical resumes written between the third century BCE and first century CE that did not find their way into the Hebrew canon. To date, none of these forty or so texts have been subject to any comparative analysis. No significant differences exist between those composed in Israel and those penned in Greek outside the land, both sets treating Abraham and retelling specific episodes from his lifetime—such as his beginnings, the covenant between the pieces, and Isaac’s birth. While some open with Abraham, most regard Israel’s origins as commencing at an earlier point. Although some of the late biblical reviews take the same approach, this method is much more characteristic of the extra-biblical historical resumes. In addition to demonstrating the influence of the biblical models and/or the conventions, the latter thus also incorporate traits drawn from Genesis. Several adduce the first generations of humanity, structure the unit about the patriarchs as a genealogy, and/or insert chronological data into their retellings of the patriarchal narratives, for example. While the development of these traits is also indebted to Hellenistic historiographical models, chronological data are particularly common in resumes from the Qumran library, reflecting the Qumran community’s special interest in the temporal axis of history.