MBAbe Update

As an answer to my own query here, the reason for placing the patriarchs in MBI or MBII is based on various occupied sites, cities, or settlements described in the Biblical narratives and their presence or absence in the archaeological record. Shechem, for instance, did not exist as an urban center in EBIV-MBI, but did so exist in MBII. Thus, if Shechem is presented in the Jacob narrative as a walled city (it is), the time of Jacob is fixed (at the earliest) at the start of MBII.