Keturah
Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Template:Good article Template:Infobox character Keturah (Template:Langx, Qəṭūrā, possibly meaning "incense";<ref>Schloen, J. David. "Caravans, Kenites, and Casus Belli: Enmity and Alliance in the Song of Deborah." The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 1, 1993, pp. 18–38. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43721140.</ref> Template:Langx) was a wife<ref name="gen_25_1_4">Template:Bibleverse (1917 Jewish Publication Society of America translation). "And Abraham took another wife, and her name was Keturah...."</ref> and a concubine<ref name="chron1_1_32_33">Template:Bibleverse (1917 Jewish Publication Society of America translation). "And the sons of Keturah, Abraham’s concubine...."</ref> of the Biblical patriarch Abraham. According to the Book of Genesis, Abraham married Keturah after the death of his first wife, Sarah. Abraham and Keturah had six sons.<ref name=gen_25_1_4 /> According to Jewish tradition, she was a descendant of Noah's son Japheth.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
One modern commentator on the Hebrew Bible has called Keturah "the most ignored significant person in the Torah".<ref name=Friedman_85/> The medieval Jewish commentator Rashi, and some previous rabbinical commentators, related a traditional belief that Keturah was the same person as Hagar, although this idea cannot be found in the biblical text.<ref name=Friedman_85>Template:Cite book</ref> However, Hagar was Sarah's Egyptian maidservant.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Sources
Keturah is mentioned in two passages of the Hebrew Bible: in the Book of Genesis<ref name="gen_25_1_4" /> and in the First Book of Chronicles.<ref name="chron1_1_32_33" /> Additionally, she is mentioned in Antiquities of the Jews by the 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian Josephus,<ref name=josephus_antiquities>Template:Cite book</ref> in the Talmud, the Midrash, the Targum on the Torah, the Genesis Rabbah, and various other writings of Jewish theologians and philosophers.<ref name=Harris_Talmud>Template:Cite book</ref>
Louis Feldman has said "Josephus records evidence of the prolific non-Jewish polymath Alexander Polyhistor, who in turn cites the historian Cleodemus Malchus, who states that two of the sons of Abraham by Keturah joined Heracles' campaign in Africa, and that Heracles, without doubt the greatest Greek hero of them all, married the daughter of one of them."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
According to Doctor of Anthropology Paula M. McNutt, it is generally recognized that there is nothing specific in the biblical traditions recorded in Genesis, including those regarding Abraham and his family, that can be definitively related to known history in or around Canaan in the early second millennium B.C.<ref name="McNutt">Template:Cite book</ref>
Relationship with Abraham
Keturah is referred to in Genesis as "another wife" of Abraham<ref name=gen_25_1_4 /> (Template:Langx<ref>Strong's Concordance, Hebrew word #376.</ref>). In First Chronicles, she is called Abraham's "concubine"<ref name=chron1_1_32_33 /> (Template:Langx<ref>Strong's Concordance, Hebrew word #6370.</ref>).
According to one opinion in the midrashic work Genesis Rabbah, Keturah and Hagar are names for the same person, whom Abraham remarried after initially expelling.<ref name=br>Genesis Rabbah 61:4</ref> This opinion was adopted and popularized by 11th-century scholar Rashi.<ref name=Friedman_85 /><ref>Template:Alhatorah</ref> Possible justifications for this opinion include the fact that Keturah is referred to Template:Bibleverse as Abraham's concubine (in the singular),<ref name=je_keturah>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> and several other verses which suggest that the descendants of Hagar and Keturah lived in the same territory or formed a single ethnic group.<ref>Template:Bibleverse refers to "Hagrites" (descendants of Hagar?) who later lived in the same region that was known to be inhabited by the descendants of Keturah. Also, in Template:Bibleverse the "Medanites" (apparently descended from Keturah) and "Ishmaelites" (descended from Hagar) appear to be interchangeable. Also, in Template:Bibleverse the "Midianites" (descended from Keturah") and "Ishmaelites" appear to be interchangeable. See Yaakov Medan, Ki Karov Elecha: Breishit, p.195</ref> However, this idea was rejected by another rabbi in Genesis Rabbah,<ref name="br" /> as well as by traditional commentators such as Ibn Ezra, Nahmanides, and Rashbam.<ref name="Friedman_85" /> The Book of Jubilees also supports the conclusion that Keturah and Hagar were two different people, by stating that Abraham waited until after Sarah's death before marrying Keturah.<ref>Jubilees 19:11. Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> According to modern scholar Richard Elliott Friedman, the identification of Keturah with Hagar has "no basis ... in the text".<ref name="Friedman_85" />
Genesis Rabbah interprets the name Keturah in accordance with the opinion that she was identical to Hagar: the name was said to be related to the Aramaic ketur (knot) to imply that she was "bound" and did not have sexual relations with anyone else from the time she left Abraham until her return.<ref name="je_hagar">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The name Keturah was alternatively said to be derived from the ketoret (meaning "incense" in Hebrew).
Descendants
Keturah bore Abraham six sons: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Genesis and First Chronicles also list seven of her grandsons (Sheba, Dedan, Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah).<ref name=gen_25_1_4 /><ref name=chron1_1_32_33 /> Genesis records that Abraham gave them gifts and sent them to the East, while making Isaac son of Sarah his primary heir. Keturah's sons were said to have represented the Arab tribes who lived south and east of Israel (Template:Bibleverse).<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> According to the Judean authors Josephus and Malchus, Punic people were descended from Epher.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
According to the African (Igbo) writer Olaudah Equiano, the 18th-century English theologian John Gill believed the African people were descended from Abraham and Keturah.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Relevance inline According to the Baháʼí author John Able, Baháʼís consider their founder, Bahá'u'lláh, to have been "descended doubly, from both Abraham and Sarah, and separately from Abraham and Keturah."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>