there is very little reference to the Patriarchs in the pronouncements of ‘later’ great prophets like Jeremiah, Hosea or the first prophet known as Isaiah, whose prophetic words date from the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. It is as if these supposedly basic stories of Israel’s origins a thousand years before were largely missing from the consciousness of Jeremiah, Hosea and Isaiah, whereas references to the Patriarchs appear abundantly in material which is of sixth-century or later date.
