Chart 14

PROPOSED DATING FOR THE PATRIARCHS

 

 Footnotes

1. Adapted from J. Randall Price, The Stones Cry Out: What Archaeology Reveals About the Truth of the Bible (Eugene, Oreg.: Harvest House, 1997), 106. Also, see Chart 2 for different dates for the archaeological periods used by various scholars.
2. Freedman states, “If Abraham and Lot had anything to do with the Cities of the Plain, then that link could only have existed in the Early Bronze Age, certainly not in the Middle Bronze Age.” Freedman, “The Real Story of the Ebla Tablets,” 157; Shanks, “BAR Interviews Giovanni Pettinato,” 47; Albright, “The Jordan Valley in the Bronze Age,” 58–61. Pettinato replied to Freedman’s dating the Patriarchal Age to the third millennium as “impossible.” 
3. Willem C. van Hattem, “Once Again: Sodom and Gomorrah,” Biblical Archaeologist 44, no. 2 (Spring 1981): 90.
4. Kenyon identifies the patriarchs with a Canaanite migration and “invasion of Palestine by nomad tribes of Amorites.” Kathleen M. Kenyon, “Excavations in Jerusalem, 1965,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 98, no. 1 (1966): 75; Amorites and Canaanites, Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1967), 76; Paul W. Lapp, The Dhahr Mirzbaneh Tombs: Three Intermediate Bronze Age Cemeteries in Jordan (Philadelphia, Pa.: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1966), 114.
5. Wood claims that the date for the destruction of Sodom is ca. 2070 BC based on a 1446 BC date for the Exodus. The date of the destruction of Bab edh-Dhra according to Rast and Schaub is 2350 BC. Bryant G. Wood, “The Discovery of the Sin Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah,” Bible and Spade 12, no. 3 (1999):  78; Bryant G. Wood, “Locating Sodom: A Critique of the Northern Proposal,” Bible and Spade 20, no. 3 (2007): 81.
6. John H. Walton, Chronological and Background Charts of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1994), 15; Price, The Stones Cry Out, 92.
7. Ed Hindson and Elmer L. Towns, Illustrated Bible Survey: An Introduction (Nashville, Tenn.: B&H, 2013), 36.
8. John J. Bimson, “Archaeological Data and the Dating of the Patriarchs,” in Essays on the Patriarchal Narratives, ed. Alan R. Millard and Donald J. Wiseman (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1980), 84–85.
9. Price identifies MB 1 from 2100-1900 BC and MB 2A from 1900-1700 BC. Price, The Stones Cry Out, 350.
10. Nelson Glueck, Rivers in the Desert: A History of the Negev (New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1959), 61–84; The Other Side of the Jordan, 15–16.
11. Eugene H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2008). 47–48, 83–96; Eugene H. Merrill, “Texts, Talls, and Old Testament Chronology: Tall El-Hammam as a Case Study,” Artifax 27, no. 4 (2012): 20–21.
12. Kenneth A. Kitchen and T. C. Mitchell, “Chronology of the Old Testament,” ed. I. Howard Marshall et al., New Bible Dictionary (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1996), 190; Alan R. Millard, “Methods of Studying the Patriarchal Narratives as Ancient Texts,” in Essays on the Patriarchal Narratives, ed. Donald J. Wiseman and Alan R. Millard (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 43–58.
13. Albright states on the basis of the evidence at Bab edh-Dhra that “it does suggest very strongly that the date of Abraham cannot be placed earlier than the nineteenth century BC” (1900 to 1801 BC). Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine and the Bible, 10; “A Revision of Early Hebrew Chronology,” Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 1 (1921): 68, 79; Glueck, Rivers in the Desert, 61–84; The Other Side of the Jordan, 15–16; Samuel J. Schultz and Gary V. Smith, Exploring the Old Testament (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2001), 209; Wright, Biblical Archaeology, 50; Hoffmeier, The Archaeology of the Bible: Reassessing Methodologies and Assumptions, 68. Hoffmeier narrows the date to 1800-1540 in his Israel in Egypt book.
14. Collins has a slightly narrower date of 1950–1550 in his response to Bryant Wood. Collins, “A Response to Bryant G. Wood,” 27; “Sodom: The Discovery of a Lost City,” BS 20, no. 3 (2007): 72.
15. Free and Vos, Archaeology and Bible History, 64; Hoerth and McRay, Bible Archaeology, 101.
16. Archer identifies these dates as the Middle Bronze Age. Gleason L. Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Rev Upd (Chicago, Ill.: Moody, 1996), 184.
17. Bruce K. Waltke and Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2001), 30; Goldingay, “The Patriarchs in Scripture and History,” 11; William Sanford La Sor et al., Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996), 38–43.
18. Bill T. Arnold, Encountering the Book of Genesis (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2003), 86.
19. Geisler and Holden base part of their arguments on the Excavations at Tall el-Ḥammâm. Geisler and Holden, Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible, 191.
20. Nahum M Sarna, “The Patriarchs Genesis 12-36,” in Genesis: World of Myths and Patriarchs, ed. Ada Feyerick, Cyrus Herzl Gordon, and Nahum M Sarna (New York, N.Y.: New York University Press, 1996), 118.
21. Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 1:225–226; Amihai Mazar, “The Patriarchs, Exodus and Conquest Narratives in Light of Archaeology,” in The Quest for the Historical Israel, ed. Israel Finkelstein and Brian B. Schmidt, Archaeology and Biblical Studies 17 (Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 59.
22. Cyrus H. Gordon, “The Patriarchal Narratives,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 13 (1954): 56–59; Introduction to Old Testament Times (Ventnor, N.J.: Ventnor, 1953), chapter 8; “Biblical Customs and the Nuzu Tablets,” 1–12; “The New Amarna Tablets,” Orientalia 16 (1947): 1–21; “Hebrew Origins in the Light of Recent Discovery,” in Biblical and Other Studies, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), 5–6.
23. Benjamin Mazar, The World History of the Jewish People: Ancient Times: Patriarchs, vol. 2 (London, U.K.: Rutger’s University Press, 1970), 169–87, 276–78; Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 133–90; Ze’ev Herzog, “Deconstructing the Walls of Jericho,” Ha’aretz Magazine, 1999, 4–5.
24. Thomas L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002), 89; John Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1975); S. M. Warner, “The Patriarchs and Extra-Biblical Sources,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 2 (1977): 50–61.