I would ask why does it have to be anything else but myth, when it has all the elements of myth. In the first place, Yahweh, Asherah and the Elohim are borrowed from earlier cultures, from their creation myths. The creation of man from clay is borrowed from the Gilgamensh epic, as well as the flood, the ark, and the bird that gives a clue that the waters have receded. All of the magical feats that take place are elements of myth, created by the spinners of the tales to fill in the gaps for which they had no science. They had no idea that creatures are formed from DNA, or that species evolved over billions of years. They had no idea about the age of the Earth and its relationship to the sun and planets, so they invented explanations of their own.
So I return to the question: why treat this as anything else but myth when it has all the markings of myth? That is the question that remains elusive in our discussion.
I don't have anything to do with this since I am the observer not the creator of the facts. The reasoning for concluding that Genesis is myth is as stated above, not from a requirement to know the beginning, as you put it. Furthermore, it is from what we do know about ancient and primordial ages that we can say with certainty that the creation myths of ancient cultures all bear the same markings - they replace magic and fabulous explanations for the origins they could not possibly understand since they had no science.
My purpose in explaining Abram, Abraham and "father of the throng" etc. was to illustrate a literary device - alliteration (ab-, ab- ab-). When you examine text and you find inventions like this it helps you better understand the purpose of the writer. The purpose here was to create a sense of magic or mystery, to give power to the name, to get the attention of the listener, and to help people memorize the verse. The Bible is full of devices that give it the power and mystery of myth. As you see this has nothing to do with Isaac. It's all about myth-building.
The interactions of Genesis are substantially different than anything you might think God is doing today. Consider God's direct manipulation of people - all of the conversations he engaged with people, the banishment, setting up the monsters to guard the gates of Eden (a place that can not possibly exist), and on and on. There are countless examples of these kinds of high interaction that have no relevance to anything in the world today.
Again it has nothing to do with me. In creation mythology, the storyteller is helping the audience confront their own questions about where they came from. The myth provides a convenient answer. Since Ur is near the Tigris and Euphates, and since those are the rivers the Bible claims lead to Eden, then putting Abraham initially at Ur helps form a continuity between the Eden story and the story of where the race of Canaanites came from.
If they ever were in Ur, if they ever emigrated out of Ur, then it would seem reasonable to find some evidence of that from Ur itself, which is rich in artifacts. Even before this story sprang up in Canaan, the people of Ur - and other cities in Mesopotamia - were keeping their own records, and as a matter of fact that had city halls as you might call them, and libraries where they kept their records. My point is that this appears to be an invention by a later writer who had no idea where the Canaanites came from, so he invented this explanation. The writer has nothing to tell us about the details of the emigration - what king or prince of Ur gave them passage to leave, how many people, animals and provisions they took, the reason or purpose of their exodus from Ur, and why they went off into the unknown region of Canaan, surrounding themselves by hostile tribes, to take up homesteads in a barren arid place that was far less hospitable to human habitation than somewhere else along the fertile banks of the Tigris-Euprates. We have no idea when they supposedly left Ur and that alone impairs the credibility of the storyteller. Why is it impossible for them to date the events in their stories? Why is it impossible for them to identify the people who would have been there, the witnesses - why are there no authors who identify themselves as witnesses or participants in the events, etc. These are the kind of issues that make their passage from Ur unlikely. However, it fits well with the myth of Abraham, because Ur was probably well enough known to them to be a magnificent city far to the east of them. That makes it difficult for anyone to go to Ur and find out for themselves what the people of Ur remember about the story. Again, these are the markings of myth.
We have trouble identifying the exact rise of the Hebrew language. Obviously this story was handed down by oral tradition for a long time before it became known in Hebrew script. In the story we don't know anything about the orgin of the mythical Abraham other than the trip he supposedly took from Ur. Perhaps changing his name from Abram to Abraham helps the listener accept that a man from a foreign land could not have started with a name known to them in Hebrew.
Even if the place was called Abraham, that wouldn't help establish the existence of Abaham, if that's what you mean, since legendary characters also have towns named after them. However, there is an early reference like this in Genesis "Asshurbanipal who builded Nineveh". Ashurbanipal is a name known in Mesopotamia, and this helps establish the time Genesis was written.
You ask about the relationship of Hebron and Abraham. I understand the name Hebron signifies "friendship" or "alliance", and it is associated with the idea that Abraham had an alliance with Yahweh. Of course, that does not establish the historicity of Abraham since we assume the legend of Abraham was well established when the city was named.
There was an earlier version of their religion in which the Elohim were their god (or gods). This name and idea of the gods of creation was borrowed from an earlier culture (Phoenicia/Ugarit). They later replaced the Elohim with Yahweh, who is probably one of the gods from that ealier culture, although there is also speculation that this name comes from a god who protected a city called "Yah" (or "Yahw"). Yahweh became their single personal god as the myth evolved under these changing circumstances. Yahweh is introduced in Gen 2, the second version of the creation myth. This is what I meant when I said Yahweh emerged after the Elohim.
(I should have said to build supremacy of Yahweh over all the regional gods).
The society existed for a long time before Genesis took shape. I don't know how necessary it was for the early Canaanites to have these laws. They are modeled after the Code of Hammurabi ("eye for eye, tooth for tooth"). They obviously knew Hammurabi's Code and decided to weave it into their own story. This may have occurred during the Babylonian captivity. Obviously they created a whole new flavor to the Babylonian law and imposed Yahweh as the angry jealous god who demanded that he be worshiped. I don't think that has so much to do with societal order as it does in creating a bigger better meaner god than any other culture had done so far. It appears to be done partly for establishing religious rule, partly for incorporating Babylonian Law into their society and partly so they could convince people that Yahweh was the chief god of all the gods. It is also possible that the only reason they needed a law was because the Persians imposed on them that they write a legal code before releasing them.
Their history is one of humiliation after humiliation. Yes, Nero was already dead by the time the temple at Jerusalem was destroyed. It was desecrated in the time of Nero, and the Jews rebelled, and Nero responded by deciding to crush the rebellion. Several Emperors rose until Vespasian, and I recall that his son Titus was the general who actually carried it out. Titus also succeeded his father ten years later. I had Nero on my mind because I believe the Jews at that time blamed him for the destruction of the Temple, insofar as he started the war. There is an interesting link between Nero and the AntiChrist (666) in gematria, so it seems that Jews of that era blamed him for it.
The legend of Jesus takes place in the setting of the War with Nero (and his successors). In the story we find Zealots (as Simon the Zealot) who were members of the Jewish resistance. Crucifixion was a punishment given to Zealots. The New Covenant of Jesus is not exclusively reserved for the chosen people, Jews, but to the areas where the churches were instituted, as described in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles (mostly of Paul). The Covenant of Jesus therefore has an international flavor, and Jesus takes on a more international persona, including his Stoic reactions to threats, and his suicide "by the cup" in imitation of Socrates. The entire framework of the legend closely follows that of Mithra who was the product of a virgin birth, was crucified, had 12 followers, etc. It's borrowed lore. The creation of this story in Greek rather than Aramaic, the Jews' native language at that time (Hebrew had been abandoned) is another example of how Jesus takes on an international flavor. No wonder Christianity did not take root in Judaea like it did in Syria, Egypt, the Ageaen, and of course Rome.
No, since the story is mythical, a person named Abram probably never existed and the migration from Ur is probably an invention. Canaan is land where the myth was assembled, so I suppose they could assign any nationality to him they wanted. I am calling them all Canaanites because that's where they lived. The people who began calling themselves Israelites probably emerged around 890 BCE. If that's when this story took root, then it probably gelled until about 500 BCE as oral tradition before textual composition was done. At any rate, it's possible Genesis was not even conceived of in its present form until the Exile. And yes the Minoans would be another culture that may have influenced their ancestral beliefs. I connect them with Phoenicia and Ugarit since that is where the Hebrew language originates, and that is where the Elohim, Asherah and Yahweh originate. (Asherah is in Egypt first.)
Blame me if you like, but it doesn't change the reality of what we are talking about. Again, it's not me who establishes that it's myth, I am just an observer. Any of these men may actually have existed and all of them may be storybook characters. If the story was written during the exile, who would know? There is no evidence of their existence, other than this story. We can try to date it if you like, then you can tell me if it is a credible source. There are 23 occurences of the phrase "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" which is another literary clue that weakens its credibility.
If you believe that the text is to be read literally, then you may not understand the textual criticism I am referring to. You may have trouble understanding authorship and dating analysis. However, once you begin to treat the text with the flaws it is known to have, it changes your perspective, and then it looks like the literalists are missing the urinal. That and a whole lot more.
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