Joel, while I agree with you in looking to inspiration, I disagree with
you that it is only on this basis that we can know any details about
Abraham. Even if we leave inspiration, faith etc out of the equation, in
Genesis (let's limit this discussion to chapter 12 and following) we
still have a document which purports to be the ancient history of the
people of Israel, from Abraham onwards. I agree that (apart from faith)
we cannot know for certain how well this document corresponds to the
actual facts about the past. But nothing significant in it has been
shown to be wrong e.g. by archaeology, and indeed the general picture of
life in Canaan and Egypt has been confirmed. The normal scholarly
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