Texts in Conversation
Nehemiah describes Abraham as “faithful,” language that is not used in Genesis. This description began a process of reframing Abraham’s life and identity that would be incorporated into later Jewish texts such as Jubilees and Sirach.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 15:6
Hebrew Bible
5 The Lord took him outside and said, “Gaze into the sky and count the stars—if you are able to count them!” Then he said to him, “So will your descendants be.” 6 Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord credited it as righteousness to him. 7 The Lord said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Nehemiah 9:8
Hebrew Bible
7 “You are the Lord God who chose Abram and brought him forth from Ur of the Chaldeans. You changed his name to Abraham. 8 When you perceived that his heart was faithful toward you, you established a covenant with him to give his descendants the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites. You have fulfilled your promise, for you are righteous. 9 “You saw the affliction of our ancestors in Egypt, and you heard their cry at the Red Sea.
Date: 400–301 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Jubilees 17:15
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
15 And it came to pass in the seventh week, in the first year of it, [2003] in the first month in this jubilee, on the twelfth of this month, there were voices in heaven regarding Abraham, that he was faithful in all that He told him, and that he loved the Lord, and that in every affliction he was faithful. 16 And the prince Mastêmâ came and said before God, 'Behold, Abraham loves Isaac his son, and he delights in him above all things else; tell him to offer him as a burnt-offering on the altar, and You will see if he will do this command, and You will know if he is faithful in everything in which You try him. 17 And the Lord knew that Abraham was faithful in all his afflictions; for He had tried him through his country and with famine, and had tried him with the wealth of kings, and had tried him again through his wife, when she was torn (from him), and with circumcision; and had tried him through Ishmael and Hagar, his maid-servant, when he sent them away.
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The words spoken in heaven about Abraham said that he was faithful in everything that He God had told him ... This drumbeat repetition of “faithful” is all the more surprising because the word does not appear at all in the Genesis story. Its first occurrence in connection with Abraham is in Nehemiah 9:8; thereafter it became his adjective par excellence: Sirach 44:20, 1 Maccabees 2:52, 4Q226 Pseudo-Jubilees ..."
James L. Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 109.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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