The life of Abraham is well documented and has been examined by the best commentators the world has ever known. Despite this fact I believe this work will contribute something of value to the contemporary conversation about this ancient patriarch. I would like to begin our discussion of Abraham from a macro perspective first by researching the idolatry that affected the city where he was reared. Idolatry’s contribution to the failure of historic and contemporary people to discover their redemptive gifts is a reoccurring and prevailing problem for mankind. Its practical, sociological and psychological effects on communities will be our starting point. When contemplating the life of Abraham, we will consider the man, his work, his woman, their offspring, and his worship. We will examine the cultural memory that set the context for his thinking and conduct. His pattern of faith is the great redemptive gift that Abraham gave to the world. We will consider the initiative that the Lord took in calling Abraham, as well as, Abraham’s responsibility to the region he lived in and the world that would follow his example. “The Book of Genesis covers more than 2,000 years and more than 20 generations. Yet, it spends almost a third of its text on the life of one man - Abram.”
In the life of Abraham you have a unique call of faith. It has similarities to the life of Noah, especially his call out of a generation that no longer preserved the knowledge of God. However, it has more parallels with the life of Adam. Like Adam, Abraham would have to begin a life of faith with his wife separated from anything he previously knew. J. Vernon McGee points out; “In the first eleven chapters (of the book of Genesis) we have seen four great events; the Creation, the fall of man, the Flood and the Tower of Babel. In all these tremendous events God has been dealing with the human race as a whole. Other than Adam and Abraham, God did not appear to anyone else.”
Sovereign Call
What did God say to Abraham when he called him out of his family’s household, and why?
“The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12: 1-3)
“Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods.” (Joshua 24:2)
O. Palmer Robertson addresses the sovereign call of God to Abraham in his book The Christ of the Covenants, he states, “The sovereign aspects of God’s relationship with Abraham was made quite apparent in the time of the patriarch’s call. God did not suggest meekly that if Abraham would depart from his fatherland, he would be blessed. Instead, the word of God came in a solemn charge, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred’( Genesis 12:1) This same tone appeared at the institution of the covenant seal of circumcision. The Lord declared to Abraham; ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. And I will establish my covenant between me and you…’ (Genesis 17:1,2) Nowhere does any suggestion of “agreement” or “contract” emerge from these narratives.”
Abraham’s break from his family and culture of origin is unlike any other man’s in history. Noah’s generation was thoroughly corrupt; there was nothing redemptive in it at all. The only thing Noah was leaving behind was God’s judgment. Abraham had the effects of ten living generations reinforcing a growing idolatry in the city of the Ur of Chaldees, a span of approximately 500 years. . His father would migrate from Ur to the city of Haran, but not until Abram had already taken a wife.
“This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.”(Genesis 1128-32)
The plain English reading of the text has Terah taking Abraham out of the land of Ur. However Acts 7:2 states clearly that Abraham was called by God while he was in Ur.
"Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. 3'Leave your country and your people,' God said, 'and go to the land I will show you. 'So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.(Acts 7:2-4)
David Guzik believes that it was Abraham taking the lead in the families moving from Ur to Haran when he states the following.
“Acts 7:2-4 makes it clear the call of Genesis 12:1-3 came to Abram while he still lived in Ur of the Chaldeans. When he received this call from God he was only partially obedient, because he took his father Terah with him to Haran even though the LORD called him to go from Ur by himself.”
Matthew Henry lets us know the approximate length of Abraham’s family journey.
“Haran, or Charran, (is) a place about mid-way between Ur and Canaan, where they dwelt till Terah’s head was laid, probably because the old man was unable, through the infirmities of age, to proceed in his journey.”
Professor Eric H. Cline, of George Washington University states;
“If Abraham’s father took the journey from Ur in Mesopotamia up to Haran near modern Turkey, he would have followed the course of the Euphrates River, which was a known international trade route at that time, and it is quite possible that he settled down in a region in either north Syria or south Turkey. There are villages in the region today that still look much as they did four thousand years ago. Abraham also fits into some of the general migrations during this time period. It is quite conceivable that Abraham’s and his father’s movements should be seen in the light of these major migrations, which take place at the beginning of the second millennium BCE.”
Matt T. Rosenburg article, “Largest Cities Through History” claims that Ur would have been a city of 65,000 people. It would have been a city that was esteemed by its own people and highly influential on the regions, religious, cultural, and commercial life. I believe the Joshua 24:2 confirms Ur’s idolatry influenced Terah when it states that he worshipped other gods or idols. The city of Ur is the cultural home that Abraham and the place he was called to physically, spiritually and psychologically leave when he was call by God.
Three Aspects of Multigenerational Idolatry
There are three aspects of idolatry that affect all individuals and people groups. Each would have affected Abraham life and conduct. There is a religious component that moves away from a personal monotheistic God of Creation. When this happened the conscience can be desensitized and fails to hear God. The insight of a creator God who speaks to his sheep is retained in the cultural memory of people groups to the degree that they avoid idolatry. There is a patriotic or local aspect that is associated with victory in war or blessing upon the land. The need to appease such gods is often present when this type of idolatry is inherent in a culture. There is also a materialist component that is expressed in the things we own and the objects we desire that we will investigate. All three aspects of idolatry I believe were present in Ur. These forms of idolatry are not sequential or parallel but are bond together as a three strand cord that is difficult to break. Abraham had to break the three cords of idolatry in order to serve God effectively in generation and the geography to which he was assigned.
The Religious Aspects of Idolatry
Early Judaic and Christian theologians correctly viewed idolatry as a degeneration from monotheistic forms of religion. Modern scholars debate this, but I would support those earlier scholars’ positions in this thesis. “In an age when the study of religion was practically confined to Judaism and Christianity, idolatry was regarded as a degeneration from an uncorrupt primeval faith,”… but the comparative and historical investigation of religion has shown it to be rather a stage of an upward movement, and that by no means the earliest.” The quote is taken from The Classic Encyclopedia, which is based on the 11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica published in 1911 it adds this on the topic of idolatry. “It is not found, for instance, among Bushmen, Fuegians, Inuit,” This may be because they retained the knowledge of a God of creation. (see earlier blogs)
When Luke writes about Paul’s missionary journey to the idolatrous city of Athens, Greece he describes Paul as, “greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”(Acts 17:16) Paul’s distress motivates him to action and redemptive speech. I believe Acts 17:23captures the evangelistic approach that missionaries are to exercise in pluralistic cultures. Paul builds on the existing religious structure, with the idea of perfecting its truths, and pointing to the Gospel. “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” (Acts 17:23)Athens was a city in ignorance. “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:30)
Even with the “children of Abraham” Paul takes the same approach. He builds on the existing religious system in order to preach salvation. The Jews of Athens were no more saved than the pagans of Athens. Their existing system acknowledged the important of the scriptures however, therefore Paul, “As his custom was … went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ] had to suffer and rise from the dead.”(Acts 17:2) In both cases recorded in Acts 17 Paul builds on the existing religious system to preach the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ
The people of Ur were ignorant of the knowledge of God. They were clearly in the bondage of idolatry. Paul does not condemn the Athenians for their ignorance nor does Abraham condemn the cities in his generation and geography for theirs. On the contrary, both are concerned with the mercy of God being manifested in the lives of those that lived near them. Paul builds upon the cultural memory of “the unknown god” with the Greeks and those truths contained in the scriptures with the Jews. Abraham’s approach to Sodom’s idolatry is similar. He says to God. “Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25) The Jewish Encyclopedia says of Ur.
“This was an ancient seat of lunar worship; and it was dominant as a political center as early as 3000 B.C. Those scholars who incline to establish a connection between moon-worship ("Sin" = "moon") and the monotheism of Israel ("Sinai") find a corroboration of their theory in the fact that Abram's original home was the seat of the worship of Sin (comp. Jensen in "Zeitschrift für Assyriologie," xi. 298 et seq.).”
Amaseing.com has these comments about the areas primary deity and place of worship.
“The Ziggurat at Ur, a massive stepped pyramid about 210 by 150 feet in size, is the most well-preserved monument from the remote age of the Sumerians. It consists of a series of successively smaller platforms which rose to a height of about 64 feet, and was constructed with a solid core of mud-brick covered by a thick skin of burnt-brick to protect it from the elements. Its corners are oriented to the compass points, and like the Parthenon, its walls slope slightly inwards, giving an impression of solidity.
The ziggurat was part of a temple complex that served as an administrative center for the city, and it was also thought to be the place on earth where the moon god Nanna, the patron deity of Ur, had chosen to dwell. Nanna was depicted as a wise and unfathomable old man with a flowing beard and four horns, and a single small shrine.”
Within the ziggurats you can see both the cultural memory of the worship of the true God and its perversion in worshipping the creation verses the creator. The following quote speaks of sacrifice that would have been handed down from the time of Adam. However it also includes the enculturation of sexual sin as a form of worship.
“Worship in Sumer involved temples as well as ziggurats with small temples on the top. These temples were staffed by priests (who offered sacrifices and made libations), singers and musicians, as well as male and female prostitutes (whose activities many scholars relate to the fertility cult).[6] Much later than Abraham, the Israelites are warned against worship of the moon, sun, and stars (Deuteronomy 4:19; 17:2-5), though this kind of worship continued under idolatrous kings (2 Kings 23:5-12).”
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=7331&commInfo=31&topic=Genesis
J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible, Volume 1, (Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1981. pg 55
Robertson, O. Palmer, The Christ of the Covenants, (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1980) pg 127
http://kukis.org/Doctrines/GenealogyNoah.pdf
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=7331&commInfo=31&topic=Genesis
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=4&contentID=638&commInfo=5&topic=Genesis
“A History of Ancient Israel for the Patriarchs through the Romans” Lecture content, copyright 2006 Eric H. Cline, Course Guide copyright 2006 Recorded Books LLC
http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Idolatry
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Idolatry
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=40&letter=U
http://www.amazeingart.com/seven-wonders/ziggurat.html
http://www.jesuswalk.com/abraham/0_intro.htm
http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/I/IDOLATRY
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