The conclusions reached regarding the identity of Abraham do not match in any way with the classic figure of the unskilled bedouin, wandering in a never-ending search of pastures for his wretched herd of goats. According to the indications given by Genesis he was, on the contrary, the son of a great Mesopotamian prince; he came to settle in territory that was part of the Egyptian Empire, having been lured there by promises made by a Pharaoh. He later became a rich owner of livestock. So who in reality was Abraham? Also, who was this Pharaoh? Why did he make those promises? What in effect, did he promise him? To answer these questions it is obviously necessary to analyze the political situation and the historical events of that period.
First of all, let us establish what "nationality" Abraham and his family were, basing the investigation on the indications Genesis offers, reinforced with the knowledge of the area and the period in question, and what position or social level his family occupied in their place of origin.
Common people do not generally have an historical past or universally-noted ancestors; since very early times family trees were compiled only for families of high nobility. Tareh, Abraham's father, descended from a line going back to no less than Noah. The leafy branches of his family tree number family founders and chiefs of all the peoples of the Middle East. Therefore, according to the text, Tareh must have been the head of a great family of ancient nobility; but was he simply a provincial lord, or a great ruler? Genesis, even regarding this question, offers sufficient indications to enable a reasonably well-founded answer.
We know that at a certain point in his life Tareh left his native town Nahor, together with his son Abraham, Sarah, and his nephew Lot, and set out for Haran, where it seems he settled, at least temporarily. His son Nahor did not follow him, but remained in the town of the same name, where he married his brother Haran's daughter, Milcah. This was a typical custom, if not exclusive, of reigning families of those times, in the Middle East. Milcah gave birth to eight children, of which the last, Bethuel, was still living in Nahor when Abraham's servant arrived there, in search of a wife of suitable rank for Isaac (Gen. 24,10).
However, when about twenty years later Jacob returned to Mesopotamia for the same reason, i.e. to find a wife (Gen. 27,43), we find Laban, Bethuel's first-born son, installed in Haran and owning great flocks and herds which grazed over a large area of Paddam Aram; additionally, he had servants and soldiers, plus an efficient network of informers, and freedom to dispose of the whole country as he saw fit. On the basis of our knowledge of the customs of the people of Haran in the 15th century B.C., we can be certain that Laban was Lord of Haran.
Haran was then a province of the Mithani Empire; so, if Bethuel, Nahor's eighth son, was the feudal lord of a province as important as this, it follows that his father must have been a very powerful person. At the very least he must have had Nahor and Haran under his dominion. Presumably, however, he also must have possessed other important provinces since, before installing Bethuel as feudal lord, he would surely have made arrangements for the adequate settlement of his other seven sons. Thus, Tareh turns out to be lord at least of the territories indicated in Genesis as Aram Naharaym and Paddam Aram. In conclusion he was, therefore, a great Mesopotamian ruler. Since, on the basis of those elements presented by the Bible, we have determined with reasonable accuracy the period in which Tareh lived, there should be no difficulty in singling out the historical person he really was.
First of all it is essential to fix the Nahor-Haran area from an historical and political point of view. From the beginning of the second millennium B.C. various Horite people, coming from north-west Iran, had spread through Armenia and northern Mesopotamia where they had formed a mosaic of small feudal-like states. On the basis of some Hittite texts, it may be inferred that in about 1640 B.C. a Horite kingdom existed in Mesopotamia which probably also included eastern Asia Minor. We know nothing of the history of this state over the following one hundred years; it would seem that during this period and certainly before 1500, groups of nobles of Aryan extraction, coming from Iran, took power over the majority of the Horite states. The first known Aryan state is that of the kingdom of Mithani (or Maithani) in northern Mesopotamia (1530 - 1350 ca). Mithani was also the name of the Aryans who represented the ruling class in the Horite states. The kingdom of Mithani ranged from the slopes of the Zagros mountains, in Kurdistan, to the Mediterranean; in the south it reached as far as Babylon. Babylon, although not seeming to be an integral part of the latter's Empire, certainly came under his influence for a certain period.
The first known Mithani ruler was a certain Baratharna, mentioned in a document of about 1500 B.C. About ten years or so before, Baratharna had been defeated by the Pharaoh Tuthmosis the First, who had conquered Syria and had raided deep into Mithani territory--which Egyptians called Naharin--devastating the country beyond the Euphrates and killing large numbers of the enemy. Upon his return to Syria, Tuthmosis the First erected a stele at Karkemish, thereby defining the boundary between the two Empires.
But Tuthmosis' conquests were short-lived; his successors, Tuthmosis the Second and the latter's wife Hatshepsut, who reigned for twenty-two years in place of her stepson Tuthmosis the Third, took no interest in Syria. Syria thus moved rapidly into the orbit of the Mithani Empire, thanks to the work of the greatest of its rulers, Saushsha-Tar, who succeeded his father, Baratharna, at the beginning of the 15th century.
Upon the death of Hatshepsut, Tuthmosis the Third took up his grandfather's Asiatic policy with the intention of returning Egypt’s frontiers to the original limits he had reached. He allied himself to the Hittite king Tutkalyiash and began a long war against Saushsha-Tar, who was repeatedly defeated. Finally, Tuthmosis the Third, crossed the Euphrates and put the region of Haran to fire and sword as did his grandfather before him. On the return journey, he also erected a stele marking the frontier next to that raised by his grandfather. This brings us to about 1470 B.C., more or less the period in which--according to the calculations made in Part One of this work--Abraham left Haran for Palestine.
But let us return to the question of Saushsha-Tar and Tareh. From what we have seen so far, it would appear that they have much in common: they lived in the same period; they were born in the same place--south Urartu; they both ruled over a large empire including Nahor and Haran; they both owned a great number of livestock that their servants took to graze on the plains; they both had relations with Egypt (Abraham, son of Tareh, went to an area under Egyptian rule); both respected the same laws and customs. They even had the same name, since Saushsha-Tar probably means something like "the Great King-" or "King of kings-" Tar (it is interesting to note that in Persian the Emperor is called the "sha-in-sha", king of kings). It is not too far-fetched to suppose that they are one and the same person.