Creative Chronology

The Torah’s chronology is subtle: the creation and Eden accounts are intertwined, not sequential: the events in the Eden account takes place take place (probably) on the sixth day of the creation account.

The Torah employs the same technique elsewhere:

Terach’s death is related in the account long before it actually occurred. Avram is commanded to leave his birthplace, which is (almost certainly) Ur, indicating that this event, the command of “Lech LeCha” to Avram, preceded the earlier-related event of the departure from Ur.

The Torah completes the Terach saga by telling us that he left with Avram (one can read this into the enigmatic: “vayetzu itam” [this could also mean the Tower of Bavel exodus]) and then goes into detail after this telling us how it came about that Terach took his family and left.

This also explains why he didn’t complete the journey.

Who Initiated the Aliyah to Eretz Cana’an? Terach!? Not Abraham?!

The Torah seems to imply that Abraham’s father, Terach, was the first person to go to Cana’an, and that he took Abram with him, rather than Abraham being the one who initiated the trip. The order as given in the Torah is:

· Terach left Ur Kasdim taking Abraham etc

· They stopped on the way, in Harran, and stayed there[1].

· Terach died.

· God spoke to Abraham saying “Leave your birthplace, go to the land I will show you… “ and so Abraham left Harran to go to Canaan.

But Ur and not Harran was Abraham’s birthplace! And we know from the dates given that Abraham left Harran long before his father Terach died!

So it cannot be that the passages are in their chronological order!

We can therefore see that the Torah is simply telling us the Terach-saga in complete form before moving on to the Abraham saga, and the passages are indeed not in their chronological order.

Abraham was the one who initiated the trip;

We know that some of the events in the Terach saga (eg Terach’s death) happened AFTER the LATER Abraham saga: we can then easily include the event of Terach’s leaving Ur for Canaan as taking place AFTER the command of God to Abraham to do so.

The order would then be:

· God spoke to Abram in Ur Kasdim, and as a result Abram and Sara were planning to go to the land of Canaan, so Terach and Lot etc “left with them” (“vayetzu itam”); however since the father takes precedence over the son, when they went together the Torah tells us that Terah took them rather than that Terach went because his son went.

· Terach stayed in Harran and Abram stayed a while with him

· Abraham then continued to Canaan[2].

· Terach died.

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[1] (Harran not at all on a straight line from Ur to Ca’na’an, but it along the trade route of the Fertile Crescent which was preferred to the straight-line desert route: today it is in Southern Turkey very near the Syrian border and has the remains of a temple to the moon god ‘sin’, and beehive-shaped houses.[yes, I was there.])

[2] Note the very nice parallel:

“and they left to go with them to Cana’an and they arrived in Harran”

“and they left to go with them to Cana’an and they arrived in Cana’an.”

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