Mamre

The oaks of Mamre, according to the Bible (Gen 13,18 EU) a town of Abraham, the ancestor of the Israelites. The grove consists of trees (Hebrew אֵלון ), which are usually referred to in Bible translations as oaks or oaks. The place is located near Hebron in the land of Canaan, west of the Jordan. When his owner is called Mamre, who was an Amorite (Gen. 14,13 EU).

Biblical Foundations

The Biblical narrative portrays Abraham still nomads who opens in Canaan as a stranger to his tent in different places. The grove was probably one of his first permanent dwellings in the land that God had promised him ( Gen 12 EU).

The place has become known as the scene of a strange encounter between Abraham and God (Gen 18.1 to 15 EU). God appears here in the form of three " men ", which Abraham granted hospitality. His wife Sarah in the tent listening to the talks and will honor that her husband gets the promise of a descendant of the guests. Furthermore she laughs because she is childless and so far with 90 years long gone childbearing potential. Then ask God through the voice of the visitor: "If YHWH be something impossible? " - And reiterates that it will have a son in a year. Sarah, who feels caught, afraid.

This episode follows the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, argues for their being spared Abraham before and argues with his God and to God's universal justice appeals (Gen 18 EU). But only his nephew Lot and his family escaped the court that the men who visited Abraham at Mamre enforce, at God's command.

Then Abraham leaves the grove and moves on to other areas. Only after the death of Sarah, he buys a piece of farmland for her funeral: Machpelah " opposite " of Mamre, which is therefore also located near Hebron (Gen 23,19 EU). Then the story of Isaac, Abraham in the old home a woman looking up and his father finally in an acquired with the field of Machpelah cave grave near the oaks of Mamre beisetzt begins (Gen. 25, 9f ).

The oaks of Mamre is thus along with the cave of Machpelah for the great country and folk promise to Abraham that in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam has extraordinary significance.

Local traditions

In the Russian Orthodox Holy Spirit Monastery in Khirbet Sibte, two kilometers northwest of Hebron, there exists a tree relic that is called in Christian tradition as " Oak of Abraham 'or' oak of Mamre ." The tree is supposed to be 5000 years old. The oldest historical evidence to support this site date back to the late Middle Ages.

Regardless, there is another local tradition in Ramet el- Khalil, 3.5 km north of present-day Hebron, which extends to the Roman and Byzantine periods.

After excavations at Khirbet Nimra, 1 km north of Hebron, a building dating from the 6th / 5 Century demonstrate BC, is the oldest of scientists suspected local tradition.

Comments

• Place in the Bible
• Abraham
• Sacred site