An Exploration of the Origins of Ancient Semetic Peoples and their Sacred Sites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic#Semitic_peoples

'Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis', R. Graves and R. Patai

p.13 “…Abraham, the Aramaean patriarch who entered Palestine with the Hyksos hordes early in the second millenium B.C….”

p.13 “Jacob’s twelve ‘sons’… seem to have been once independent tribes which banded together to form the Israelite amphictyony or federation. Their local gods and populations were not necessarily of Arameaen race, though ruled by an Arameaen priesthood. Only Joseph can be identified, in part, with a historical character.”