Talk:Patriarchal age

Geneology Date
The first paragraph did not have any references and conflicted with the rest of the article. If you restore it, please work to incorporated it into the article and provide references. 68.251.224.64 (talk) 16:01, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Please leave the first paragraph intact, if you have any quarrels with it, please add the appropriate tags instead. CycloneNimrod (talk) 16:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Inaccuracy
The wealth of archaeological information coming out of important finds such as Nuzi and Mari, clearly and accurately date the milieu of the patriarchal age to Middle Bornze I.

Among archaeological discoveries having significant bearing upon our knowledge of Old Testament cultural backgrounds, especially that of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is the recovery of the culture of the ancient Hurrians. The Nuzi tablets elucidate many important parallels in customs, law, and social conditions characteristic in the second millennium which are synonymous with the patriarchal age and incorporated in the patriarchal narratives. There appears to be overwhelming evidence that Abraham and the patriarchal narratives fit precisely into the milieu of Middle Bronze I.

Gefaller (talk) 21:41, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Not quite. Nuzi and Mari are very old finds now, and the consensus is that were vastly over-interpreted by Speiser and the other Americans of the Albright school. The current view is as represented in this article.PiCo (talk) 01:49, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Fuller Ming (talk) 18:17, 23 September 2021 (UTC), This article is biased, rejecting honest scholarly research when it states, "Some conservative scholars attempted to defend the Patriarchal narratives in the following years,[7][8]" How can this statement and the concluding summary be made more more balanced? Biblical Scholars such as K. A Kitchen (references 7 and 8 in the article) and other's who could be classified as "conservative" are honest about what the archaeological data reveals or does not reveal. They just accept the biblical narrative as a credible ancient authority where the more liberal and/or secular leaning scholars generally reject such material. Yet, Gilgamesh can be accepted as a real person in history based on the Epic of Gilgamesh and the legends and fragments of writings around the epic, an epic with exceedingly mythical content. If Gilgamesh can be accepted as king of the ancient Sumerian city-state of Uruk, then surely the ancient Jewish text, even if given a relatively late date - say the Torah dated from the 8th or 7th century BCE - can be the basis for real people. Even if honest scholars reject the miraculous, the existence of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph can be accepted as real people strictly based on their prominence in the ancient Jewish documents, culture, and religion. This bias against the biblical narratives should be acknowledged.