Abraham: Sumerian Mythology, and Ancient Hebrew Scripture
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ONE Abraham: Sumerian Mythology, And Ancient Hebrew Scripture INTRODUCTION The patriarch Abraham is perhaps one of the best known biblical personalities. The story of his life and time is narrated in the Book of Genesis in a simple manner, depicting a man who was first to reject polytheism in preference of monotheism, a man who then became a pilgrim, and finally settled in the far away land of Canaan where he could practise his newly discovered religion. Thoughtful reading in Scripture, however, indicates that there is much more than meets the eye to this seemingly simple story. In the circle of dependence of pagan worship man could not take autonomous decisions, nor could he act on his experience; his decisions and actions were dependent upon the will of some artifact god often made in the image of man. This religious system discouraged, and perhaps even prevented man from exercising his capacity for decision-making, and hence from using his reason to distinguish between, and judge, different values, and from learning by trial and error. The rise to prominence of temples and of priests who claimed capabilities to interpret the gods’ will and to have knowledge of their wishes led to a system wherein man was robbed of his creative enterprise, of his rights, and of his responsibilities. Puzzled by the workings of nature and frustrated by his own attempts to comprehend the mysterious forces which drive it, primitive man resigned himself to accept that every force in nature has some hidden powers intended to frustrate his will and enterprise. The disappointments and suffering inflicted upon him by natural calamities impressed upon him the desire to play safe. It seems that from such cravings for safety and well- 2 BEFORE DEMOCRACY being man was driven to accept and foster the view that natural forces could be appeased and entreated to be helpful to mankind rather than contrive to hinder their enterprise. Consequently, man abandoned the very idea of self-reliance, and submitted to the unknown will of the gods; man surrendered the independence of his mind and of his action to a belief that the gods would shield him from nature and protect him from its disasters. In time, the ancient world’s long history of polytheism with its manifold gods, temples, priests, and kings gave way to scepticism; some unique man (or men) began to question its validity and viability as a system capable of serving the human interest of self-preservation and improved well-being. In Scripture the patriarch Abraham is depicted as such a unique man, perhaps even the first historical man to have dared to take a critical look into the long history of this phenomenon of hierarchical polytheistic worship and its attendant hierarchical social system of rulers, administrators, and subservient masses in his native city-state Ur of the Chaldees. His keen mind evaluated this history, and, finding it seriously wanting in its effects on human well-being, he came up with an alternative explanation of the human condition, and with a radically different world view. Critical of the lack of concern for peace, prosperity, and justice for all people within his environment, Abraham rejected the Sumero- Babylonian pantheon of anthropomorphic gods. He thought that a Deity capable of creating the universe must surely have been a unique Being considerably more powerful and more capable than any of the gods which he observed about him, and hence a Being above and beyond human understanding. Thus, the continuous wars that raged throughout the long Sumero-Akkadian-Babylonian history, wars that caused incessant destruction of property and of human life, probably led Abraham to reject their world view, and to adopt a radically different one. Observing the order in nature - the division into day and night, the seasons and their effects on the cycle of crop growing, and on other aspects in nature - and its contrast with the disorder in the social system, a disorder manifest in the incessant warfare among the people’s gods, and among their ruling representatives, but where, nonetheless, human effort could, and did, still yield some fruit, Abraham came to understand that a world freed from the shackles of failed gods, temples, priests, and kings would be far more propitious to man. I will argue that some such reflections prompted Abraham to reject his native country, its people and culture, and emigrate to settle in a far away place where authoritarian organizations were yet unknown. Historically, Canaan, the land of his choice, was then an open frontier, and its topography of hills and valleys lent itself to occupation by separate, small communities - a land where man could still be the measure of his world, and where no god interfered in his daily ABRAHAM 3 affairs. To put it somewhat differently, in Abraham’s chosen land human needs, aspirations and their fulfilment were permitted to be judged on a human level and could be seen as a consequence of human effort: production could be consumed by those who toiled for, and produced, it. In this scheme of things Abraham saw the universe as a divided system of power: the upper world - heaven - as the exclusive domain of God, a supreme intelligence, Creator of the universe, and Supervisor of its workings with all their ramifications, including regularities - a power outside and beyond human knowledge, hence beyond human control; and the planet earth as the domain of man who was assigned by the Creator to be the chief producer and overseer of the earth and all that is upon, within, and above, it. To put it into other terms, man makes decisions, he makes mistakes, but he also learns how to improve his world by learning from his mistakes. If this as yet somewhat conjectural presentation of how a man of Abraham’s calibre would have espied his world and his fellow men, and become instrumental in the transition from polytheism to monotheism may seem all too narrow, simplistic, and much too easy, the intention that grounds it is not to offer psychological explanations, but only to fill in some of the gaps in the history of social change, for it is with such change that this study is concerned. Hence, taking into consideration the paucity of appropriate documentation, the lack of clarity in some of the narrations in extant Scriptural texts, and the contentions that these texts were infiltrated by various ingredients of Sumero-Babylonian culture, I intend to show in the present chapter that the patriarch Abraham was an extraordinary human being who had original ideas and ideals, a man who, against the odds of the social system wherein he was born and bred, set out to open up new, even radical paths to social change. In a later chapter in this study I shall argue that his teachings remained with his Israelite descendants even after the debacle of the dispersion of the original Abrahamic-Mosaic Israelites among the unfriendly (and some friendly) nations in many lands to this very day. To place Abraham’s problem in its proper perspective, it is perhaps desirable to mention briefly the story of the rise to power in Babylon of Hammurabi, a leader whose successful military campaigns to destroy all of his adversaries, militarily and economically, and lay a foundation for his dynasty of rulers, gave Abraham the opportunity to persuade his father Terah to abandon the city-state of Ur where they had prospered, and find refuge in the far away and much more primitive land of Canaan. As Terah was of an advanced age, they decided to settle in Haran where they were beyond Hammurabi’s immediate reach. Thus, for as long as Terah remained alive, Abraham stayed with him in Haran where he continued to 4 BEFORE DEMOCRACY exercise his entrepreneurial gifts of finding and taking advantage of opportunities for gain. However, throughout his sojourn in Haran, Abraham prepared himself for his eventual emigration by developing a husbandry station to enable him to subsequently arrive in Canaan as an independent man of considerable wealth. Upon his father’s death, Abraham assembled his wife Sarah, his brother’s son Lot, his trusted, devoted slaves (or servants), along with his amassed riches, including cattle and sheep, and travelled to and through the land of Canaan before deciding where to settle. He appears to have been well-informed about the political and social conditions throughout the ancient world. Although we are told in the Book of Genesis that regarding this venture Abraham was guided by his God, his communications with Him were not direct; unlike Moses who is presented in Scripture as speaking personally with God, Abraham seems to have gained his insights into historical events and phenomena by inner vision, conjecture, dreams, and deliberation. Thus Abraham is presented in Scripture as a man who both acted on ratiocination, and believed his aspirations to stem from inspiration bestowed upon him by his God. This is the interpretation that undergirds our reading of the narrations in the Book of Genesis as reproduced below. Abraham’s decision to leave Haran for Canaan suggests that he acted with deliberation: he rejected the world view which he had observed and experienced in his native land, and had a fair idea of what he was after. So much we may gather from narrations in the Book of Genesis on his departure from Haran, his brief sojourn in Egypt, and his subsequent travels through the length and breadth of Canaan before deciding where to settle and build a home, not just for his immediate family, but also for his future descendants. In Abraham’s day, ancient Mesopotamia was reputed to have been the centre of a high cultural level, with a developed system of government, and a well-organized, successful commercial system that extended far and wide beyond Mesopotamia.