98 Fun Facts About Abraham

Jewish tradition places Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son on the spot now covered by which Jerusalem shrine?

The Dome of the Rock shelters the Foundation Stone, which Jewish tradition identifies with Abraham's altar; for Muslims the same rock is where Muhammad's Night Journey to heaven began.

Abraham is regarded as the forefather of the Jewish people through Isaac and of which other people through Ishmael?

The Arabs: Genesis gives Ishmael twelve sons who became tribal chiefs, and Islamic tradition traces the prophet Muhammad's own family back to one of them.

In Genesis, who is named as Abraham's father?

Terah is the name Genesis gives; the Quran calls Abraham's father Azar instead, and Muslim scholars have long debated whether the two are the same man.

According to Genesis, in which city did Abraham's family originally live?

Ur is usually identified with a Sumerian city in southern Iraq, thousands of years older than the Chaldeans whose name Genesis attaches to it.

God's call to Abram promised that through him all the families of the earth would be what?

Blessed: Genesis sets the promise at the very start of Abram's story, when he was 75 and his wife had no children, so he set out for a new land with no heir to inherit any of it.

Abram's father set out for Canaan but settled and died in which city along the way?

Haran: the family stopped here, far short of Canaan, and some relatives never left. Two generations later one of Abraham's descendants fled back to Haran and found his wives among them.

What did Abram tell Sarai to say to the Egyptians when famine drove them to Egypt?

That she was his sister: Abram feared the Egyptians would kill him to take his beautiful wife. Pharaoh took her into his palace, was struck with plagues, and sent the couple away when he learned the truth.

After parting from Lot, who chose the well-watered Jordan valley, where did Abram settle?

The plain of Mamre near Hebron: to end a quarrel between their herdsmen, Abram had offered his nephew first choice of the land and took what was left. He built an altar at his new home.

How did Abram's 318 men defeat the army that had seized Lot?

Night raid: Abram split his men into groups, struck in the dark and chased the invaders far to the north. He then refused to keep any of the recovered loot, so that no king could claim to have made him rich.

Which king of Salem, a priest of El Elyon, brought out bread and wine to Abram?

Melchizedek, to whom Abram is traditionally read as giving a tenth of the spoils. The Letter to the Hebrews argues from that gift that his priesthood outranks that of Abraham's own descendants, the Levites.

Childless Abram expected his servant Eliezer to be his heir, until God led him outside and told him to count what?

The stars: 'so shall your offspring be,' God told him. Abram believed it, and Genesis says that trust was counted to him as righteousness, a line the New Testament quotes again and again.

Genesis identifies the Vale of Siddim, where the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were defeated, with which sea?

The Dead Sea: Genesis adds that the valley was full of tar pits, and that some of the fleeing men of Sodom and Gomorrah fell into them while the rest ran for the hills.

Sarai offered Abram which of her servants so that he might have a son?

Hagar, an Egyptian: once pregnant she looked down on her mistress, Sarai treated her harshly in return, and Hagar ran away into the desert until an angel told her to go back.

An angel chose the name Ishmael, meaning what?

God hears: the angel told his runaway mother that the Lord had heard her misery in the desert. She answered by naming God 'the God who sees', and went back to have the child.

What did God command Abraham to do as the sign of their covenant?

Circumcise the males of his household: Abraham did it that same day, to himself and to 13-year-old Ishmael. The rule that boys be circumcised at eight days old is still kept in Judaism as the brit milah.

According to Genesis, what does the name Abraham mean?

Father of a multitude is the meaning Genesis gives when God renames Abram. Some scholars think the name originally meant 'the father is exalted', which would make the Bible's own gloss a folk etymology.

Abraham's servant chose Isaac's bride at a well because she offered to draw water for him and for which animals?

His camels: the servant had prayed that the right woman would make exactly that offer, and Genesis says she arrived before he had finished praying. She then drew water until the whole caravan had drunk.

What did Sarah do when she overheard that she would bear a son in her old age?

She laughed, quietly to herself, then grew frightened and denied it, only to be told, 'No, but you did laugh.' The boy was duly named Isaac, which means 'he laughs'.

Abraham haggled with God over Sodom until God agreed to spare the city for how few righteous people?

Ten: Abraham opened at fifty and talked God down step by step, apologising for his nerve as he went. Not even ten were found, and the next morning he watched smoke rise from the plain like the smoke of a furnace.

What happened to Lot's wife when she looked back at the burning cities?

She turned into a pillar of salt: the family had been warned to run for the hills without looking behind them. Jesus later made her a three-word warning, 'Remember Lot's wife.'

Which king of Gerar took Sarah into his household until God warned him in a dream?

Abimelech, who protested his innocence and sent her back with sheep, oxen, servants and a thousand pieces of silver. Abraham then prayed for him, and the women of his household could bear children again.

What place name arose from Abraham's oath with the king of Gerar over a well, sealed with seven ewes?

Beersheba: the king's men had seized a well Abraham dug, and the seven lambs were his proof that it was his. The Hebrew name can be read as 'well of the oath' or 'well of seven'.

How old was Abraham when Isaac was born?

100: only a year earlier Abraham had doubted that a man of that age could father a child at all, and had pleaded with God, 'Oh that Ishmael might live before you!'

God renamed Abraham's wife Sarai as Sarah, a Hebrew name usually translated as what?

Princess: the new name came with a promise that she would be a mother of nations and that kings would descend from her. Abraham's first response was to ask whether a woman of ninety could bear a child.

Before sending his servant to find Isaac a wife, Abraham made him swear an oath with his hand placed where?

Under Abraham's thigh: the servant swore not to choose a Canaanite wife and never to take Isaac back to Mesopotamia. Jacob later demanded the same oath of his son Joseph on his deathbed.

What skill did Ishmael become known for while living in the wilderness of Paran?

Archery: he grew up in the desert and became an archer. Earlier, when the water ran out after the pair were sent away, his mother had sat down 'a bowshot away' so as not to watch him die.

In which land did God tell Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice?

Moriah, three days' journey from Abraham's camp. Second Chronicles later places Solomon's Temple on Mount Moriah, which is why tradition sets the near-sacrifice on what is now Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

What did Abraham sacrifice in place of Isaac?

A ram caught in a thicket by its horns. On the way up Isaac had asked where the lamb was and been told that God would provide one, so Abraham named the place 'The Lord will provide'.

What is the Hebrew name for the story of the binding of Isaac, read at Rosh Hashanah?

The Akedah, 'the binding', is read in synagogues on the second day of the festival. One rabbinic reading makes Isaac no child but a grown man of 37, who must therefore have agreed to be bound.

Which philosopher explored Abraham's anguish over the sacrifice of Isaac in Fear and Trembling?

Søren Kierkegaard, writing as 'Johannes de silentio'. He argued that ordinary ethics cannot justify Abraham: his 'knight of faith' trusts, against all reason, that he will receive Isaac back.

Where did Abraham bury Sarah?

In the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham bought as a family burial plot. He, Isaac and Jacob were all later laid there beside their wives, which is why the site is known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

From whom did Abraham buy a family burial plot after Sarah's death?

Ephron the Hittite, who first offered the field as a gift. Abraham insisted on paying, and weighed out 400 shekels of silver at the town gate in front of witnesses.

After Sarah's death, which woman did Abraham take as a wife, going on to father six more sons?

Keturah: her sons included Midian, whose descendants Moses later lived among. While he was still alive Abraham gave the six of them gifts and sent them away to the east.

Which two sons buried Abraham?

Isaac and Ishmael: the half-brother who had been sent into the desert as a boy came back to stand beside Isaac at the burial. Together they laid their father next to Sarah.

Which ruler built, some 2,000 years ago, the walled enclosure that still stands over Abraham's tomb?

Herod the Great: it is the only one of his great buildings still standing intact. For some 700 years Jews could climb no higher than the seventh step outside, until the 1967 war opened the shrine to them.

Rabbinic tradition holds that Abraham worked in his youth in his father's shop selling what?

Idols: in the midrash he smashed them, put the club in the hand of the largest and blamed it. When his father protested that idols cannot do anything, Abraham told him to listen to his own words.

Genesis never names which of Abraham's relatives, called Amatlai bat Karnevo in the Talmud?

His mother: Genesis names Abraham's father, brothers, wife and nephew but never her. The Talmud supplies a name and says why it bothers: to have an answer ready for sceptics who ask.

A Talmudic tradition credits Abraham with instituting which daily Jewish prayer?

The morning prayer: the tradition ties it to Abraham rising early in the morning to stand before God, and credits the afternoon and evening prayers to his son and grandson in turn.

Which apostle argued that Abraham's faith, before the Mosaic law, made him the prototype of all believers?

Paul: he noted that Genesis calls Abraham righteous for his faith before he had received the sign of the covenant, so the promise could not depend on keeping the law. The Letter of James cites the same patriarch to stress deeds instead.

Who warned crowds proud of their descent from Abraham that God could raise up children for Abraham from stones?

John the Baptist, preaching by the Jordan: he greeted them as a 'brood of vipers' and warned that the axe was already at the root of the trees, so ancestry would save no one who failed to change their ways.

Andrei Rublev's famous icon The Trinity depicts which episode from Abraham's life?

The angelic visitors: early Christian writers read the three strangers Abraham fed at his tent as an image of the triune God, so an icon of that meal became the Eastern Church's way of picturing the Trinity.

In the Quran, Abraham asks God how the dead are raised and is told to take four what?

Birds: God tells him to set portions of them on separate hills and then call, and they will come hurrying back. Abraham says he already believes and asks only so that his heart may be at rest.

In Islam, Abraham's title Khalilullah means what?

Friend of God: the Quran says that God took Abraham as a close friend, khalil. The city where he is buried takes its Arabic name, al-Khalil, from the same title.

In the Quran, Abraham and his son Ishmael raise the foundations of which shrine?

The Kaaba: a stone beside it, the Station of Abraham, is said to bear the footprints he left there, and the Quran tells believers to take the spot as a place of prayer.

Which Islamic festival honours Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son?

Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice: the Quran tells the story without naming the son, and most Muslims hold that he was Ishmael rather than Isaac.

In Islamic narrative, which well in Mecca sprang up when Ishmael and his mother were left in the desert?

Zamzam: in the usual telling the water appeared beside the infant while his mother hurried back and forth between two hills looking for help. Pilgrims to Mecca still walk between those hills seven times in her memory.

Which king, in Islamic and Jewish legend, had Abraham thrown into a great fire that left him unharmed?

Nimrod: the Quran, which leaves the king unnamed, has God command the fire to be 'coolness and safety' for Abraham. Jewish midrash tells the same story and gives the king his name.

The 2020 agreements normalising relations between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain are known as the Abraham what?

Accords: the name was chosen because Judaism, Christianity and Islam all look back to Abraham. They were signed at the White House in September 2020, and Morocco and Sudan joined soon after.

Which Bob Dylan song opens with God telling Abraham to "kill me a son"?

Highway 61 Revisited: the real road, nicknamed the Blues Highway, ran down the Mississippi to New Orleans from Minnesota, where it passed through Duluth, the city of Dylan's birth.

Which faith counts Abraham among its Manifestations of God, alongside Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad?

The Baháʼí faith, founded in the nineteenth century by a Persian exile: it teaches that the founders of the great religions, Abraham among them, were all messengers of one God, each carrying the same faith forward for a new age.

A soldier-poet's retelling has Abram ignore the angel and kill his son 'and half the seed of Europe' in which war?

The First World War: Wilfred Owen has the angel offer the old man a substitute sacrifice, his pride, and the old man refuses. The closing line about Europe was left out when the poem was first printed in 1920.

Who were Abram's two brothers, according to Genesis?

Nahor and Haran: Haran's son Lot went with Abram to the promised land, while Nahor stayed behind and his granddaughter later married Abram's son.

Whom did Abraham live to see Isaac marry?

Rebekah, a great-niece from Abraham's homeland: he would not let his son marry a Canaanite. Her family wanted her to stay a while longer, but asked whether she would leave at once, she said, 'I will go.'

Which weekly Torah portion, whose name means 'Go forth', begins Abraham's story?

Lech-Lecha: the words begin God's first command to Abram, to leave his country, his relatives and his father's house for a land he would only be shown once he had set out.

In the Druze faith, Abraham is regarded as the third 'spokesman' after which two figures?

Adam and Noah: the Druze hold that the same truth about one God was delivered afresh in each age, so their list of seven runs on from Abraham through Moses, Jesus and Muhammad.

In Jesus's parable of the rich man, which beggar is carried by angels to 'Abraham's bosom'?

Lazarus, in Luke's Gospel: the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers, and Abraham refuses, saying that those who ignore the scriptures would not listen even to a man risen from the dead.

For a 1401 contest, Ghiberti and Brunelleschi each cast a bronze Sacrifice of Isaac, hoping to make doors for which city's baptistery?

Florence: Ghiberti won the commission, and his rival Brunelleschi later gave up sculpture for architecture. Both trial panels, each with Abraham, Isaac and the angel, survive in the city's Bargello museum.

Which university refused George Segal's memorial to its students shot in 1970, a bronze of Abraham poised to sacrifice Isaac?

Kent State: its administration judged the subject too controversial and turned the commissioned work away before it was finished. The bronze went to Princeton University instead, which put it on its own campus.

What does God call Abraham when warning the king of Gerar in a dream to give back Sarah?

A prophet, a word the Bible uses here for the first time, is someone whose prayer the king is told will save his life, and he returns Sarah with gifts of sheep, cattle and silver.

After an angel stopped the sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham gave the mountain a name meaning what?

The Lord will provide is the meaning of Jehovah-jireh, echoing the answer Abraham gave Isaac on the climb when the boy asked about the missing offering.

What share of the spoils did Abram give the priest-king who came out from Salem to meet him?

A tenth of everything went to the priest-king, the first tithe mentioned in the Bible, and Abram refused to keep any of the remaining spoils for himself.

Which tax collector of Jericho, who climbed a tree to see Jesus, was declared 'a son of Abraham'?

Zacchaeus earned the title after pledging half his goods to the poor and a fourfold repayment to anyone he had cheated.

Which animal did Abraham hurry to fetch for the meal he served the three strangers?

A calf, tender and good, was served with butter and milk, and Abraham stood by under the tree while his guests ate.

Which Dutch master painted The Sacrifice of Isaac, a 1635 canvas of Abraham that hangs in the Hermitage?

Rembrandt departs from the text by having the angel seize Abraham's arm rather than call down from the sky, and the knife is shown falling in mid-air.

Abraham's son Isaac was sixty when his wife gave birth to which famous pair of twin boys?

Jacob and Esau were born after twenty childless years of marriage, the younger twin coming out with his hand gripping his brother's heel.

Which instrument, sounded at the Jewish New Year, recalls the animal Abraham offered in place of his son?

The shofar is sounded, one Talmudic rabbi taught, to bring before God the memory of the binding of Isaac, so that worshippers are credited as if they had bound themselves.

How did God punish Pharaoh and his house after Pharaoh took Abram's beautiful wife Sarai into his palace?

With great plagues God made Pharaoh hand Sarai back, and Pharaoh's men escorted Abram out of Egypt, by then rich in livestock, silver and gold.

Where was Abraham sitting in the heat of the day when three strangers suddenly appeared before him?

At his tent door Abraham looked up, saw three men standing nearby and ran to meet them, bowing to the ground before offering water and a rest.

Climbing the mountain with fire and wood, Isaac asked his father Abraham where what was?

The lamb for the burnt offering was the one thing missing, and Abraham answered only that God would see to it himself.

At Shechem, near Bethel and again at the oaks where he settled, Abram marked each stop by building what?

An altar went up at each camp, and after his stay in Egypt Abram went back to the one near Bethel to call again on the name of the Lord.

The first verse of the New Testament calls Jesus the son of Abraham and the son of which king?

David is named first in the verse, and the family tree that follows counts fourteen generations from Abraham down to him.

The ruins of the Sumerian city often proposed as Abraham's birthplace lie in which modern country?

Iraq holds the site, where the partly restored ziggurat of the moon god Nanna marks a city that once stood near the mouth of the Euphrates.

The walled shrine revered as the tomb of Abraham and Sarah stands in a city of which territory?

The West Bank shrine passed to Israeli control in the 1967 war and has since been split, one part serving as a mosque and the other as a synagogue.

The Book of Abraham, published in 1842 as a translation of Egyptian scrolls, is scripture for which movement?

The Latter-day Saints canonised it in 1880 as part of the Pearl of Great Price, and surviving fragments of the papyri resurfaced in a New York museum archive in 1966.

An angel told the pregnant Hagar that her son Ishmael would be like which animal among men?

A wild donkey was the angel's image for a son who would live at odds with everyone, his hand against every man and every man's hand against him.

After an angel found the runaway Hagar at a desert spring, what name did she give to God?

The God who sees also gave a name to the well where the angel found her, Beer Lahai Roi, beside which Isaac later made his home.

Refusing the king of Sodom's reward, Abram swore not to keep even a thread or a what?

Sandal strap and thread were the humblest things Abram could name, refused so that the king could never boast of having made him rich.

When God first told the childless Abram to leave his father's house, what did he promise to make of him?

A great nation was promised to a man of seventy-five whose wife had never been able to have a child, along with a name that would be made great.

After Lot left, God told Abram his offspring would be as hard to count as what?

The dust of the earth came with an order to walk the length and breadth of Canaan, since all the land Abram could see would be given to him.

The valley of Siddim, where the fleeing kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell, was full of what?

Tar pits trapped the retreating armies, the survivors ran for the hills, and the invaders carried off the food and goods of both cities.

In the vision that opens Genesis 15, God calms a fearful Abram by calling himself Abram's what?

Shield, and exceedingly great reward, were God's words to a man who had just made enemies of four kings and refused the spoils of war.

Along with two bracelets, which gold ornament did Abraham's servant give the young woman at the well?

A nose ring weighing half a shekel went on first, and when her brother saw the gold he hurried out to invite the stranger in.

Which brother of Isaac's bride ran to welcome Abraham's servant after seeing the gold she was given?

Laban brought the traveller home and joined in agreeing to the match; a generation later he had two daughters of his own to marry off, Leah and Rachel.

Which son of Abraham's later marriage gave his name to the desert people among whom Moses found a wife?

Midian was one of the sons Abraham sent away eastward with gifts, and Moses later fled to the land named after him and married a priest's daughter there.

Before God renamed him, the patriarch went by Abram, a name usually understood to mean what?

Exalted father fits the older form, and scholars treat the Genesis reading of the longer name as wordplay, since the added syllable makes no sense in Hebrew.

Which early Christian, stoned to death, began his defence with God appearing to Abraham in Mesopotamia?

Stephen retold Israel's history from Abraham onward before the council, and his closing accusation so enraged his hearers that they threw him out of the city.

Samaritans place Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac not in Jerusalem but on which mountain near Nablus?

Mount Gerizim is also where Samaritans say God chose to have his temple, rather than on Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

Which actor played Abraham opposite Ava Gardner's Sarah in John Huston's 1966 epic The Bible?

George C. Scott took the part after Spencer Tracy, who had agreed to play it alongside Katharine Hepburn, fell ill and had to withdraw.

Which Canadian songwriter retold the binding of Isaac in Story of Isaac, on the 1969 album Songs from a Room?

Leonard Cohen called it an anti-war protest song that he had tried to take beyond simple protest, and it has been covered by Judy Collins, Suzanne Vega and Linda Thompson.

Scholars once widely identified Amraphel, a king Abram fought in Genesis 14, with which Babylonian ruler?

Hammurabi was the usual identification after Eberhard Schrader proposed it in 1888, but the view has largely been abandoned.

In the Galatians allegory of Abraham's two sons, the slave woman Hagar stands for which mountain?

Mount Sinai and its covenant are set against a free Jerusalem above, with Isaac's line cast as the children of promise.

Which song of Mary in Luke's Gospel closes by recalling God's promise to Abraham and his descendants?

The Magnificat closes on Abraham, and the next song in the chapter, sung by Zechariah, also recalls the oath God swore to the patriarch.

In the ancient Testament of Abraham, which archangel is sent to tell the patriarch to prepare for death?

Michael finds Abraham so kind a host that he cannot bring himself to deliver the news, and goes back to heaven to say so.

By which divine name does God introduce himself to the ninety-nine-year-old Abram before renaming him?

El Shaddai was rendered Deus Omnipotens in the Latin Vulgate, which is why many English Bibles have God introduce himself here as God Almighty.

Which tree did Abraham plant at the place where he and a Philistine king swore an oath over a well?

A tamarisk went into the ground once the king and his army commander had gone home, and there Abraham called on the name of the Everlasting God.

Which English composer set a Chester mystery play as the 1952 canticle Abraham and Isaac for tenor and alto?

Benjamin Britten gave Abraham to the tenor Peter Pears and Isaac to the alto Kathleen Ferrier, and had the two sing together as the voice of God.

Which Turkish city, home to a pool of sacred carp, has long been claimed as the birthplace of Abraham?

Şanlıurfa draws pilgrims to the cave where the patriarch is said to have been born, and the carp in the nearby pool are held sacred and may not be caught or eaten.

Abram chased the four kings who had seized Lot as far as which place, named like a tribe of Israel?

Dan was only the first stop, and the chase went on to Hobah, near Damascus, before Abram came home with the captives and all the goods.