The manner in which Gen 12 and Gen 13 relate to one another has been an important topic of debate in Pentateuchal studies for some time now. Perhaps most notable in recent memory, Matthias Köckert’s study of the issue in 1998 (Vätergott und Väterverheißungen) prompted Erhard Blum to reformulate his initial model for the so-called Patriarchal History (i.e., Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch, 1984), shifting the date for this seminal development from the period between 722 and 586 BCE until after 586 BCE. Due to the strength of Blum’s influence on Pentateuchal scholars, this has meant that, by and large, the period between the fall of Samaria and Jerusalem has become a dark period for the textual growth of Genesis. Although Köckert’s influential argument appears in a section entitled ‘Transmigrationsverheißung des Gottes der Väter’ and results in many scholars placing the key developments in compositional history amid the Babylonian exile, neither he nor those working in his wake deal extensively with social scientific research on the behaviors of migrants and, in particular, the effect involuntary migration has upon the character of their origin stories. This belies the existence of a sufficient body of ethnographic data and cross-cultural models that offer the possibility of examining these chapters with an enhanced understanding of many relevant issues. Gen 12–13 presents a story about migration, written by migrants for other migrants. Characterized as such, it is evident that the social scientific study of migration has much to offer to biblical scholars. In this paper, therefore, I shall employ a ‘taxonomy of migration’ built from key findings in the social scientific study of migration in order to identify the component parts of Gen 12–13 and to develop a ‘migration profile’ for each one. Doing so, I shall narrow the possible array of social settings from which each text emerged, enabling a fresh assessment of the relationship between and composition history of these two chapters. Owing to the importance of Gen 12–13 to theories about the diachronic growth of both Genesis and the Pentateuch, this modest case study will allow me to reflect on the prospects for how interdisciplinary work utilizing the social scientific study of migration can and should reframe important issues in Pentateuchal studies.