How can you learn more about Abraham?

Answer 1

A:Genesis is the only place that explores the narrative of Abraham in any comprehensive way. The other books of The Bible, as well as the Koran (Quran), assume the reader already knows the basic story from Genesis.

Bruce Feiler (Abraham) says there are hundreds more stories about Abraham. He estimates that probably less than one per cent of the stories told about Abraham appear in the Bible. The vast majority did not even come into circulation until hundreds, even thousands of years after he would have lived. All three religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) joined in this interpretive process, though the Jews necessarily came first, probably beginning around the third century BCE. Thus, there is an almost unlimited range of stories about Abraham, few or any of which are actually true.

Most people know the non-biblical, Midrash story about the young Abraham breaking all but one of his father's idols to prove that they had no power.

A Jewish tradition (Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer 30, a pseudipigraphic midrash) holds that Abraham, in disguise, visited Ishmael's home. As a result of the visit, Ishmael divorced his first wife and married again. The two wives were named Aisha and Fatima, the same as the names of Muhammed's wife and daughter.

The Koran, instead of having Abraham banish Hagar and Ishmael to the Negev, has Abraham take them to Mecca, settle them there, then return home.

There is much to learn about Abraham and a large number of sources from which to learn them. Much depends on whether you want a Jewish, Christian, Islamic or even scholarly/analytical understanding of the legendary Patriarch.