Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the covenantal relationship between the Jewish people and God; in Christianity, he is the spiritual progenitor of all believers, whether Jewish or non-Jewish; and in Islam, he is a link in the chain of Islamic prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Muhammad. Abraham is also revered in other Abrahamic religions such as the Baháʼí Faith and the Druze faith.

The story of the life of Abraham, as told in the narrative of the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, revolves around the themes of posterity and land. He is said to have been called by God to leave the house of his father Terah and settle in the land of Canaan, which God now promises to Abraham and his progeny. This promise is subsequently inherited by Isaac, Abraham's son by his wife Sarah, while Isaac's half-brother Ishmael is also promised that he will be the founder of a great nation. Abraham purchases a tomb (the Cave of the Patriarchs) at Hebron to be Sarah's grave, thus establishing his right to the land; and, in the second generation, his heir Isaac is married to a woman from his own kin to earn his parents' approval. Abraham later marries Keturah and has six more sons; but, on his death, when he is buried beside Sarah, it is Isaac who receives "all Abraham's goods" while the other sons receive only "gifts".

Most scholars view the patriarchal age, along with the Exodus and the period of the biblical judges, as a late literary construct that does not relate to any particular historical era. It is largely concluded that the Torah, the series of books that includes Genesis, was composed during the Persian period, as a result of tensions between Jewish landowners who had stayed in Judah during the Babylonian captivity and traced their right to the land through their "father Abraham", and the returning exiles who based their counterclaim on Moses and the Exodus tradition of the Israelites.

The Abraham cycle (Genesis 11:27–Genesis 25:11) unfolds as a narrative of mounting tension, centered on the conflict between God's promise that Abram would father a lineage and become the ancestor of numerous nations, and a succession of crises that jeopardize this divine commitment. The storytelling method used here is the “obstacle story,” a literary device renowned for its enduring and universal popularity across cultures and eras.

The Abraham cycle is not structured by a unified plot centered on a conflict and its resolution or a problem and its solution. The episodes are often only loosely linked, and the sequence is not always logical, but it is unified by the presence of Abraham himself, as either actor or witness, and by the themes of posterity and land. These themes form "narrative programs" set out in Genesis 11:27–31 concerning the sterility of Sarah and Genesis 12:1–3 in which Abraham is ordered to leave the land of his birth for the land God will show him.

Terah, the ninth in descent from Noah, was the father of Abram, Nahor, Haran (Hebrew: הָרָן Hārān) and Sarah. Haran was the father of Lot, who was Abram's nephew; the family lived in Ur of the Chaldees. Haran died there. Abram married Sarah (Sarai). Terah, Abram, Sarai, and Lot departed for Canaan, but settled in a place named Haran (Hebrew: חָרָן Ḥārān), where Terah died at the age of 205. According to some exegetes (like Nahmanides), Abram was actually born in Haran and he later relocated to Ur, while some of his family remained in Haran.

God had told Abram to leave his country and kindred and go to a land that he would show him, and promised to make of him a great nation, bless him, make his name great, bless them that bless him, and curse them who may curse him. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran with his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and their possessions and people that they had acquired, and traveled to Shechem in Canaan.

There was a severe famine in the land of Canaan, so that Abram, Lot, and their households traveled to Egypt. On the way Abram told Sarai to say that she was his sister, so that the Egyptians would not kill him. When they entered Egypt, the Pharaoh's officials praised Sarai's beauty to Pharaoh, and they took her into the palace and gave Abram goods in exchange. God afflicted Pharaoh and his household with plagues, which led Pharaoh to try to find out what was wrong. Upon discovering that Sarai was a married woman, Pharaoh demanded that Abram and Sarai leave.