Where Did Abraham's God Come From



Most public discussion today of the faith called Judaism centers on support or opposition to Netanyahu and the election there coming very soon. It was refreshing to read a thoughtful Rabbi's reflections on the origin of the faith and its place in an increasingly secular U. S.  

Over the years, many have tried to "backwards engineer" history, take existing archaeology discoveries and/or what is documented in surviving ancient writing or inscriptions, taking the chain of groups backwards in time to conclude where they came from and why. This has been hard to do with the Jews of ancient Israel. No one knows where they came from or who they were before they showed up in the Bible story and known history during the Roman Empire. 

The link talks of Abraham and his finding God. The Rabbi admits there are two theories about when Abraham discovered God. One is that it came to him when he was four years old, the other that it was when he was 40 years old. One the sources was Maimonides, a Jewish physician and philosopher who lived around the year 1,000 CE. He is said to have preached and debated but left no original writing. Of course, Maimonides had no information about the mythical Abraham who would have lived, if he existed, thousands of years earlier. It's more likely the Jewish God and whatever is believed about it grew out of many versions of other gods long before in prehistory and a particular version was created by a culture that needed it.

The story of Abraham in the link is that he had the revelation of God while living amongst Pagans. He had no choice but to go on believing he had discovered God and talk of his discovery. The Rabbi in the link says this is what Jews can do today when the West is becoming the world Abraham lived in. His world was filled by Pagans. Today's Jews are in one dominated by atheists, skeptics and Christians.

The Rabbi author makes this sound so benign. Unfortunately, a branch of Judaism is bombing innocent adults and children in Gaza after many innocent Jews were also killed. Nothing good has come from those praying to Abraham's God nor from those who want them killed. Man's world-wide universal enemy is his religions.   


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