\b0 The story of Abraham, the patriarch, is told in the Book of \b \cf4 \ATXht70700 Genesis\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 . Ordered by the voice of God to find a new land for his descendants, Abraham left the city of Ur where he was living. Abraham followed his pre-determined route north-east along the course of the River Euphrates until he go
t as far as the borders of Anatolia in Turkey. His journey of almost 1,000 kilometers brought him to the town of Haran, the center of the caravan routes. He travelled the 1,000 kilometers on foot with his livestock and possessions. Following the death o
f his father, Terah, Abraham once more resumed his journey and made his way 650 kilometers south towards the land of Canaan. Then, a severe famine forced Abraham and his tribe even further south, to Egypt, probably along the Sur road. During his return
from Egypt, Abraham and his people stopped in Bethel and it was here that his sons Ishmael and Isaac were born. \par
The name Abraham is interpreted by the authors of the Bible as meaning ôsublime father,ö or else ôfather of all the people.ö His people
may have belonged to a branch of migratory semi-nomads and some academics maintain that the tribe of Abraham was a Semitic group called the Habiru, from which the name Hebrew is derived.\par
