Followers

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Was Abraham an Idol Worshiper?



Father Abraham, justified by faith, saw the promise of the Son to come and believed! Jesus said to the unbelievers, "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." (John 8:56)


Alice C. Linsley

Abraham was known by the Hittites as a "prince of God among us" (Gen. 23:6). He is a pivotal figure of biblical history. He is the ancestor of many peoples and he is a descendant of Nilo-Saharan peoples who dispersed across the ancient world. His ancestors were known by various names: Habiru (Hebrew); Horim (Horite); Shasu of Yahweh, Anu or Hanu (Ainu), and the Tera-neter (priest of God). Tera-neter refers to a ruler-priest of the Anu, a pre-dynastic people of the Upper Nile. Abraham’s father has the title Tera, which means priest. The Ainu spread abroad, taking their religious beliefs and practices with them. They migrated to Northern Japan and into Eastern Canada. In the Japanese language "tera" means priest.

This essay responds to the comment made by Fr. Robert Hart at The Continuum that Abraham was a pagan who converted to monotheism.  Fr. Hart, who I respect very much, believes that Abraham was a idol worshiper. He writes: “Abram was a pagan, a worshiper of idols, until God revealed Himself to him, and revealed His purpose through him. The text is clear that he had, until then, worshiped his father's gods.”

First, it is incorrect to apply the term “pagan” to Abraham since the term comes from ancient Rome. Pagan refers to adherence to the old gods after the Christianization of Roman towns. (I've written about the contribution of Biblical Anthropology in the determination of anachronisms here.)

Second,  the Online Etymological Dictionary explains that "pagan," from classical Latin means "villager, rustic, civilian," from pagus "rural district," originally "district limited by markers," related to pangere "to fix, fasten."   Pagan, like villain, boor, rustic, expresses a class hierarchy from a time when common country folk were regarded by the urban elite as being of low birth, having rude manners, and lacking urbanity and sophistication. This doesn't apply to Abraham who maintained an army of at least 300 trained warriors, controlled a substantial holding between Hebron and Beersheba, negotiated water treaties with rulers, and maintained two wives and two concubines in separate households.

The verse to which the Fr. Hart is referring is Joshua 24:2:  In olden times, your forefathers – Terah, father of Abraham and father of Nahor – lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods.

The short answer to the question: "Was Abraham an idol worshiper?" is no! Fr. Hart has been reading commentaries influenced by the Talmud and midrash. Matthew Henry perpetuates the notion that Abraham worshiped idols in his commentary on Genesis. He writes, "God made choice of Abram, and singled him out from among his fellow-idolaters..."

We should exercise suspicion about such claims. Scripture does not designate Abraham as an idol worshiper. Other than the Joshua 24 statement, which has another explanation, there is not a shred of evidence that Abraham or his father were idolaters. Abraham's calling does not constitute a turning away from the tradition of his Horite forefathers (Horim). Abraham's people did not worship idols. They were priests of the Proto-Gospel and recognized as unique and especially pure in their worship and religious practices.

This peculiar verse: “In olden times, your forefathers – Terah, father of Abraham and father of Nahor – lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods” must be understood in the context of the Deuteronomist account, which begins in Deuteronomy and ends in II Kings. These books share a common concern with idolatry and recognize that on that side of the Euphrates, people worshiped the moon as equal to the sun. This is historically accurate. The moon god was honored in Ur and Haran, but never among the Horites, and Terah was a Horite. Nothing is said in Genesis about Abraham worshiping other gods. This verse represents a criticism of Terah's association with Asiatic dualism. The implication is that Terah fell into worshiping contrary to tradition of his Horite ancestors. Even this is not substantiated by the text since Terah means "priest" and he was clearly of the Horite ruler-priest caste. What we have here is speculation on the part of the Deuteronomist Historian. What the Deuteronomist Historian has done is like photo-shopping an image; an attempt to remove perceived flaws. However, this was done without understanding the Nilotic cultural context of Abraham's ancestors, a very different context from that of the Neo-Babylonian context of the Deuteronomist.

The Deuteronomist criticism is represented in Joshua 24:2.  Here Asian dualism appears to have tainted understanding of the difference between the binary worldview of the Horites and the dualistic worldview that developed in Babylon.  In the Nilotic tradition of the Horites the sun and the moon were viewed as a binary set, and the Sun was regarded as the greater of the two lights. In a binary system, one entity in the set is always superior in some evident way. In dualism, the sun and the moon are equals so both are worthy of veneration. In a binary view, one of the entities of the binary set is always superior and to venerate the lesser entity is a form of idol worship. This is what stands behind the Joshua 24 criticism of Terah's residing in Mesopotamia. Note this is not a criticism of Abraham.

There is no other verse in the Bible to support the view that Terah, a Horite ruler-priest, worshiped the Moon god contrary to the practice of his Kushite ancestors who regarded the Sun as the emblem of the Creator. Abraham's Horite ancestors didn't worship the moon was done in Ur and Haran, and later in Mecca. The Horite ruler-priests were devotees of Horus whose emblem was the Sun. Sometimes their God is named "Na-Pir" which means May the God of the Ha-piru/ Hebrew be exalted.

The implication is that Terah fell into worshiping contrary to Horite tradition while living “beyond the Euphrates” represents criticism of Asian dualism in which the sun and moon were regarded as equals. In the binary worldview of the Horites the sun was regarded as superior to the moon. This was not an arbitrary preference, but an observed reality since the sun gives light whereas the moon's light is reflective or refulgent. Horite recognition of the sun's superiority is expressed in Genesis 1:16: "God made the two great lights: the greater to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night."

Further, in ancient Horite symbolism, Ra's right eye is represented by the sun and the left eye is represented by the moon. Together they are the eyes of Horus, but the moon eye is weaker than the sun eye. It is idolatry to regard the weaker as worthy of equal honor. This explains why Abraham's father was accused of idol worship in Joshua 24. However, this implied idolatry finds no support in the earlier levels of the Genesis material. In fact, there is rather strong evidence that Terah was a Horite ruler-priests of high standing.

The sun and the moon were gendered in the thinking of the ancient Hebrew (Habiru). The sun was associated with masculine virtues because solar rays inseminate the earth over which the sun has dominion. The moon was associated with feminine virtues because it is the sun's companion and because it influences the woman's monthly cycle. This is why the male rulers of ancient Egypt appeared with darkened skin, but their queens appeared with whitened skin.

In the Song of Songs the ruler's sister bride is described as having been "made white" (8:5) while her beloved has skin as dark "as the tents of Kedar" because, as with David, he was made to work in the sun by his older brothers. Kedar was a son of Ishmael by his Egyptian wife (Gen. 25:13). The tents were woven of the wool of either black goats of North Sinai or red Nubian goats.

Abraham is called Hebrew. This is the English equivalent of Ha-biru. The Habiru/Hapiru were Kushite devotees of Horus. Horus is the pattern whereby the people would recognize Messiah. He was regarded as the fixer of cosmic boundaries, the stars, the cardinal points, the winds and the tides. Horus shrines were located on major water systems and Horus ruled the waters. This is why the Horus name appears in the Semitic word for river: na-har (Hebrew), na-hr (Arabic) and ne-har (Aramaic).

Many words that pertain to boundaries and measurements are derived from Horus: hour, horoscope, horologion, horotely and horizon. The association of Horus with the horizon is evident in Har-ma-khet, meaning "Horus of the Horizon." His being was one with his father Ra.

Both Teran and his father Nahor were of the Horite ruler-priest caste which is the foundation of the priesthood of Israel. They were servants of Elohiym, which is the plural form for God and a term associated with the divine council of Horites.

Genesis tells us about Abraham's Horite caste and the promise that the Creator made to their ancestors in Eden (Gen. 3:15) that a woman of their people would bring forth the Seed of God.


Related reading: Who Was Abraham?The Calling of Abraham; Where Abraham Spent His Old Age; Genesis in Anthropological Perspective; INDEX of Topics at Just Genesis


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did Abraham break up His Fathers idols and when asked who did it, tell them to ask the idols ?

Alice C. Linsley said...

Abraham did not worship idols. He was Hebrew. The "teraphim" are ancestor figurines that were passed along for the right of inheritance. see this article:

http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-social-structure-of-biblical-hebrew_9.html

Anonymous said...

This is such an informative article. It’s also a clear demonstration of Abraham and his people being a people of other gods(Horus, Ra, etc.) until Yahweh the creator one and only Lord called him out of idolatry and promised to bless the whole world through him.

Alice C. Linsley said...

Anonymous, Ra comes from the ancient Egyptian word RE, meaning Father. It was a name for God among the early Hebrew (long before Judaism).

Abraham was Hebrew. The Hebrew were a caste of ruler-priests. They had a moiety system, meaning that they were organized into two ritual groups: the Horite Hebrew and the Sethite Hebrew. https://biblicalanthropology.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-hebrew-were-caste.html


You can read some of their prayers in documents such as The Ancient Pyramid Texts and The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Those prayers speak of God Father and God Son. Read this and check out the "Related reading" at the bottom! https://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-faith-of-early-hebrew-delivered-to.html


The oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship dates to 4000 B.C. and is at Nekhen on the Nile. The Nile Valley appears to be the point of origin of the early Hebrew (long before Judaism).
https://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2014/05/why-nekhen-is-anthropologically.html


Horus is the Greek for the ancient Egyptian HR. HR means "Most High One" and the Horite and Sethite Hebrew were devotees of HR, the son of God. By all appearances, Jesus fulfills of the early Hebrew expectation of the Divine Seed who would crush the serpent's head (Gen. 3:15, Ps. 91). This expectation was expressed about 1000 years before Psalm 91 in the Pyramid Texts, Utterance 388: "Horus has shattered (tbb, crushed) the mouth of the serpent with the sole of his foot (tbw)."


The early Hebrew believed that God has a son conceived by divine overshadowing (Luke 1:35). The Son and the Father are co-equal in power and authority and co-eternal. The son suffered at the hands of his brother, was pierced in his side, died, declared glad tidings in the place of the dead, and on the third day again shared glory with his father. No wonder there is a correspondence between the Horus myth of the Horite Hebrew and the Christian understanding of who Jesus is.