plausible argument advanced by those who hold the mythical view of his figure as an impersonation of the moon-god.
It will be observed that while both P and J (in the present text)
make Ur-Kasdîm the starting-point of the Abrahamic migration, J has
no allusion to a journey from Ur to Ḥarran. His language is perfectly
consistent either (a) with a march directly from Ur to Canaan, or (b)
with the view that the real starting-point was Ḥarran, and that (
Hebrew characters)
is here a gloss intended to harmonise J and P. Now, there is a
group of passages in J which, taken together, unmistakably imply
that Abraham was a native of Ḥarran, and therefore started from
thence to seek the promised land. In 244. 7. 10, the place of A.'s nativity
is Aram-Naharaim, and specially the 'city of Nāḥôr'; while a comparison
with 2743 2810 294 leaves no doubt that the 'city of Nāḥôr' was
Ḥarran. P, on the other hand, nowhere deviates from his theory of a
double migration with a halt at Ḥarran; and the persistency with
which he dissociates Laban and Rebecca from Nāḥôr (2520 282. 5ff.) is a
proof that the omission of Nāḥôr from the party that left Ur was
intentional (Bu. 421 ff.). It is evident, then, that we have to do with a
divergence in the patriarchal tradition; and the only uncertainty is
with regard to the precise point where it comes in. The theory of P,
though consistently maintained, is not natural; for (1) all the antecedents
(1110-26) point to Mesopotamia as the home of the patriarchs; and (2)
the twofold migration, first from Ur and then from Ḥarran, has itself
the appearance of a compromise between two conflicting traditions.
The simplest solution would be to suppose that both the references to
Ur-Kasdîm in J (1128 157) are interpolations, and that P had another
tradition which he harmonised with that of J by the expedient just
mentioned (so We. Di. Gu. Dri. al.). Bu. holds that both traditions
were represented in different strata of J (J1 Ḥarran, J2 Ur), and tries
to show that the latter is a probable concomitant of the Yahwistic
account of the Flood. In that he can hardly be said to be successful;
and he is influenced by the consideration that apart from such a
discrepancy in his sources P could never have thought of the circuitous
route from Ur to Canaan by way of Ḥarran. That argument has little
weight with those who are prepared to believe that P had other
traditions at his disposal than those we happen to know from J and E.[1]
In itself, the hypothesis of a dual tradition within the school of J is
perfectly reasonable; but in this case, in spite of Bu.'s close reasoning,
it appears insufficiently supported by other indications. The view of
We. is on the whole the more acceptable.
- ↑ The suggestion has, of course, been made (Wi. AOF. i. 98 ff.; Paton, Syr. and Pal. 42) that E is the source of the Ur-Kasdîm tradition; but in view of Jos. 242 that is not probable.
