Figure of Abraham in Religious World - Essay Example

Abraham Gen 11 v 27, 31; 12 v 1, 13 v 1, 12; 14 v 14; 15 v 1; 16 v 3; 17 v 1; 18 v 10; 20 v 1; 21 v 2; 22 v 1; 23 v 2 ; 24 v 1; 25,v 1, 8. 2 Chronicles 20 v 7, Nehemiah 9 v 7, Psalm 105 v 6, Romans 4 v 3 , Galatians 3 v 6 , Hebrews 11 v 8, James 2 v 21 Called father of faithful - Romans 4 v 16 Obedient - left home and friends in obedience to God’s call - Gen 12 v 4 Generous and unselfish – gave Lot first choice of land for his flocks in Gen 13 v 9 Brave – defeated robbers - Gen 14 v 14 Benevolent – gave tithes to Melchizedek the priest Gen 14v 20 Incorruptible - Refused to receive gifts for services rendered Gen 14 v 23 Strong in prayer – Gen 18 v 23-33 Faithful – Heb 11v 17 It is possible to obtain quite a balanced picture of Abraham because he features so strongly in the Bible, in both Old and New Testaments. In other places however, really only because he is such a beloved character, anomalies appear. For instance there is the ancient rabbinic tradition that:- Our father Abraham observed the entire Torah before it was given to Israel, as it is written (Genesis 26:5) "Because that Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws" (Mishnah, end of Kiddushin). However , also in Genesis , just a few chapters earlier Abraham is preparing a meal ( Genesis 18 v 7-8) , but it could hardly be said to agree with kosher food laws found in the Torah – Abraham and Sarah set before their guests a meal of veal and yoghurt with milk and bread. Segal points out that because Christians were also claiming Abraham as their forefather the rabbis might have felt it important to stress his Jewishness, even though that concept hadn’t really been invented in his time. Paul in his letter to the Roman church, which included both Gentiles and Jews mention Abraham. In his fourth chapter Paul cites Genesis 15:6: "And [Abraham] believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness." Paul’s argument is that Abraham lived before the gift of the law so he could not have kept its laws, yet God still reckoned him to be a righteous man. Yet Abraham was no means perfect, and certainly not always the perfect husband. Genesis 12 v 10-20 and 20 v 1-8 tell us of two occasions when Abraham tells half truths in order to protect himself. In the first instance he gives his wife Sarah to Pharaoh, and in the second to Abimalech ( though in this second instance it is possible that the king simply took Sarah, whom Abraham had married in Haran. It may be that they were close blood relatives, some sources claim that they were half brother and sister. Christians weren’t the only group to claim Abraham of course. Islam claims Abraham as their forefather through his elder son Ismael and in their tradition it is Ismael rather than Isaac who is taken to the place of sacrifice. The descriptions of Abraham's life as found in the Qu’ran are obviously strongly influenced by Jewish traditions. According to Islamic tradition Adam once worshipped on the site of the Ka’ba in Mecca and the present structure was built by Abraham ( Ibrahim) and his son Ismael. If so perhaps he had observed building techniques in use in Ur, although there mud bricks were used. Muslim scriptures incorporate many stories not mentioned in the biblical accounts, although often part of Jewish tradition, such as Abraham's disputes with his idol-worshipping father Terah and his disagreement with Nimrod, a wicked king who cast him into a furnace. The story of the akedah ( the binding of Isaac) , also found its way into the Qu’ran (37:103), where the story fits in with the biblical version for the most part.. Later Islamic tradition took it for granted that the son in question was actually Ishmael, the forefather of the Arabs, but Jewish scriptures remove Ishmael from the scene before the time of the sacrifice. Other stories are found in the Ist century C.E. Jewish apocryphal book of Jubilees which has a description of his ascent into heaven and also how he received insight into how the nation of his descendents would be saved by a coming Messiah. According to the Jewish scriptures Abraham is listed as being the 10th generation after Noah, who himself was the10th from Adam ( Genesis 5). Whenever it was it was a very long time ago. Abraham was born, possibly in about 1800 B.C.E, one of three brothers in Ur. This was a city placed between the two rivers of the Euphrates and the Tigris, between modern day Baghdad and the Persian Gulf. His name is an individual one rather than the name of a people or tribe. Ur was in a fertile plain and great centre of trade. The inhabitants, including many merchants and craftsmen, had temples, in particular one to the moon god. Talmud (Baba Batra 91a) tells how his birth was seen as a threat by the local king and his father had to hide him in a cave. Human sacrifice was part of city life according to the web page ‘Ur of the Chaldees’. The city had a code of laws, a written language and schools as well as many places of worship. Abraham’s descent is traced back to Shem, son of Noah, (Genesis 11). For reasons which are not disclosed Terah took his whole family and moved to Haren. ( Genesis 11 v 31).According to 2nd century C.E. Babylonian Jewish rabbi Hiyya, Terah’s trade was the making of idols. Another tradition, from Genesis Rabbah 38, Tanna Debei Eliyahu, which could easily go alongside this, says he sold idols. It could be that Abram as he was then, saw how his father created ‘gods’ from simple materials. He was a logical person who would have realized the inconsistencies between theological claims and reality and this led him to realize how false they actually were - he was on his way to realizing his faith in one true God. He did not believe in God because God made him promises. God made him promises because of his belief. The Qu’ran has a story of him destroying the idols and leaving. (Suras 19:41-49, 6:74-83 and 21:51-59.) It is as a result of his actions that Nimrod is said to have thrown him into the furnace, from which he escaped unharmed according to the Midrash and to Louis Ginsberg. Abraham was promised by God that :- 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 v 2-3 Bible , New International Version ) In Hebrews 8 there is a description as to how this was fulfilled by ‘descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.’ Sarah however was barren. She persuades Abraham that the promise can be fulfilled if he has a child with her Egyptian servant Hagar. This would have been common practice at the time and Ishmael was the result. Prior to this Lot, the son of Abraham’s dead brother had been his heir. They had left Haren together and traveled to the plains where they come across the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. It was soon after this that Lot’s wife dies, probably as a result of the natural disaster which destroyed the cities. Problems when Hagar, proud mother , lauded her superiority over the barren Sarah. ( Genesis 16) Verses 6-9 tell us that Hagar and her son were sent out into the desert where she finds water a t what is generally though of as the spring of Zam Zam between Safa and Marwa in Mecca. According to Islamic tradition she placed the baby on the ground where he cried and kicked his heels and at the seventh kick water was released. Rain does occur in deserts and although much evaporates, some soaks in. In some places the water level builds up just below the surface, which, if the story has some truth in it, seems to have been what happened on this occasion. God tells her to take the child and return to Abraham and Sarah. When their visitor ( usually identified as angel or even God himself) ( Genesis 18) says that Sarah will become pregnant she laughs off the suggestion. So like her husband she had true human frailties, yet the Talmud lists her as a female prophet (Megillah 14a), and she is seen by Jewish sages as ‘a woman of wisdom and righteous action’ according to the My Jewish Learning web page ‘Stories of our ancestors’. Her story is also used to prefigure the characteristics of the tabernacle and later the temple. Her bread was likened to shew bread; her candle to the menorah and the cloud and wind which were said to accompany her are said to indicate the presence of God according to Genesis Rabbah 80:16. In Genesis 19 we have the rather strange story of how the daughters of Lot, realizing that they were unlikely to obtain husbands managed to become pregnant by their drunken father. This story is perhaps inserted in the narrative to explain close relationships between the Israelites and both the Ammonites and the Moabites. The great king David was after all descended from the Moabite Ruth ( Ruth 4). Genesis 21 finally tells us that Sarah now a very old woman, finally becomes pregnant so that her part of the promise could be fulfilled. This time Hagar again goes off into the desert with her son, but this time does not return. Ishmael later married an Egyptian. In Genesis 22 the story moves to the time of Abraham’s great test. He only has one son with him and he is told to take Isaac and sacrifice him. There seems to have been little hesitation on Abraham’s part for they set out the next morning. Was this an act of total obedience, or did Abraham have faith that God wouldn’t actually make him go through with the test? In verse 8 Abraham tells Isaac ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’, but even this could be considered retrospectively for Abraham believed that God had provided Isaac. Of course the ram was discovered caught in the bushes and father and son returned home, not only safe and sound , but also ( Genesis 22v 15-18) with another blessing and promise from God. Eventually of course Abraham and his extended family arrive in what is now Israel. There his name is strongly associated with the founding of a number of religious sites :- Shechem (Genesis 12:7), Bethel /Ai (Genesis 12:8, cf. 13:4), Hebron (Genesis 13:18), Beersheba (Genesis 21:33) and Mount Moriah , (Genesis 22:2) Christians see the promises to Abraham as being a foreshadow of Christ because they believe that through Christ all people can be blessed – John 3 v 16, ‘God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,’ which links back to Genesis 12 v 3 ‘All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ References Apoclyse of Abraham, Jewish Encyclopedia, accessed 9th December 2010 from http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=361&letter=A Genesis Rabbah 38, Tanna Debei Eliyahu, quoted by My Jewish Learning, accessed 9th December 2010 from http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Rabbinics/Midrash/Midrash_Aggadah/How_Midrash_Functions/Abraham_and_Sarah_in_Midrash.shtml Genesis Rabbah 80:16., quoted by My Jewish Learning, accessed 9th December 2010 from http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Rabbinics/Midrash/Midrash_Aggadah/How_Midrash_Functions/Abraham_and_Sarah_in_Midrash.shtml Ginsburg, L. , In the fiery furnace, accessed 8th December 2010 from http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/lginzberg/bl-lginzberg-legends-1-5f.htm Hiyya bar Abba , Jewish Encyclopedia, accessed 8th December 2010 from http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=811&letter=H Segal,E. (1987) Abraham Our Father"--And Theirs? , taken from ‘Why didn’t I learn this in Hebrew School?’ accessed 7th December 2010 from http://people.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/871201_Abraham.html Stories of our ancestors, My Jewish Learning, accessed 9th December 2010 http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Rabbinics/Midrash/Midrash_Aggadah/How_Midrash_Functions/Abraham_and_Sarah_in_Midrash.shtml Talmud (Baba Batra 91a), quoted by My Jewish Learning , accessed 9th December 2010 http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Rabbinics/Midrash/Midrash_Aggadah/How_Midrash_Functions/Abraham_and_Sarah_in_Midrash.shtml The Ka’ba, Mecca, Sacred Destinations, accessed 9th December 2010 from http://www.sacred-destinations.com/saudi-arabia/mecca-kaba Ur of Chaldees, accessed 8th December 2010 from http://www.gracenotes.info/documents/TOPICS_DOC/Ur.pdf . This faith and knowledge that he had was probably intended to be imparted to his son in what became the story of the sacrifice. It would appear more likely that Abraham desired to demonstrate his knowledge to his son by trying to encourage him to walk through fire without fear, rather than the intention to kill him. At the point where God intervened, Abraham would have recognised that his son had enough faith that he would walk through fire if put into the same life-threatening circumstances as his father. Mercy, a Quality of God, meant that Abraham was able to accept his son’s faith without requiring him to perform the task. Abraham wasn’t just a one-off thinker with this fire-walking miracle alone, according to the Jewish traditional stories, he also invented the plough in the fifth week of the thirty-nine Jubilee. ( Where on earth does this come from . Jubilee comes much later in scripture ( Leviticus 25 v 8-55) and there is no evidence I know of for Abraham even being connected with arable farming. Abraham Darby in the18th cent produced iron plough shares. He would have acquired knowledge of farming and producing crops, and so by some necessity, he was driven to think out his plan and build a device to enhance the productivity of his land. Such an invention and treatment of the land would have allowed him to produce better crops in less fertile areas. Other stories tell of Abraham rebuilding the Kabba (Holy House at Mecca) with his son. The Kabbah is said to be the original place of worship build by Adam after he and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden. After it had fallen into ruin, Abraham rebuilt it from its foundations and established the Pilgrimage (Hajj). To reach the upper layers of the walls, he is said to have stood on a stone that levitated up, or flew, so that he could place the stones in place. The original stone that he is said to have stood on bear the worn out hollows from where his feet were, and is located in a gold and glass case at the Kabbah. As the laws of physics are unlikely to have been broken by a stone that could defy gravity, the alternative explanation appears more likely to be that the original events have suffered some mistranslation or misunderstanding as it was been handed down through the generations. From the available descriptions of Abrahams’ life, he would appear to be a person who was smart enough and capable enough intelligence to build many useful devices. A simple wooden counterbalance crane or lifting device for the reconstruction of the Holy House wouldn’t be beyond him, but may have amazed many who retold the story. The long period of standing on the stone and additional forces placed on it would be enough to erode the imprint of a man's footprint over a period of time. Presumably Abraham didn't rebuild the Kabbah in a day. ( But would he have stood in one place). As he had assistance from his son, there was the facility for a two-person operation allowing him to be raised with the stones on a boom to the required heights and put them in place. His son would then have been able to lower him down to get the next stone. Intelligent use of a fulcrum - as I see this as myth why do you think he knew how to do this ( it was of course written many thousands of years after the events it perports to relate. Read More