Abraham

Abraham is reputed to have been one of the chieftains of the people wandering through Mesopotamia in the Tigris Euphrates valley at the end of the third millennium BCE. These people spoke West Semitic tongues, among which was Hebrew and were culturally more developed than the regular desert nomads like the Bedouins. Abraham, himself, according to the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament Bible, is described as having served the King of Sodom as a mercenary. When his wife Sarah died, Abraham bought land in Hebron, which is now part of the West Bank.

Later a second wave of immigration from Mesopotamia was linked with Abraham's grandson Jacob and led to settlement in the town of Nablus. Jacob's sons became the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel, and they moved to Egypt during a drastic drought in Canaan. When these descendants of Abraham returned to Canaan...