Page Content (OCR)
And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shin‘ar. Ariokh king of Ellasar, Khedorla'omer king of Elam, and Tidhal king of Go'im— That these made war with Bera King of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah. Shinab king of Adman, and Shem-eber king of Zebi'im, and with the king of Bela, which is Zoar. Thus begins the biblical tale, in chapter 14 of Genesis, of an an- cient war that pitted an alliance of four kingdoms of the East against five kings in Canaan. It is a tale that has evoked some of the most intense debate among scholars, for it connects the story of Abraham, the first Hebrew Patriarch, with a specific non-Hebrew event, and thus affords objective substantiation of the biblical rec- ord of the birth of a nation. How wonderful it would have been, many have felt, if the vari- ous kings could be identified and the exact time of Abraham estab- lished! But even if Elam was known and Shin'ar identified as Sumer, who were the kings named, and which were the other lands of the East? Questioning the authenticity of biblical history unless independently verified, critics of the Bible asked: Why don't we find the names Khedorla'omer, Amraphel, Ariokh. and Tidhal mentioned in Mesopotamian inscriptions? And if they did not exist, if such a war had not taken place, how credible is the rest of the tale of Abraham? For many decades the critics of the Old Testament seemed to prevail; then, as the nineteenth century was drawing to a close, the scholarly and religious worlds were astounded by the discovery of 281 ABRAHAM: THE FATEFUL YEARS