These documents, which relate to the business of a Babylonian Abraham, come from Dilbat, about eight miles south of Borsippa, which was just across the Euphrates from Babylon. It is clear that this Abraham was a small farmer, who hired a tract of land from a larger land-owner. He also hired an ox wherewith to work his land, and paid the rent of the land and the hire of the ox as a good citizen should. This Abraham was not the Biblical patriarch. The patriarch’s father was Terah and his brother Nahor; the father of this Babylonian Abraham was Awel-Ishtar, and his brother Iddatum (ibid., no. 101, 9). The Abraham of the Bible was a monotheist according to Genesis; the ancestors of the Babylonian Abraham worshiped the goddess Ishtar, who corresponded to the Canaanitish Ashtoreth. The Bible connects the patriarch with Ur and Haran; this Abraham lived about half-way between these two cities.
Up to the present time this Babylonian Abraham is the only person known to us other than the Biblical patriarch, who, in that period of history, bore the name. He is the only one known to us outside the Biblical record.[418] The only other occurrence of the name outside the Bible is in the name of a place in Palestine, probably near Hebron, which Sheshonk I, the Biblical Shishak, calls “The Field of Abram.”[419] As Shishak lived much later (945-924 B. C.), being a contemporary of Rehoboam the son of Solomon, this Egyptian place name is not so significant. The Babylonian Abraham mentioned in the documents just translated is welcome proof that Abraham was a personal name in Babylonia near the time in which the Bible places the patriarch. With these documents Gen. 11:27-25:10 should be compared.
Another Babylonian contract is of interest in connection with the migration of Abraham.
5. Travel between Babylonia and Palestine.
1. A wagon[420]
2. from Mannum-balum-Shamash,
3. son of Shelibia,
4. Khabilkinum,
5. son of Appani[bi],
6. on a lease