judgement has its value, and one in favour of the historic origin of the tradition is at least as valid as another to the contrary effect.—The two points on which attention now falls to be concentrated are: (a) the personalities of the patriarchs; and (b) the religious significance of the tradition.
(a) It is a tolerably safe general maxim that tradition does not invent names, or persons. We have on any view to account for the entrance of such figures as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph into the imagination of the Israelites; and amongst possible avenues of entrance we must certainly count it as one, that they were real men, who lived and were remembered. What other explanations can be given? The idea that they were native creations of Hebrew mythology (Goldziher) has, for the present at least, fallen into disrepute; and there remain but two theories as alternatives to the historic reality of the patriarchs: viz., that they were originally personified tribes, or that they were originally Canaanite deities.
The conception of the patriarchs as tribal eponyms, we have already
seen to be admissible, though not proved. The idea that they were
Canaanite deities is not perhaps one that can be dismissed as transparently
absurd. If the Israelites, on entering Canaan, found Abraham
worshipped at Hebron, Isaac at Beersheba, Jacob at Bethel, and Joseph
at Shechem, and if they adopted the cult of these deities, they might
come to regard themselves as their children; and in course of time the
gods might be transformed into human ancestors around whom the
national legend might crystallise. At the same time the theory is
destitute of proof; and the burden of proof lies on those who maintain
it. Neither the fact (if it be a fact) that the patriarchs were objects of
worship at the shrines where their graves were shown, nor the presence
of mythical traits in their biographies, proves them to have been superhuman
beings.—The discussion turns largely on the evidence of the
patriarchal names; but this, too, is indecisive. The name Israel is
national, and in so far as it is applied to an individual it is a case of
eponymous personification. Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph (assuming these
to be contractions of Yiẓḥaḳ-el, etc.) are also most naturally explained
as tribal designations. Meyer, after long vacillation, has come to the
conclusion that they are divine names (INS, 249 ff.); but the arguments
which formerly convinced him that they are tribal seem to us more
cogent than those to which he now gives the preference. That names
of this type frequently denote tribes is a fact; that they may denote
deities is only a hypothesis. That they may also denote individuals
