Conclusion
In the Introduction and in the chapter discussing the possible historicity of the Book of Genesis, a number of questions were asked. Furthermore, the subject itself suggested the posing of another question. Following are the questions, led by the last one mentioned above:
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The Book of Genesis described the movement of Abraham and his retainers from the border area between the Semitic and the non-Semitic world to Canaan. Can this movement, and those of his descendants, be seen as a prototype of invasion or infiltration of pastoral tribes to the Middle East?
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In what measure can the tales of the Book of Genesis be accepted as having historical base, or are they all to be seen as pure mythology?
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What is connection, if any, between the story told by the Book of Genesis and subsequent Jewish history?
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The book provides the answers to the questions. However, the chapters are separated, either by chronology or by subjects. Here the answers to specific questions are given. It should be pointed out that the answers to the questions are interconnected and there might be a measure of overlapping, which could not be helped.
Question I.
The estimated period of Abraham's arrival in Canaan was about the turn of the 3rd – 2nd millennia BC. It was a generally unsettled period, the time of the First Intermediate Period in Egypt, economic crisis and depopulation in Canaan, and the onslaught of the Cassites in Mesopotamia. The reason for all these was probably a climatic catastrophe. Judging both from Biblical and non-Biblical sources, it was not an invasion but an infiltration of a small tribe into the hill country of Canaan. There is no historical evidence of an invasion into Canaan at that period. It was not a first infiltration as Abraham has already found Hittites and Hurrians in Canaan, who came much before him. They were probably also not the last infiltrators as in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC about 40 % of the names of the rulers in Canaanite cities were Indo-European or Hurrians.
However, by the beginning of the Iron Age, at about 1000 BC, there were no Indo-Europan or Hurrian sounding names among the rulers in Canaan. There might have been a number of logical possibilities for this transformation.
The Indo-European or Hurrian speaking people became assimilated and were already Semites by the turn of the millennium.
At the end of the Bronze Age, there was a general process of destroying the centers of the previous civilization. The same process might have been active in Canaan too, and the local people destroyed or ousted the previous rulers.
There might have been cases of the second possibility. There were probably enough people in Canaan who fought against the previous order, and in addition, there were two peoples who were part of the Peoples of the Sea and who actively participated in the attack on Egypt. The two peoples were the Philistines and the Danuna. The second tribe became member of the later Israeli tribal confederation. The Old Testament mentions the Danuna (Dan) as those who destroyed and conquered one of the Bronze Age strongholds in northern Galilee, who were good fighters with their long swords, and who were living on their ships when they joined the tribal alliance.
However, it seems that in the case of Canaan and in the creation of the Israelite people the first option was the dominant one.
The Book of Genesis showed the arrival of a non-Semitic tribe into Canaan. It might not have been a large tribe, but infiltration of a tribe with 318 fighting men must have been an impressive force when Canaan was depopulated because of adverse climatic conditions.
Therefore, the story of the Patriarchs shows a type of assimilation with the peoples of the land by accepting their language, but at that same time keeping the accumulated cultural values they brought with them. It is possible that there was an ethnic amalgamation and a cultural conservatism, which caused a large measure of transfer of Indo-European cultural traditions, as they appeared in Jewish history from the beginning until today.
It seems that there were a number of causes as to why the Indo-European cultural influence was strong in Canaan and non-existent in other parts of the Levant, when there were places nearer the border to the non-Semitic world, where the influence was probably stronger.
The infiltration to Canaan by the tribe of Abraham was followed by a religious change that only strengthened the traditions behind that change. The continuing conflict in historical times between the worshipers of Yahweh on one hand, and the worshipers of Baal or El on the other, was probably a major element of that change.
It is possible that the unsettled economic conditions, probably caused by a continuing drought, and its subsequent depopulation changed the proportions between the two ethnic elements, the Hittites and the Amorites, to the favor of the Hittites, because they were pastoral people and could manage with less moisture than the farmers.
One of the major elements which remained from the Indo-European heritage is hero-worship and its accompanying epic poetry. The Old Testament is one of the examples of that epic poetry. Hero-worship and epic poetry are not known in other parts of the Levant.
In addition to the proportion of the Hittites to the Amorites, there were future additions to the Israelite tribal alliance. One of them was an Aegean tribe, the Danuna (Dan) who were part of the Peoples of the Sea. If such a tribe could join the Israelite tribal alliance, then the cultural contents of that alliance could not have been much different from the values of the Danuna.
The answer to the first question is that probably there were many more cases of infiltration to the Middle East by Indo-European or Hurrian tribes, as in the first half of the second millenium BC there were many Indo-European sounding names among the rulers of the whole Middle East, and not only in Canaan. However, as far as the results of such infiltration are concerned, the case of Canaan, or more accurately the Israelites, is a unique occurrence. Nowhere, in the Middle East are there residual effects of those cases of infiltration. In the whole Semitic Middle East the worship of El was proved to be stronger than that of Yahweh, with the exception of the Israelites, then and now.
Question II.
As it was predicted in the second chapter of this book, there was no direct historical evidence found which would prove the existence of the Patriarchs. However, so many archaeological evidences were found in the excavations of the Middle East that it can be seen that the formal transactions described in the Book of Genesis: adoptions, treaties, wills, birthrights, etc. fit the period of the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. It is true especially in the case of treaties. As the Covenant, which is the primary subject of the Book of Genesis, is a legal document, it is important to note that treaties that were written in Mesopotamia a few centuries to either side of the patriarchal period would not match the formats of the biblical treaties at all.
There is no direct proof for any of the stories of the Book of Genesis. There are some that have 'parallel proof' meaning that there are similar cases found in archives of the same period. There are some non-Biblical names, which might or might be authentic, The family of the Patriarchs were not royalty; they were not even citizens of any of the Mesopotamian towns. They were outside barbarians who tried to get a foothold in one of the small provinces of the Middle East, which in itself was not really in the interest of anyone important. The Egyptian saw in Canaan a highway to northern Syria, to the line of the Euphrates, which was their northern line of interest, when they were powerful enough to have interest outside of Egypt. The Mesopotamian states might have been interested in economic benefits, as the invasion of the Eastern Kings has shown. But, in reality, it was a backwater.
At the most, one can say about the stories of the Book of Genesis that they are realistic within the frame of their period. This is what gives the stories their reality and power. When the canon of the Old Testament was collected, those who decided what would be part of the Old Testament were not experts in archaeology and in history. If they collected stories with accurate historical details to their assumed period, but unknown for the second half of the 1st millennium BC when it was done then it can be assumed that the stories were indeed created in their own time and not later. There is another point that cannot be pure coincidence.
One of the first assumptions of this book was that the Patriarchs were not Semites, but they became Semites after living in Canaan for a few generations. When the cultural values of their descendants are examined, it is found that among their values there are those which were inherited from their non-Semitic ancestors. There are so many of those cultural values that a whole book would be needed to describe them all, but a few more important ones were shown to be illustrations to the thesis. One cannot be sure that King David inherited his cultural values, which are unknown among his Semitic neighbors, from the Patriarchs, but he must have inherited from someone who had the same cultural values as the Patriarchs had.
Question III
This is the most difficult of all the questions. There are stories of the Patriarchs that might or might not prove something. There are, however, a number of conclusions that can be derived from those tales:
There was probably one or more infiltration of northern pastoral nomads into Canaan. The ethnic composition of the tribes were either Indo-European, or from tribes that had close contact with Indo-Europeans. They were not Semitic. The Old Testament calls them Hittites. The story of Abraham and his descendants was probably about one of those infiltrators.
The stories fit the profile of the period of the late 3rd millennium – early 2nd millennium BC.Later, historical Israel traced its beginning as well the beginning of its religion to that group of Patriarchs. Indeed, historical Israel was first mentioned explicitly on the Merneptah Stele, erected in the late 13th century BC. Historic Israel showed a close cultural affinity to values that are usually associated with Indo-Europeans.
There is no historical proof that the origin of the Indo-European influence on Israelite cultural values came from that tribe whose story was told by the Book of Genesis. So, as far as history goes, it is entirely possible that the family of Patriarchs have disappeared without leaving traces, and the obvious Indo-European cultural signs which are so obvious in Jewish consciousness, originated from different sources. It is possible, but highly unlikely.
This is the situation as far as history goes. There are a number of comments on it:
Most of those who doubt the existence of Israel before the end of the Bronze Age partly base their judgment on the lack of documentary evidence in Egypt. After all, Egypt was Canaan's neighbor and part of the stories of the Book of Genesis was played out in Egypt. It is true that the Egyptian had monuments, stelae, papyri, etc, and the Egyptians usually recorded their history. However, it is also true that the Egyptians had a habit of selective historical writing. Egyptian documents do not mention Moses and Israel, and the whole story of the Exodus also goes unmentioned, but then the Egyptians never recorded anything that would have put them in negative light. So, it is true that the Egyptians do not mention Israel and the Exodus, but then Egyptian documents do not mention the Hyksos either, and the Hyksos ruled over 150 years in Egypt.
There is unbroken evidence of Israeli existence for the last 3200 years, since the date of the Merneptah Stele, which first mentions Israel by name. It is rather a longer period than any other people on earth; probably only the Chinese can be compared to it. The age of the Patriarchs and the slavery in Egypt would extend it by about 800 years. It would be important but not terribly so.
Judging from the analysis of this book, some time before the end of the Bronze age, a tribal confederation was created somewhere in the highlands of Canaan. Among those who joined the confederacy there were probably some who saw themselves as descendants of Abraham, and others who saw themselves as descendants of Jacob. It is very possible that the descendants of Jacob had memories of a period of slavery in Egypt and of a miraculous escape. There were probably Amorites and Canaanites too who joined the confederacy, just as did the descendants of the original Hittites and Hurrians. There were others, the Shahsu of Seir and the tribes of Dan, an Aegean tribe living in Canaan, near the Philistines. According the monument of Ramses III, both the Philistines and the Danonu (Dan) were part of the Peoples of the Sea.
Judging from later history of Israel, at the time of the Monarchy, before the exile and today, those who believed in the reforms assigned to Abraham, worshiped Yahweh and had cultural value which they inherited from the Patriarchs, were the dominant factor in the tribal confederacy and shaped its values for the future.
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