Who Was Abraham, and Who Are His Heirs?

"And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land"
--Genesis 12:7

Sometime between 2000 and 1500 BC, a man named Abram--meaning "the father is exalted"--was born in Mesopotamia, at a town called Ur, 200 miles southeast of today's Baghdad. According to the Book of Genesis, Abram's father was a man named Terah. According to tradition, Terah made and sold religious idols, and Abram rebelled against this practice. One time, he even hacked wooden idols to pieces with an ax.

Abram eventually left his home to travel to a faraway land in which the Lord had promised to "make of [him] a great nation" (Genesis 12:2). Traveling through the cities of Shechem and Bethel (which, archaeologists say, were centers of ancient Canaanite religion), he arrived in Egypt. There, he asked his beautiful wife, Sarai, to pose as his sister, fearing the Egyptians might kill him to take her.

Abram's fear proved prophetic. No less a figure than Pharaoh was smitten with Sarai, "and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house" (Genesis 12:15). Unfortunately for Pharaoh, God didn't approve, and sent plagues on Pharaoh's house. Shortly thereafter, having learned the truth about Abram and Sarai's relationship, Pharaoh ordered them out of Egypt.

Abram returned to Canaan and once again received God's promise to make him the father of a great nation: "unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates" (Genesis 15:18). Good plan; no seed. Abram was already an old man, and Sarai a barren wife. Ten years later, Sarai suggested to Abram that he might try sleeping with her Egyptian handmaid, Hagar, to produce children. Abram agreed, and a year later Hagar gave birth to Abraham's first son, Ishmael, said by tradition to be the progenitor of the Arab people.

Thirteen years later, God again renewed his promise to Abram and renamed him Abraham--meaning "the father of many nations." In return, God asked that the 99-year-old man be circumcised, along with all the men in his household. Abraham complied, sealing his covenant with God in the flesh of his foreskin (and instituting the Jewish tradition of circumcision). At the same time, God changed Sarai's name to Sarah, and promised to make the 90-year-old conceive a son. A year later, Sarah gave birth to Isaac, said by tradition to be the progenitor of the Hebrew people.

Here the story gets dicey. The Book of Genesis is clear: Sarah demands that Abraham cast out Hagar and Ishmael, "for the son of this bondwoman," she says, "shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac" (Genesis 21:10). Aggrieved, Abraham turns to God for advice, who says, "in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called" (Genesis 21:12). God promises to bless Ishmael, too, but he wasn't to be Abraham's heir.

Today, many Jewish and Christian believers think this text--along with the ancient history of Hebrew settlement in Canaan--legitimizes modern Israel's territorial claims in the Middle East, including, perhaps, claims to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or even, as the Bible says, "from the river of Egypt to . . . the river Euphrates." On the other hand, Muslims, nonbelievers, and secular-minded nationalists (on both sides) are skeptical of claims based on scripture they don't accept, or at least don't see as the literal truth.

There is even dispute about the incident for which Abraham remains most famous. According to the Book of Genesis, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of his faith. Abraham obeys without question, building an altar, binding his son, and raising the knife to kill his own child. Only an angel stays his hand. Yet according to Islamic tradition, it wasn't Isaac--it was Ishmael, who actually consented to be sacrificed if that was God's will.

--Steve Sampson