Patriarchs

The discussion of this subject falls naturally into two parts, viz., a few general remarks, and a more detailed examination of the immense age ascribed to the individual members of this class, i. General Remarks.—When the title ‘ patriarch’ is applied to a biblical character, it is usually understood to mean one of the earliest fathers of the human race, or one of the three great progeni- tors of Israel, namely, Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob.

In the NT it is extended so as to embrace the sons of Jacob (Ac 78:9) and David (Ac 2%), The LXX, from which the title comes, favours the less restricted use. At 1 Ch 24°! πατριάρχαι (Heb. x niaym) are heads of the Levites; at 1 Ch 27” π. τῶν φυλῶν "Ic. (‘: 028 IY) are the chief officials of the kingdom ; at 2 Ch 198 τῶν π. "Ic. (Ὁ niayq Wx) are leading men, fit to serve as judges ; at 2Ch 23” τοὺς a.

(nixog Wy) are the captains of hundreds; at 2 Ch 2613 x, τῶν δυνατῶν (19 ‘11525 nizyq We) are officers in Uzziah’s army; 4 Mac 7 speaks of ol π. ἡμῶν "AS. "Ic. Ἰακώβ, and 4 Mac 16” of ᾽Αβ. καὶ Ἶσ. καὶ "Iax., καὶ πάντες ol x. In this article we shall not need to say anything about the later patriarchs: for them the articles ABRAHAM, etc., should be consulted. We have to deal only with two classes —the antediluvian patriarchs, and those who are laced between the Flood and the birth of Abra- ham.

Of the former we possess two lists: a Cainite, in Gn 47-18, ascribed to J ; and a Sethite, Gn 5°-*!, the work of P. They cover the same ground, Lamech being the terminus ad quem in both cases ; but the former begins with Cain, the latter with Seth. They run as follows :— Gn 417.18 Gn 63-31 Oain Seth Enoch Enosh Irad Kenan Mehujael Mahalalel Methushael Jared Lamech Enoch Methuselah Lamech The editors to whom we owe the Book of Genesis in its present form evidently understood the Lamech of ch.

4 to be the same person as the Lamech of ch. 5. Yet one and the same man cannot have been the descendant in the direct line of two individuals so sharply distinguished from PATRIARCHS each other as Cain and Seth. And there is a striking Sorel | between some of the names on the one side and on the other, com mr us to conclude that P altered Irad into Jared, Mehujael into Mahalalel, Methushael into Methuselah. Baa; further, the separate articles on these names.

The 11th chapter of Genesis carries us from the Flood to the birth of Abraham. MT and Sam. have here alist of nine names: LXX (followed by Lk 3"), obviously for the sake of reaching the number ten, as in Gn 5, inserts Cainan between hshad and Shelah, and attributes to him precisely the same age at the birth of his firstborn and at death as toShelah. Many of the names in this genealogy have been identified (but see Dillm. ad doc.) as those of localities in Mesopotamia.

There is much to be said for Ryle’s conclusion respecting the patriarchs as a whole: ‘ Perhaps we should not be far wrong in regarding them as con- stituting a group of emigods or heroes, whosa names, in the earliest days of Hebrew tradition, filled up the blank between the creation of man and the age of the Israelite patriarchs. Such a group would be in accordance with the analogy of the primitive legends of other races.

The removal of every taint of polytheistic superstition, the presentation of these names as the names of ordinary human beings, would be the work of the Israelite narrator’ (Harly Narratives of Gen. p- 81). In such purification of derived material we see inspiration at work. For more particulars see articles ARPACHSHAD, ete. ii. Longevity of the Patriarchs.—A notable differ- ence between J and P is, that the former (Gn 417. 15).

if he furnishes anything beyond a name, connects with it an interesting statement ; whilst the latter (Gn 5. 11) gives the age at which each patriarch begat his firstborn son, and that at which he died. The figures mentioned for the second of these events are so high that, if they had been found anywhere but in the Bible, we should have dis- missed them as inventions.

We do not trouble to inquire whether the first seven Egyptian kings reigned in all 12,300 years, or whether any credence is due to Ephorus and Nicolaus, who, as Josephus (Ant. I. iii. 9) says, ‘relate that the ancients lived a thousand years.’ And the attempts hitherto made to vindicate P’s numbers are powerless to carry conviction.

There is no sufficient historical evidence to show that in earlier ages or under more favourable con- ditions human life has been prolonged to anything like 900 years. Delitzsch would have liked to make a point of this, but it is nothing to the purpose when he quotes (New Comm. on Gen. p- 212) Becker’s statement that ‘a lifetime of 150 is not uncommon in the snow mountains of South Dagestan.’ Prichard (Nat. Hist. of Man, p.

653) is inclined to accept Easton’s tables, according to which three Europeans have attained the age of between 170 and 180, two between 160 and 170, and so on. Yet, even if this were so, it falls far short of the mark. The human frame, as men have known it in historical times, is not caleulated to last 200 years, to say nothing of 900.

And there is no more reason for believing that its vigour gradually declined during and after the days of the grey forefathers of the race, than there is for accepting the Talmudic absurdity that the first man reached from earth to heaven, but after his sin the Holy One laid His hands upon him and made him little (Chag. 12a). Gn 6 has been adduced as marking a turning-point at which the deterioration began. But this clause is either a gloss, explanatory of the preceding words (Wellh.

), or, more probably, it has been transposed from its original position in the story of the Fall (Budde). PATRIARCHS PATRIARCHS 695 In any case it will not serve the a for which it is brought forward. It precedes the account of the Flood. But Gn 11 does not limit the patri- archs after the Flood to 120 years: Shem lives 600 years; Arpachshad, 438, etc. hen it is said that ‘the numbers 930, 912, 905, etc.

, designate epochs of antediluvian history, which are named after their chief representatives’ (Del. New Comm. on Gen. p. 213), it must be re- membered, on the other hand, that this was not P’s meaning. individual men who actually attained the age with which he credits them.

And under the same head- To him Methuselah and thefrest were | disa; ing of arbitrary attempts to vindicate the trust- worthiness of the figures must be classed the sug- ΕΝ that the year was not one of 12 months’ uration, but of lor2or3or4or6. 7j¥ ‘year,’ in the Bible, has only one signification, the ordinary one. Are these desperate attempts necessary? Our answer might conceivably have been in the affirma- tive if there had been no uncertainty about the numbers themselves.

But the three authorities, the MT, the Sam., and the LXX, are hopelessly To see this, it needs but a glance at the two following tables, which are reproduced mainly from Holzinger’s Gen. pp. 61, 115 :— TABLE L From ΟΝ 5. To the Flood . Year of the Flood 00 600 85 438 80 483 8, 464 {Ball 370 404) 80 | 200 239 82 207 239 80 200 230 29 119 148 70 186 205 Total . . ° . From Flood to Birth of Abraham 200 YEAR A.M. IN WHICH BB Diep. i Sam. Lxx.

930 930 1042 1142 1140 1340 1235 1535 1290 1690 1307 1922 887 1487 1307 2256 1807 2227 1170 (Luc. 1174) 1070 years The slightest inspection of Table I. shows that the discrepancies are not due to accident. The regularity with which the LXX advances the age of the father at the birth of his first son by 100 years betrays purpose. The manipulation οἵ MT and Sam.

, so that, although they do not agree as zo the year after the Creation in which Methuselah died, they yet, both of them, date his death in the year of the Flood, is eed significant. The date of the Flood in MT, 1656, is obtained by adding the remaining 349 years of Noah’s life to the 1307 Our documentary authorities, y blind respect to the numbers sfore them. of the Samaritan. therefore, did not which they found Budde (Urgeschichte, ch. iv.)

, followed by more recent writers, has endeavoured to show that the Sam., by dating the death of Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech in the same eg as the Flood, meant to imply that they perished in that catastrophe. He also sees in the names of these patriarchs indi- cations of sinfulness and degeneracy. But the etymology is too uncertain to justify the latter 693 PATROBAS PAUL THE APOSTLE inference (see the new Oxford Heb. Lexicon, and alsy the name list in Ball’s Light from the East).

The list in ch. 11 is still more evidently artificial. In all three authorities the purpose is to indicate a gradual diminution of longevity from 600 to 200 eae thus preparing the way for the still shorter ifetime of Abraham and his successors. The LXX, by adding 100 to each of the earlier lives, after the first, makes the slope more gradual. The Sam., by adding 100 to the age at the birth of the firstborn, avoids the startling transition from 100 in Shem’s case to 35, 30, etc.

, in the succeeding ones. This version also, to escape the apparent inconsistency between the supposition that Abraham’s begetting a son when 100 years old is a miracle, and the statement that 130 was the ordinary age for this in the preceding cases, has the 79 and 70 of the LXX for Nahor and Terah. As an example of the freedom with which the MT treated this matter, the instance of Terah may be cited. The Sam.

gives him 145 years: this would make Abra- ham faces Haran immediately on his father’s death. But Gn 12! relates that Abraham was called to leave his father’s house. Hence the 205 ears ascribed to Terah in the MT: according to it, Terah survived his son’s departure 60 years. Finally, we must note the startling discrepancy between the 290 years of MT, the 940 of Sam., and the 1070 of LXX, as the length of the period from the Flood to the Birth of Abraham.

In endeavouring to account for these extra- ordinary figures we must never forget that we owe them to P. The earlier documents, J and E, show no trace of anything similar. It is P, too, who attributes to Abraham 175 years, to Isaac 180, to Jacob 147; and, when compelled to limit Moseez to 120, seems to think his comparatively early decease requires comment: ‘his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

’ The periods determined by such landmarks as Creation, Flood, Birth of Abraham, needed to be filled up. P was especially attracted by names and numbers. The names were supplied by tradition. We have no evidence to prove that a definite number was attached to each of these names. But we do know that in ancient times the belief prevailed that human life had formerly been prolonged far beyond the limits which have since been familiar.

Hesiod asserts that in the Silver Age childhood lasted 130 eco A Hebrew prophet (Is 65”), picturing the Messianic future in colours drawn from popular ideas respecting the far-distant past, predicts that ‘the child shall die an hundred years old’ (on this passage see Expos. Times, Nov. 1899, p. 61), Lrreratvre. — Besides the best Commentaries on Genesis, Budde’s Urgeschichte is helpful. See also Ryle’s Early Narra- tives of Genesis, and the art. CugonoLoéy or tHE OT in the first vol.

of this Dictionary. J. TAYLOR.