Mysteries of the Bible (1994–1998): Season 2, Episode 2 - Abraham: One Man, One God - full transcript
And God said to Abraham
Take your son, your only son Isaac whom you love
And go to the land of moriah and offer him there
As a burnt offering upon one of
The mountains which, I shall tell you
Genesis 22:1
A revered patriarch to Jews
Christians and muslims alike
Abraham was perhaps the first human being
To believe in the concept of one God
Yet how could a brahim consent to
Sacrifice his own son
It's impossible for modern man to explain that story
It's impossible to deal with this
The dramatic story of Abraham is shrouded
In mysteries that sparked controversy to this day
Abraham directly challenges God
And pleads with him to save
The sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
From fiery destruction. But why?
That Abraham a total outsider should plead with God
For the lives of these peoples absolutely amazing
Who was this man who inspired
One of the greatest spiritual revolutions of all time
Did Abraham really exists,
As a man of flesh and blood
Or is he a legendary figure created centuries later
These are about a few
Of The Mysteries Of The Bible
There could have been no more unlikely place
For it to begin. Ur, a powerful
Sophisticated pagan city
A Kingdom which prospered roughly 2,000 years
Before the birth of Christ
According to tradition, it was here in Ur
In modern-day Iran near the banks of the euphrates river
That a man called Abraham
The first patriarch of the Hebrew Bible
Would spend his early years
Abraham a visionary whose revolutionary
Spiritual quest to discover an invisible
Moral God would change
Western civilization forever
In Abraham's time Ur was surrounded by
Massive city walls
It boasted impressive temples towers and palaces
Created by the sophisticated resourceful people of mesopotamia
Some scholars believe that the impressive ziggurat of Ur
Recently restored
Was the basis for the
Biblical tower of babel
To placate their fears of the unknown the people of Ur
Including Abraham's family worshipped idols
Gods of fertility of love and war
Fashioned from Clay and stone
These fearsome deities were indifferent to human morality
Or conduct so long as they were appeased
With prayer and sacrifice
The great mystery of Abraham's life
And in some ways one of the greatest mysteries of the Bible
Is how did this man
In a world where people worshipped
Natural forces and the sun and the moon and idols.
How did abraham suddenly have a vision of a world.
Created by and touched
With the spirit of God.
Traditional rabbinic stories called the midrash.
Tells us that abraham's father.
Was an idol maker.
And that one day abraham destroyed them.
But his father asked who destroyed them.
Abraham said the idols.
Fought and destroyed each other.
Abraham's father refused to believe him.
He told his son that idols are just.
Objects of clay with no powers of their own.
Young abraham's answer would reveal.
His revolutionary spiritual vision
If the idols have no powers of their own.
Then why do you worship them.
That abraham should destroy idols is symbolic.
Of the fact that he alone.
For reasons we can't possibly imagine.
For reasons we'll never know.
He alone said this is not the way to go.
He's listening to the different voice.
To a voice of God who is beyond nature.
Ironically some scholars believe.
That abraham's monotheism and belief in one God.
Was not an innovation but a return.
For the original faith of the bible.
The biblical view is that abraham is not.
An innovator because the biblical notion is.
That monotheism was the original.
Religion of the human race.
And that idolatry was a degeneration.
As the immortal biblical narrative begins.
We meet Abram and Sarai among
The idol worshippers of Ur.
God will eventually change
Their names to the more widely.
Known names of Abraham and Sarah.
Which we will use in our telling of the story.
In Ur the bible records only.
That Abraham marries Sarah.
Who was unable to bear him children.
Then according to tradition.
Abraham and Sarah set out with terah Abraham's father.
And Lot, Abraham's nephew.
Starting a thousand mile journey across the desert.
Travelling for the city of harran.
In modern Turkey
Abraham was leaving Ur forever
Abraham leaves mesopotamia
Because his father the family decided to migrate
It wasn't a decision of Abraham
And he received no revelation to leave
There as much speculation about it
Some people some scholars think
That it was part of a general migration
Of people's from mesopotamia westward
At about the same time as Abraham sets out from Ur
Across the world it is time for new beginnings
In the Great Lakes region of north America
Spears are first designed out
Of copper
On the eastern coast of Japan fIsh hooks
Made from animal bones are
Commonly used by fIshermen
And in Hungary skilled bronze workers
Create weapons such as engraved axes and swords
But perhaps nowhere on earth
Was a more important drama being acted out for humanity
Than the trek of an obscure group of migrants
Braving a thousandmiles of sun scorched desert
And they went forced together from all of the chaldeans
To go into the land of Canaan
But when they came to haran
They settled there
Genesis 11:3
According to the Bible
Abraham would live in the village of haran
Until he was an old man of 75
The advanced ages of Abraham
And others mentioned in the Bible have long puzzled scholars
The ages of the Bible really are a
Mystery and really are quite perplexing
Where people want to take everything
Tthat is said in these stories very literally
And this just seems to be
The storytellers way of saying
This happened in a period long ago
When things were very different
Tradition has it that it was not until
Abraham was 75 that God spoke to him
For the first time
It is perhaps one of the defining moments in human history
Now the Lord said to Abraham
Go from your country and your kindred
And your father's house to the land that I will show you
And I will make of you a great nation
And I will bless you
And make your name great
So that you will be a blessing
Genesis 12:2
Some scholars believe
This dramatic moment of the Bible
When God spoke to Abraham
Is the beginning of true monotheism
The belief that only one God rules the universe
But was it?
It's hard to talk about Abraham as a monotheist
Abraham had an agreement a covenant
With his one God who is the Lord Abraham
Abraham didn't say or believe as far as we know
That there weren't other gods
All the evidences is that there were other gods
For other people and
And Abraham's God never insisted on exclusivity
While experts disagree
Over whether Abraham was a true monotheists
The Bible does not indicate that he ever worshiped other gods
It only tells us that led by his fervent faith
In his one God
Abraham informs his family that they will be leaving
Their secure familiar world behind
It must have tested
Their belief in him
Abraham has the problem
Which many religious people have
He hears voices and he can't prove it
They must have thought he was a lunatic
You can look back and say what a great man this was
But it wouldn't have helped you
If you've been his neighbor
Back then in Canaan
And you have this man walKing around
Listening to voices and doing strange things
Despite the doubts of Abraham's wife and their relatives
They follow him
But strangely God has not told Abraham
His destination
Guided by the voice of a God only he can hear
Abraham leads his family away
From the one world they have known
Guided only by his faith
Abraham leads his extended family
To the land which will fulfill God's promise to him
When they had come to the land of Canaan
Abraham passed through the land
To the oak of Marah
At that time the Canaanites were in the land
Then the Lord appeared to Abraham and said
To your descendants I will give this land
So he built there an altar to the Lord
Who had appeared to him
Genesis 12:7
But Abraham's spiritual
Odyssey is far from over
No sooner does he reach the land
Which God has promised to him
Than he must leave for Egypt
Now there was a famine in the land
So Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there
For the famine was severe in the land
Genesis 12:10
When Abraham leads his family to Egypt
Sarah's beauty is quickly noticed
She has taken away from Abraham
And placed in the pharaohs household
Foreshadowing the story of Moses exodus from Egypt
God inflicts plagues on this pharaoh
Sarah is allowed to rejoin Abraham
And together they return to their land
Soon afterward Abraham travels
To the small village of bethel
About ten Miles north of Jerusalem
He and his nephew Lot separate
To allow a room for their herds
With Lot journeying into the Jordan valley
Abraham is now called upon to serve a role
Unlike any he has assumed before
Abraham who has been portrayed
As a spiritual leader is now depicted in the Bible
As a warrior
He rescues his nephew Lot
Who is being held captive by enemy Kings
The cities of the Kings are strangely
Said to be in an area that today is so desolate
Human habitation seems almost impossible
One of the most Peculiar stories
in Genesis about Abraham
Is Genesis 14 the war with
The Kings of the east
There are five cities of the plain somewhere in the area of
The dead sea where we would not expect
Large urban sites to be
As is often the case archaeological discoveries
Seem to support the Bible's
Telling of the story
Is there any archaeological or historical background
For genesis 14
Well in recent years perhaps by coincidence
Five large late 3rd millennium cities have been found on
On the eastern shore of the dead sea
After Abraham rescues his nephew Lot
And triumphs in battle he is visited by
One of the most mysterious figures in the Bible
The priest King Mel Sadiq
And Mel Sadiq, King of Salem
Brought out bread and wine
He was priest of God most high and he blessed him and said
Blessed be God most high
Who has delivered your enemies into your hand
And Abraham gave him a tenth of everything genesis 14 20
Genesis 14:20
The brief unexplained meeting between
Abraham and this mysterious priest King
Has long puzzled and intrigued scholars
For Christians this righteous priest King
Holds special significance
Now that said that became a mystical figure
For JewIsh and Christian mysticism
And became the figure of great importance
As a precursor for Jesus as
A priest or a servant of God
Whom they all revered as the first great non Hebrew righteous man
After Abraham's enigmatic meeting with melchidec
The focus of the Bible shifts
To offer a startling glimpse
Of Abraham's intimate
Personal life
Now Sarah Abraham's wife bore him no children
She had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar
And Sarah's said to Abraham
Behold now the Lord has prevented me
From bearing children
Go to my maid
It may be that I shall obtain children by her
And Abraham hearkened to the voice of Sarah
Genesis 16:2
We've been focusing on Abraham
It is Sarah who determines the future of the JewIsh people
And the relationship between Sarah and Hagar
Is really the determinative relationship
In what happens in Abraham's household
Hagar Sarah's servant
Conceives a child by Abraham
But a feud erupted between Sarah and the pregnant Hagar
Which will foreshadow the conflict to come
Between two branches of Abraham's descendants
Jew and Muslim which will
Erupt centuries later
And when she saw that she had conceived
She looked with contempt on her mistress
And Sara said to Abraham
May the wrong done to me beyond you
I gave my may to your embrace
And when she saw she had conceived
She looked on me with contempt
Genesis 16:5
The Bible relates that
Hagar does give birth to a son Ishmael
According to Muslim belief
He will become one of the founders of islam
But in the Bible it is Sarah and her offspring
Who will determine Abraham's future
And assure the survival
Of the JewIsh people
I think that the Bible
Would have us understand
That although Abraham brings the vision of God
To this family it's Sarah who tends it
And will pass it on
And like many people of his kind
Perhaps Abraham didn't have
The practical wisdom
And the everyday insight to make this vision
come true
And it's Sarah who literally embodies the vision
And maybe she's saying to Abraham look
I know you have this great idea
But trust me this is the way to ensure
Its perpetuation
Abraham ins extended family
Would eventually become the first israelites
And Abraham the patriarch of the JewIsh
People
Then Abraham fell on his face
And God said to him behold my covenant is with you
And you shall be the father of a
Multitude of nations
No longer shall your name be Abram
But your name shall be Abraham
For I have made to the father of a multitude of nations
Genesis 17:5
The ceiling of the covenant between
Abraham and God
Is one of the most profound moments in human
History
A unique personal bond between a man
And an All-Powerful moral force
Abraham's covenant with God is a covenant of
The flesh
As well as the spirit
That will leave its mark on
The body of each male Jew
This is my covenant which you shall keep
Between me and you
And your descendants after you
Every male among you shall be circumcised
It shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you
He that is eight days old among you shall
Be circumcised
Genesis 17:12
Circumcision was already widely practiced
In the middle east in Abraham's time
As a ritual of passage to adulthood
Or a premarital right
But when Abraham circumcised himself at the age of 99
The ritual acquired a new spiritual meaning
What is unique in terms of the Bible
Is not so much the physical circumcision itself
But rather that circumcision was considered
To be a central part of the covenants
One of the reasons that circumcision is
A mark on the generative organ is
That God says to Abraham you're going to be
The head of a great nation
And I want you always to remember
That it comes from you and your loins
And I want a mark of your commitment
At the very place where this
Great nation will spring from
According to the Bible when God commands
Abraham to seal his covenant
Through the circumcision of all male Jews
He also conveys his word to Sarah
As for your wife
You shall not call her name sarai
But Sarah shall be her name
I will bless her and moreover I will give
You a son by her
I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations
Genesis 17:16
Before Abraham and Sarah can know whether
God's promise of a child will be fulfilled
Abraham faces God in one of the most
AstonIshing confrontations in the Bible
OUr God confides to Abraham
That he plans to destroy
The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
For their wickedness
Then Abraham drew near and said
What thou indeed destroy the righteous with
The wicked
Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city
Will thou them destroy the place and not spare it
For the fifty righteous who are in it
Shall not the judge of all the earth do right
And the Lord said
If I find at Sodom 50 righteous in the city
I will spare the whole place for their sake
Genesis 18:26
When Abraham said to God
Shall the judge of the world not himself do justly
He was making a moral legal point
Which is without precedent in the
History of the whole ancient world
Abraham continues to bargain with God
From fifty righteous people down to 40
Then 30 20
Then he said suppose ten are
Found there he answered
For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it
Genesis 18:32
That Abraham a total outsider should plead
With God for the lives of these peoples
Absolutely amazing,
It's an argument against hate mongers
And bigots of all kinds
Especially religious bigots
Since in this instance there are people who
Own pagans of a totally different religion
Unable to find even ten righteous
People God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah
According to the Bible Abraham must witness
The destruction of the cities, with his own eyes
Today the ruins at Babadra and Numeira
located by the dead sea
Are the sites where archaeologists believe
The doomed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah once stood
Soon after the power of God is shown
In all its destructive force
That same divine power creates miraculous new life
The Lord visited Sara as He had said
And the Lord did to Sara as He had promised
And Sara conceived and bore Abraham a son Isaac
And Abraham circumcised his son
Isaac when he was eight days old
As God had commanded him
Genesis 21:4
The birth of Isaac will bring joy to the
aged couple
But now that she has her own son
Sara feels threatened by Hagar
So she said to Abraham
Cast out this slave woman with her son
For the son of this slave woman shall not be heir
with my son Isaac
Genesis 21:10
Sara is very strong in the house
When she herself had a son she was strong
enough and smart enough to know
That the firstborn son Ishmael
would naturally take the birthright
But she also knew that God had promised it to her son
And therefore she was strong enough
To ensure that the woman got thrown out with her son
And the thing was very displeasing to
Abraham on account of his son
But God said to Abraham be not displeased
because of the lad
And because of your slave woman
Whatever Sarah says to you do as she tells you
For through Isaac shall your descendants be named
The heart-rending moment when Abraham
sends the Egyptian slave Hagar
And their son Ishmael into exile
Will sow the seeds of conflicts
Between Jew and Muslim
Which on occasion will bear bitter fruit
in centuries to come
The words haunt us today as they have
Haunted the human imagination
For thousands of years
Take your son your only
son Isaac, whom you love
And go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there
As a burnt offering upon one of the
mountains which I shall tell you
Genesis 22:1
The akhada the binding of issac though
It is only some 2022 verses
Is in the JewIsh tradition the most commented
On incident in the entire Bible
it's Impossible for modern man
To explain that story
It's impossible to deal with this
I can see this historically but I can't,
feel it personally
It's too horrible
One of the strange things is
Although Isaac is the one who is going to be sacrificed
The focus is really on Abraham
Because the truth is
We feel it is harder in this case
To be the sacrificer than to be the victim
Isaac is a figure of simple
Almost pathetic trusts
And Abraham is a tormented father
Who is torn between his love for his son
And his duty
To a God who has given him a terrible
Command
Isak carries the wood
To the place of sacrifice
While Abraham carries the fire and the knife
Isaac then asks his father one of the most
Heart-rending questions in the entire Bible
He said : Behold the fire and the wood
But where is the lamb for a burnt offering
And Abraham said : God will provide the lamb
For a burnt offering my son
So they went both of them together
Genesis 22:8
Abraham builds an altar and
Places his son Isaac and Tabitha
Then Abraham put pulls his hand and took
The knife to slay his son
But the angel of the Lord called to him from
Heaven and said :
Abraham Abraham,
And he said : Here am I
He said : Do not lay your hand on the lad
Or do anything to him
For now I know that you fear God
Seeing you have not withheld your son your only son from me
Genesis 22:12
We will never know what happened after
That terrifying moment
Did Abraham and Isaac weep
Did father and son embrace through their tears
We know only that Isaac was spared
And Abraham lifted up his eyes
And looked and behold behind him was a ram
Caught in a thicket by his horns
And Abraham went and took the ram
And offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son
Genesis 22:13
Perhaps no story in the Bible has inspired
As great an outpouring of speculation
As the binding of Isaac
From ancient times to our own
The protestant theologian Kierkegaard
At the beginning of his book "Fear and Trembling"
Imagines a scene in which Abraham
Takes Isaac and binds him on the altar
And says to him I hate you
I've always hated you I can't stand you
And now is my chance to kill you
And now I'm going to do it and he starts to kill him
And God stops him just as he does in the
Bible
And then Abraham unties Isaac
And holds him and crying says to him
I thought it was better that you should hate me
Than that you should hate God
But what is the meaning of the biblical
Story of the binding of Isaac
Some scholars believe it was a statement
By the editors of the Bible
A thousand years after Abraham against
A gruesome practice of their own time
The child sacrifice was fairly common
Throughout the ancient near east
And in fact at carthage in north Africa
A huge cemetery has been found
With the small urns contained that burned
Bones of infants
And the inscriptions accompanying
These burials make it clear
That parents sacrificed a child
To one or another of the gods
To bring them good fortune
Scholars have sought to probe
The seemingly baffling mystery
Of how any parent could sacrifice his own child
As horrific as this might be to us
We can really see this as a very significant
Religious notion
Where a person is coming and is saying to God
God who given me that which is most valuable
Namely a child I am going
To etern it to you
I think the editors wanted for us to
Believe that child sacrifice was never practiced
And yet the very critique of the
Prophets against it
It is proof of the fact that the practice was common
You don't complain about something
Unless it's a real problem
Whatever the motive for the editors to set down
The story of the binding of Isaac
Its impact on all three great Western religions
Is immeasurable
Today a mosque known as
The Dome Of The Rock
Built in the seventh century in Jerusalem
Enshrines the site on the mountaintop
Where the life and death
Drama is said to have taken place
However according to the islamic holy
Scripture the quran
It is Abraham's other son Ishmael
Who is bound and almost sacrificed on this very rock
And the quranic version
There's a general tendency to accept
Ishmael to have been that sun rather than Isaac
Isaac is accepted as a prophet
But the binding itself seems
To have been a shmatte
Christians believe that mount moriah
Was the site of Calvary
While the Jews consider this the location of
Their holiest shrine Solomon's Temple
All three religions have found profound meaning
In Abraham and Isaac ordeal
After the binding of Isaac is over
God and Abraham in the Bible
Never speak again
Perhaps after this Abraham had nothing
More to say to God
I did what you wanted I fulfilled the
Mission but now what else is there to say
And one commentator notes
That after this story Abraham and Isaac
Never speak again
After this no matter how much Isaac
Understood
That Abraham needed to do it
There was a sense in which they could
Never be as close again
According to one old rabbinic tale
When the age of Sarah hears that her beloved son Isaac
Has been almost sacrificed by Abraham
The shock and horror of it are too much for her
In the Bible we know only that soon after
The binding of Isaac Sarah finally dies
So it is that the age at Sarah the first
Matriarch in the Hebrew Bible passes away
And as Abraham weeps for her and seeks
To find a final resting place for her
He takes what in the Bible is a
Momentous step
He buys a piece of land the
Very first piece of property in Israel
That is actually recorded in the Bible
As having changed hands
With money and a deed is actually
The burial ground for Sarah
And it will begin the sense of the children of Israel
Of the sanctity of the land of Israel
To which they will return hundreds of years later
After the slavery in Egypt
These are the days of the years of Abraham's life
A hundred and seventy five years
Abraham breathed his last and died in
A good old age
An old man and full of years and was gathered
To his people
Genesis 25:8
The Bible recounts how both of Abraham's sons
Isaac and Ishmael
Bury him and the cave of Machpelah
Here in Hebron 19 Miles South of Jerusalem
The biblical cave of the patriarchs
Also known as the cave of the Machpelah
Is enshrined in an ancient wall
Built by herod the great 2,000 years ago
According to tradition after Sarah and Abraham
Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Leia
Were also buried here
But archaeologists have been frustrated
In their efforts to investigate
Unfortunately archaeologists have never
Been allowed to investigate the area
Like most holy places it's off-limits
Even if we were allowed to investigate
The area systematically the evidence
That we would need
Would probably has long long censored disappear
But even as some archaeologists debate
Whether Sarah and Abraham were buried at Machpelah
Others ask a more far-reaching question
Did Abraham ever live? Or is he a legend
Created much later?
It appears that these stories are composite stories
Put together over a long period of time
So it's impossible to place the patriarchs
In any particular archaeological period
Because of the composite nature of the
Stories about them
I know today the tendency is to assume
That if it's mentioned in the Bible
Then it's not historical
But that it's just happened to be a month
Revisionist prejudice
And so I do think there was a person named Abraham
Over the years archeologists have
Searched for evidence to verify
The Bible's account of the Abraham story
The Bible tells us for instance that
Abraham obtained the rights
To use a well at Bearsheva
This well outside modern Bearsheva
Is traditionally known as Abraham's well
However with many other ancient Wells nearby
Archaeologists have been unable to link
Anyone well
With the biblical story
Continuing their search,
Archaeologists have sought evidence
From other cultures of the time
To verify the Abraham story
Especially useful have been tablets
Found by French archaeologists at Mari
In Syria
We have thousands of tablets from Lorry
There are stories about
The inheritance of property
The rights to Wells and pastures conflicts
Between urbanists and shepherds
So some parts of the stories about Abraham
Would seem to fit in the 18th century
To judge from these Mari texts
Despite the riddle of Abraham's existence
Because of the story of his spiritual quest
The world would never be the same
There is nothing like the ethical monotheism
Of the hebrew prophets anywhere
In the ancient world
If you want to believe and in the
Uniqueness of the Bible
This is a good point to begin it is a fact
There is nothing like this anywhere else
Every other country in the world every other
Civilization had gods
Whom you had to feed to sacrifice to them
Abraham had a God
Who gave him law and behavior
The introduction of a single moral law
For King, for Commoner
And even for God is a milestone in the history
of the world
Abraham's message is the same as
Muhammad's
Articulated at a different time to a different nation
In a different language
Abraham's spiritual revolution his
Covenant with God pioneered
The bold new idea of monotheism
How did one man stand out against
All cultural and religious
Notions and accepted views at the time
That's a question
That which was no answer
But demanders will ask the same question about
Every innovator every founder of a
New religion every revolutionary
We just have no answers those abiding mysteries
Abraham spiritual odyssey inspired
Both judaism and Christianity
Abraham is also a founder of islam
Are according to Muslim belief
Abraham and Ishmael helped build The Kaaba
The holy shrine in the center of the great mosque
In Mecca
They believe that Abraham literally
Laid the foundation
For what in islam is the
Most sacred spot on earth
Abraham developed the true faith
And it is the same faith that muhammad
Eventually preached
As part of the message that he received from God
So Abraham's role is absolutely one of
The cornerstone in the islamic tradition
Perhaps the fact that all three of the
West's great religions
Draw on a story of one man for inspiration
Holes are a promise that the three faiths
Will someday live in harmony together
As God promised to Abraham in the Bible
By your descendants shall all the
Nations of the earth bless themselves
Becouse you have obey my voice
Genesis 22:18
Take your son, your only son Isaac whom you love
And go to the land of moriah and offer him there
As a burnt offering upon one of
The mountains which, I shall tell you
Genesis 22:1
A revered patriarch to Jews
Christians and muslims alike
Abraham was perhaps the first human being
To believe in the concept of one God
Yet how could a brahim consent to
Sacrifice his own son
It's impossible for modern man to explain that story
It's impossible to deal with this
The dramatic story of Abraham is shrouded
In mysteries that sparked controversy to this day
Abraham directly challenges God
And pleads with him to save
The sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
From fiery destruction. But why?
That Abraham a total outsider should plead with God
For the lives of these peoples absolutely amazing
Who was this man who inspired
One of the greatest spiritual revolutions of all time
Did Abraham really exists,
As a man of flesh and blood
Or is he a legendary figure created centuries later
These are about a few
Of The Mysteries Of The Bible
There could have been no more unlikely place
For it to begin. Ur, a powerful
Sophisticated pagan city
A Kingdom which prospered roughly 2,000 years
Before the birth of Christ
According to tradition, it was here in Ur
In modern-day Iran near the banks of the euphrates river
That a man called Abraham
The first patriarch of the Hebrew Bible
Would spend his early years
Abraham a visionary whose revolutionary
Spiritual quest to discover an invisible
Moral God would change
Western civilization forever
In Abraham's time Ur was surrounded by
Massive city walls
It boasted impressive temples towers and palaces
Created by the sophisticated resourceful people of mesopotamia
Some scholars believe that the impressive ziggurat of Ur
Recently restored
Was the basis for the
Biblical tower of babel
To placate their fears of the unknown the people of Ur
Including Abraham's family worshipped idols
Gods of fertility of love and war
Fashioned from Clay and stone
These fearsome deities were indifferent to human morality
Or conduct so long as they were appeased
With prayer and sacrifice
The great mystery of Abraham's life
And in some ways one of the greatest mysteries of the Bible
Is how did this man
In a world where people worshipped
Natural forces and the sun and the moon and idols.
How did abraham suddenly have a vision of a world.
Created by and touched
With the spirit of God.
Traditional rabbinic stories called the midrash.
Tells us that abraham's father.
Was an idol maker.
And that one day abraham destroyed them.
But his father asked who destroyed them.
Abraham said the idols.
Fought and destroyed each other.
Abraham's father refused to believe him.
He told his son that idols are just.
Objects of clay with no powers of their own.
Young abraham's answer would reveal.
His revolutionary spiritual vision
If the idols have no powers of their own.
Then why do you worship them.
That abraham should destroy idols is symbolic.
Of the fact that he alone.
For reasons we can't possibly imagine.
For reasons we'll never know.
He alone said this is not the way to go.
He's listening to the different voice.
To a voice of God who is beyond nature.
Ironically some scholars believe.
That abraham's monotheism and belief in one God.
Was not an innovation but a return.
For the original faith of the bible.
The biblical view is that abraham is not.
An innovator because the biblical notion is.
That monotheism was the original.
Religion of the human race.
And that idolatry was a degeneration.
As the immortal biblical narrative begins.
We meet Abram and Sarai among
The idol worshippers of Ur.
God will eventually change
Their names to the more widely.
Known names of Abraham and Sarah.
Which we will use in our telling of the story.
In Ur the bible records only.
That Abraham marries Sarah.
Who was unable to bear him children.
Then according to tradition.
Abraham and Sarah set out with terah Abraham's father.
And Lot, Abraham's nephew.
Starting a thousand mile journey across the desert.
Travelling for the city of harran.
In modern Turkey
Abraham was leaving Ur forever
Abraham leaves mesopotamia
Because his father the family decided to migrate
It wasn't a decision of Abraham
And he received no revelation to leave
There as much speculation about it
Some people some scholars think
That it was part of a general migration
Of people's from mesopotamia westward
At about the same time as Abraham sets out from Ur
Across the world it is time for new beginnings
In the Great Lakes region of north America
Spears are first designed out
Of copper
On the eastern coast of Japan fIsh hooks
Made from animal bones are
Commonly used by fIshermen
And in Hungary skilled bronze workers
Create weapons such as engraved axes and swords
But perhaps nowhere on earth
Was a more important drama being acted out for humanity
Than the trek of an obscure group of migrants
Braving a thousandmiles of sun scorched desert
And they went forced together from all of the chaldeans
To go into the land of Canaan
But when they came to haran
They settled there
Genesis 11:3
According to the Bible
Abraham would live in the village of haran
Until he was an old man of 75
The advanced ages of Abraham
And others mentioned in the Bible have long puzzled scholars
The ages of the Bible really are a
Mystery and really are quite perplexing
Where people want to take everything
Tthat is said in these stories very literally
And this just seems to be
The storytellers way of saying
This happened in a period long ago
When things were very different
Tradition has it that it was not until
Abraham was 75 that God spoke to him
For the first time
It is perhaps one of the defining moments in human history
Now the Lord said to Abraham
Go from your country and your kindred
And your father's house to the land that I will show you
And I will make of you a great nation
And I will bless you
And make your name great
So that you will be a blessing
Genesis 12:2
Some scholars believe
This dramatic moment of the Bible
When God spoke to Abraham
Is the beginning of true monotheism
The belief that only one God rules the universe
But was it?
It's hard to talk about Abraham as a monotheist
Abraham had an agreement a covenant
With his one God who is the Lord Abraham
Abraham didn't say or believe as far as we know
That there weren't other gods
All the evidences is that there were other gods
For other people and
And Abraham's God never insisted on exclusivity
While experts disagree
Over whether Abraham was a true monotheists
The Bible does not indicate that he ever worshiped other gods
It only tells us that led by his fervent faith
In his one God
Abraham informs his family that they will be leaving
Their secure familiar world behind
It must have tested
Their belief in him
Abraham has the problem
Which many religious people have
He hears voices and he can't prove it
They must have thought he was a lunatic
You can look back and say what a great man this was
But it wouldn't have helped you
If you've been his neighbor
Back then in Canaan
And you have this man walKing around
Listening to voices and doing strange things
Despite the doubts of Abraham's wife and their relatives
They follow him
But strangely God has not told Abraham
His destination
Guided by the voice of a God only he can hear
Abraham leads his family away
From the one world they have known
Guided only by his faith
Abraham leads his extended family
To the land which will fulfill God's promise to him
When they had come to the land of Canaan
Abraham passed through the land
To the oak of Marah
At that time the Canaanites were in the land
Then the Lord appeared to Abraham and said
To your descendants I will give this land
So he built there an altar to the Lord
Who had appeared to him
Genesis 12:7
But Abraham's spiritual
Odyssey is far from over
No sooner does he reach the land
Which God has promised to him
Than he must leave for Egypt
Now there was a famine in the land
So Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there
For the famine was severe in the land
Genesis 12:10
When Abraham leads his family to Egypt
Sarah's beauty is quickly noticed
She has taken away from Abraham
And placed in the pharaohs household
Foreshadowing the story of Moses exodus from Egypt
God inflicts plagues on this pharaoh
Sarah is allowed to rejoin Abraham
And together they return to their land
Soon afterward Abraham travels
To the small village of bethel
About ten Miles north of Jerusalem
He and his nephew Lot separate
To allow a room for their herds
With Lot journeying into the Jordan valley
Abraham is now called upon to serve a role
Unlike any he has assumed before
Abraham who has been portrayed
As a spiritual leader is now depicted in the Bible
As a warrior
He rescues his nephew Lot
Who is being held captive by enemy Kings
The cities of the Kings are strangely
Said to be in an area that today is so desolate
Human habitation seems almost impossible
One of the most Peculiar stories
in Genesis about Abraham
Is Genesis 14 the war with
The Kings of the east
There are five cities of the plain somewhere in the area of
The dead sea where we would not expect
Large urban sites to be
As is often the case archaeological discoveries
Seem to support the Bible's
Telling of the story
Is there any archaeological or historical background
For genesis 14
Well in recent years perhaps by coincidence
Five large late 3rd millennium cities have been found on
On the eastern shore of the dead sea
After Abraham rescues his nephew Lot
And triumphs in battle he is visited by
One of the most mysterious figures in the Bible
The priest King Mel Sadiq
And Mel Sadiq, King of Salem
Brought out bread and wine
He was priest of God most high and he blessed him and said
Blessed be God most high
Who has delivered your enemies into your hand
And Abraham gave him a tenth of everything genesis 14 20
Genesis 14:20
The brief unexplained meeting between
Abraham and this mysterious priest King
Has long puzzled and intrigued scholars
For Christians this righteous priest King
Holds special significance
Now that said that became a mystical figure
For JewIsh and Christian mysticism
And became the figure of great importance
As a precursor for Jesus as
A priest or a servant of God
Whom they all revered as the first great non Hebrew righteous man
After Abraham's enigmatic meeting with melchidec
The focus of the Bible shifts
To offer a startling glimpse
Of Abraham's intimate
Personal life
Now Sarah Abraham's wife bore him no children
She had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar
And Sarah's said to Abraham
Behold now the Lord has prevented me
From bearing children
Go to my maid
It may be that I shall obtain children by her
And Abraham hearkened to the voice of Sarah
Genesis 16:2
We've been focusing on Abraham
It is Sarah who determines the future of the JewIsh people
And the relationship between Sarah and Hagar
Is really the determinative relationship
In what happens in Abraham's household
Hagar Sarah's servant
Conceives a child by Abraham
But a feud erupted between Sarah and the pregnant Hagar
Which will foreshadow the conflict to come
Between two branches of Abraham's descendants
Jew and Muslim which will
Erupt centuries later
And when she saw that she had conceived
She looked with contempt on her mistress
And Sara said to Abraham
May the wrong done to me beyond you
I gave my may to your embrace
And when she saw she had conceived
She looked on me with contempt
Genesis 16:5
The Bible relates that
Hagar does give birth to a son Ishmael
According to Muslim belief
He will become one of the founders of islam
But in the Bible it is Sarah and her offspring
Who will determine Abraham's future
And assure the survival
Of the JewIsh people
I think that the Bible
Would have us understand
That although Abraham brings the vision of God
To this family it's Sarah who tends it
And will pass it on
And like many people of his kind
Perhaps Abraham didn't have
The practical wisdom
And the everyday insight to make this vision
come true
And it's Sarah who literally embodies the vision
And maybe she's saying to Abraham look
I know you have this great idea
But trust me this is the way to ensure
Its perpetuation
Abraham ins extended family
Would eventually become the first israelites
And Abraham the patriarch of the JewIsh
People
Then Abraham fell on his face
And God said to him behold my covenant is with you
And you shall be the father of a
Multitude of nations
No longer shall your name be Abram
But your name shall be Abraham
For I have made to the father of a multitude of nations
Genesis 17:5
The ceiling of the covenant between
Abraham and God
Is one of the most profound moments in human
History
A unique personal bond between a man
And an All-Powerful moral force
Abraham's covenant with God is a covenant of
The flesh
As well as the spirit
That will leave its mark on
The body of each male Jew
This is my covenant which you shall keep
Between me and you
And your descendants after you
Every male among you shall be circumcised
It shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you
He that is eight days old among you shall
Be circumcised
Genesis 17:12
Circumcision was already widely practiced
In the middle east in Abraham's time
As a ritual of passage to adulthood
Or a premarital right
But when Abraham circumcised himself at the age of 99
The ritual acquired a new spiritual meaning
What is unique in terms of the Bible
Is not so much the physical circumcision itself
But rather that circumcision was considered
To be a central part of the covenants
One of the reasons that circumcision is
A mark on the generative organ is
That God says to Abraham you're going to be
The head of a great nation
And I want you always to remember
That it comes from you and your loins
And I want a mark of your commitment
At the very place where this
Great nation will spring from
According to the Bible when God commands
Abraham to seal his covenant
Through the circumcision of all male Jews
He also conveys his word to Sarah
As for your wife
You shall not call her name sarai
But Sarah shall be her name
I will bless her and moreover I will give
You a son by her
I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations
Genesis 17:16
Before Abraham and Sarah can know whether
God's promise of a child will be fulfilled
Abraham faces God in one of the most
AstonIshing confrontations in the Bible
OUr God confides to Abraham
That he plans to destroy
The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
For their wickedness
Then Abraham drew near and said
What thou indeed destroy the righteous with
The wicked
Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city
Will thou them destroy the place and not spare it
For the fifty righteous who are in it
Shall not the judge of all the earth do right
And the Lord said
If I find at Sodom 50 righteous in the city
I will spare the whole place for their sake
Genesis 18:26
When Abraham said to God
Shall the judge of the world not himself do justly
He was making a moral legal point
Which is without precedent in the
History of the whole ancient world
Abraham continues to bargain with God
From fifty righteous people down to 40
Then 30 20
Then he said suppose ten are
Found there he answered
For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it
Genesis 18:32
That Abraham a total outsider should plead
With God for the lives of these peoples
Absolutely amazing,
It's an argument against hate mongers
And bigots of all kinds
Especially religious bigots
Since in this instance there are people who
Own pagans of a totally different religion
Unable to find even ten righteous
People God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah
According to the Bible Abraham must witness
The destruction of the cities, with his own eyes
Today the ruins at Babadra and Numeira
located by the dead sea
Are the sites where archaeologists believe
The doomed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah once stood
Soon after the power of God is shown
In all its destructive force
That same divine power creates miraculous new life
The Lord visited Sara as He had said
And the Lord did to Sara as He had promised
And Sara conceived and bore Abraham a son Isaac
And Abraham circumcised his son
Isaac when he was eight days old
As God had commanded him
Genesis 21:4
The birth of Isaac will bring joy to the
aged couple
But now that she has her own son
Sara feels threatened by Hagar
So she said to Abraham
Cast out this slave woman with her son
For the son of this slave woman shall not be heir
with my son Isaac
Genesis 21:10
Sara is very strong in the house
When she herself had a son she was strong
enough and smart enough to know
That the firstborn son Ishmael
would naturally take the birthright
But she also knew that God had promised it to her son
And therefore she was strong enough
To ensure that the woman got thrown out with her son
And the thing was very displeasing to
Abraham on account of his son
But God said to Abraham be not displeased
because of the lad
And because of your slave woman
Whatever Sarah says to you do as she tells you
For through Isaac shall your descendants be named
The heart-rending moment when Abraham
sends the Egyptian slave Hagar
And their son Ishmael into exile
Will sow the seeds of conflicts
Between Jew and Muslim
Which on occasion will bear bitter fruit
in centuries to come
The words haunt us today as they have
Haunted the human imagination
For thousands of years
Take your son your only
son Isaac, whom you love
And go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there
As a burnt offering upon one of the
mountains which I shall tell you
Genesis 22:1
The akhada the binding of issac though
It is only some 2022 verses
Is in the JewIsh tradition the most commented
On incident in the entire Bible
it's Impossible for modern man
To explain that story
It's impossible to deal with this
I can see this historically but I can't,
feel it personally
It's too horrible
One of the strange things is
Although Isaac is the one who is going to be sacrificed
The focus is really on Abraham
Because the truth is
We feel it is harder in this case
To be the sacrificer than to be the victim
Isaac is a figure of simple
Almost pathetic trusts
And Abraham is a tormented father
Who is torn between his love for his son
And his duty
To a God who has given him a terrible
Command
Isak carries the wood
To the place of sacrifice
While Abraham carries the fire and the knife
Isaac then asks his father one of the most
Heart-rending questions in the entire Bible
He said : Behold the fire and the wood
But where is the lamb for a burnt offering
And Abraham said : God will provide the lamb
For a burnt offering my son
So they went both of them together
Genesis 22:8
Abraham builds an altar and
Places his son Isaac and Tabitha
Then Abraham put pulls his hand and took
The knife to slay his son
But the angel of the Lord called to him from
Heaven and said :
Abraham Abraham,
And he said : Here am I
He said : Do not lay your hand on the lad
Or do anything to him
For now I know that you fear God
Seeing you have not withheld your son your only son from me
Genesis 22:12
We will never know what happened after
That terrifying moment
Did Abraham and Isaac weep
Did father and son embrace through their tears
We know only that Isaac was spared
And Abraham lifted up his eyes
And looked and behold behind him was a ram
Caught in a thicket by his horns
And Abraham went and took the ram
And offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son
Genesis 22:13
Perhaps no story in the Bible has inspired
As great an outpouring of speculation
As the binding of Isaac
From ancient times to our own
The protestant theologian Kierkegaard
At the beginning of his book "Fear and Trembling"
Imagines a scene in which Abraham
Takes Isaac and binds him on the altar
And says to him I hate you
I've always hated you I can't stand you
And now is my chance to kill you
And now I'm going to do it and he starts to kill him
And God stops him just as he does in the
Bible
And then Abraham unties Isaac
And holds him and crying says to him
I thought it was better that you should hate me
Than that you should hate God
But what is the meaning of the biblical
Story of the binding of Isaac
Some scholars believe it was a statement
By the editors of the Bible
A thousand years after Abraham against
A gruesome practice of their own time
The child sacrifice was fairly common
Throughout the ancient near east
And in fact at carthage in north Africa
A huge cemetery has been found
With the small urns contained that burned
Bones of infants
And the inscriptions accompanying
These burials make it clear
That parents sacrificed a child
To one or another of the gods
To bring them good fortune
Scholars have sought to probe
The seemingly baffling mystery
Of how any parent could sacrifice his own child
As horrific as this might be to us
We can really see this as a very significant
Religious notion
Where a person is coming and is saying to God
God who given me that which is most valuable
Namely a child I am going
To etern it to you
I think the editors wanted for us to
Believe that child sacrifice was never practiced
And yet the very critique of the
Prophets against it
It is proof of the fact that the practice was common
You don't complain about something
Unless it's a real problem
Whatever the motive for the editors to set down
The story of the binding of Isaac
Its impact on all three great Western religions
Is immeasurable
Today a mosque known as
The Dome Of The Rock
Built in the seventh century in Jerusalem
Enshrines the site on the mountaintop
Where the life and death
Drama is said to have taken place
However according to the islamic holy
Scripture the quran
It is Abraham's other son Ishmael
Who is bound and almost sacrificed on this very rock
And the quranic version
There's a general tendency to accept
Ishmael to have been that sun rather than Isaac
Isaac is accepted as a prophet
But the binding itself seems
To have been a shmatte
Christians believe that mount moriah
Was the site of Calvary
While the Jews consider this the location of
Their holiest shrine Solomon's Temple
All three religions have found profound meaning
In Abraham and Isaac ordeal
After the binding of Isaac is over
God and Abraham in the Bible
Never speak again
Perhaps after this Abraham had nothing
More to say to God
I did what you wanted I fulfilled the
Mission but now what else is there to say
And one commentator notes
That after this story Abraham and Isaac
Never speak again
After this no matter how much Isaac
Understood
That Abraham needed to do it
There was a sense in which they could
Never be as close again
According to one old rabbinic tale
When the age of Sarah hears that her beloved son Isaac
Has been almost sacrificed by Abraham
The shock and horror of it are too much for her
In the Bible we know only that soon after
The binding of Isaac Sarah finally dies
So it is that the age at Sarah the first
Matriarch in the Hebrew Bible passes away
And as Abraham weeps for her and seeks
To find a final resting place for her
He takes what in the Bible is a
Momentous step
He buys a piece of land the
Very first piece of property in Israel
That is actually recorded in the Bible
As having changed hands
With money and a deed is actually
The burial ground for Sarah
And it will begin the sense of the children of Israel
Of the sanctity of the land of Israel
To which they will return hundreds of years later
After the slavery in Egypt
These are the days of the years of Abraham's life
A hundred and seventy five years
Abraham breathed his last and died in
A good old age
An old man and full of years and was gathered
To his people
Genesis 25:8
The Bible recounts how both of Abraham's sons
Isaac and Ishmael
Bury him and the cave of Machpelah
Here in Hebron 19 Miles South of Jerusalem
The biblical cave of the patriarchs
Also known as the cave of the Machpelah
Is enshrined in an ancient wall
Built by herod the great 2,000 years ago
According to tradition after Sarah and Abraham
Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Leia
Were also buried here
But archaeologists have been frustrated
In their efforts to investigate
Unfortunately archaeologists have never
Been allowed to investigate the area
Like most holy places it's off-limits
Even if we were allowed to investigate
The area systematically the evidence
That we would need
Would probably has long long censored disappear
But even as some archaeologists debate
Whether Sarah and Abraham were buried at Machpelah
Others ask a more far-reaching question
Did Abraham ever live? Or is he a legend
Created much later?
It appears that these stories are composite stories
Put together over a long period of time
So it's impossible to place the patriarchs
In any particular archaeological period
Because of the composite nature of the
Stories about them
I know today the tendency is to assume
That if it's mentioned in the Bible
Then it's not historical
But that it's just happened to be a month
Revisionist prejudice
And so I do think there was a person named Abraham
Over the years archeologists have
Searched for evidence to verify
The Bible's account of the Abraham story
The Bible tells us for instance that
Abraham obtained the rights
To use a well at Bearsheva
This well outside modern Bearsheva
Is traditionally known as Abraham's well
However with many other ancient Wells nearby
Archaeologists have been unable to link
Anyone well
With the biblical story
Continuing their search,
Archaeologists have sought evidence
From other cultures of the time
To verify the Abraham story
Especially useful have been tablets
Found by French archaeologists at Mari
In Syria
We have thousands of tablets from Lorry
There are stories about
The inheritance of property
The rights to Wells and pastures conflicts
Between urbanists and shepherds
So some parts of the stories about Abraham
Would seem to fit in the 18th century
To judge from these Mari texts
Despite the riddle of Abraham's existence
Because of the story of his spiritual quest
The world would never be the same
There is nothing like the ethical monotheism
Of the hebrew prophets anywhere
In the ancient world
If you want to believe and in the
Uniqueness of the Bible
This is a good point to begin it is a fact
There is nothing like this anywhere else
Every other country in the world every other
Civilization had gods
Whom you had to feed to sacrifice to them
Abraham had a God
Who gave him law and behavior
The introduction of a single moral law
For King, for Commoner
And even for God is a milestone in the history
of the world
Abraham's message is the same as
Muhammad's
Articulated at a different time to a different nation
In a different language
Abraham's spiritual revolution his
Covenant with God pioneered
The bold new idea of monotheism
How did one man stand out against
All cultural and religious
Notions and accepted views at the time
That's a question
That which was no answer
But demanders will ask the same question about
Every innovator every founder of a
New religion every revolutionary
We just have no answers those abiding mysteries
Abraham spiritual odyssey inspired
Both judaism and Christianity
Abraham is also a founder of islam
Are according to Muslim belief
Abraham and Ishmael helped build The Kaaba
The holy shrine in the center of the great mosque
In Mecca
They believe that Abraham literally
Laid the foundation
For what in islam is the
Most sacred spot on earth
Abraham developed the true faith
And it is the same faith that muhammad
Eventually preached
As part of the message that he received from God
So Abraham's role is absolutely one of
The cornerstone in the islamic tradition
Perhaps the fact that all three of the
West's great religions
Draw on a story of one man for inspiration
Holes are a promise that the three faiths
Will someday live in harmony together
As God promised to Abraham in the Bible
By your descendants shall all the
Nations of the earth bless themselves
Becouse you have obey my voice
Genesis 22:18