God called Abram(ham) because he as a monotheist...
I want to search for the idea that prior to God calling Abraham he was already a monotheist and that's the reason for the 'calling'
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I searched for:
Abram NEAR monotheist
I got a hit in JETS (Journal of Evangelical Theological Society)
I dont know if you have it but may be a starter
Never Deprive Anyone of Hope.. It Might Be ALL They Have
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Milkman said:
I want to search for the idea that prior to God calling Abraham he was already a monotheist and that's the reason for the 'calling'
Do a Bible search on river and read Joshua 24:2-15
"For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power"
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You won't find it in the Bible.
At best you could make an argument to the contrary based upon some interpretations of Joshua 24:2 (as goes the father so goes the son kind of thing.)
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I agree, Jerry! Good passage! *smile*
God's calling of Abraham is God's Calling. Whether Abraham and his kin were monotheists or not, God is the one who is acting. Then, Abraham re-acted by faith - by trusting God - and God imputed it to him as righteousness. *smile*
You probably can do a comparable search about our Wonderful God and His acting in history.
How odd of God to Choose the Jews.
Philippians 4: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand..........
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I rather think it far more odd that he would choose me.Milford Charles Murray said:How odd of God to Choose the Jews.
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I think Genesis 12:8 is the first record of Abram calling on God. Before that, it was God calling him.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Thomas Black said:
I rather think it far more odd that he would choose me.Milford Charles Murray said:How odd of God to Choose the Jews.
Beautiful, Thomas! Much appreciated! Me, too!
Amen! *smile*
Peace!
Philippians 4: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand..........
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Abraham was monotheistic in the sense that he was always quick to obey God and gave no evidence of a similar response to any other "god". His enthusiastic obedience can be compared to the sluggishness of his descendants to obey God. So God knew his heart in advance and knew that he would respond in faith.
edit: Abraham must have been a milkman, Genesis 18:8 ; )
"For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power"
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I want the Talmud and I want it NOW ... okay it is still scheduled for this coming month.
Note: when I have it, I may have a suggestion for your search.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Jerry M said:
Abraham was monotheistic in the sense that he was always quick to obey God and gave no evidence of a similar response to any other "god".
Somehow, if he did I doubt it would be recorded in the Tanakh.[;)]
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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The original question is interesting .... meaning did Abraham have a single god (and thus who could it be, if prior to YHWH) or did Abraham think there was a single god (thus being uncertain until YHWH called or was called).
I never even thought about this until I was reading the Jewish Study Bible and the author pointed out that jews (presumably a subset either now, or historically) only subscribed to a single god over Israel; that it didn't preclude others. Curious, I asked our pastor when we were studying Exodus, and indeed he did agree the Torah seemed to support another god for Pharoah, etc.
Kind of interesting question.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Yes Denise you're on to right road. Maybe I should have been more clear. I don't have any problem with Abraham being a single-God worshiper prior to his 'exit' out of Mesopotamia. What I am looking for are authors, books or any other kind of resource that supports that view either in L4 or outside of the Libronix format.
thanks everyone for your replies!
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MJ. Smith said:
I want the Talmud and I want it NOW
Didn't Violet Beauregard say that in the Willie Wonka movie?
Robert Pavich
For help go to the Wiki: http://wiki.logos.com/Table_of_Contents__
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It is clean in the OT that Israel believed that there were other gods. Ex 15:11 suffice to show it. Now, at the time of the "major prophets," mostly around the exile in Babylonia, it changed, then Israel understood that Yahweh was the only God. The gods of the nations were nothing. But there is no doubt that the "early" Israel believed that there were other gods. Therefore they were monotheist in the sense of worshiping only one God. So, the same was with Abraham, he could be a single-God worshiper but not someone who believed that there were only one God.
The first of the 10 commandments is "You shall have no other gods before me." (or better, "besides me"). It is clear that up to that time, Israel believed that more than one god existed. And so Abraham.
www.aprendalogos.com
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Yes but dear old/young violet turned purple after eating one of those candies.
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Hey Jerry! I missed the milkman crack. Good one. But how was his golf game?
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This, by Philo, was cited in a book available in Logos titled "Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism". This book, while I have not read it, in scanning seems to be more along the lines of a modern philosophical/history of religion take on monotheism. Might have some info though. Otherwise, a search on (Abraham, Abram) NEAR monotheism did not find much, but, you could look in the bibliographies of whatever such a search does bring up.
Jim W
(212) The most ancient person of the Jewish nation was a Chaldaean by birth, born of a father who was very skilful in astronomy, and famous among those men who pass their lives in the study of mathematics, who look upon the stars as gods, and worship the whole heaven and the whole world; thinking, that from them do all good and all evil proceed, to every individual among men; as they do not conceive that there is any cause whatever, except such as are included among the objects of the outward senses. (213) Now what can be more horrible than this? What can more clearly show the innate ignobleness of the soul, which, by consequence of its knowledge of the generality of things, of secondary causes, and of things created, proceeds onwards to ignorance of the one most ancient uncreated Being, the Creator of the universe, and who is most excellent on this account, and for many other reasons also, which the human reason is unable to comprehend by reason of their magnitude?
(214) But this man, having formed a proper conception of this in his mind, and being under the influence of inspiration, left his country, and his family, and his father’s house, well knowing that, if he remained among them, the deceitful fancies of the polytheistic doctrine abiding there likewise, must render his mind incapable of arriving at the proper discovery of the true God, who is the only everlasting God and the Father of all other things, whether appreciable only by the intellect or perceptible by the outward senses; while, on the other hand, he saw, that if he rose up and quitted his native land, deceit would also depart from his mind. changing his false opinions into true belief.
(215) At the same time, also, the divine oracles of God which were imparted to him excited still further that desire which longed to attain to a knowledge of the living God, by which he was guided, and thus went forth with most unhesitating earnestness to the investigation of the one God. And he never desisted from this investigation till he arrived at a more distinct perception, not indeed of his essence, for that is impossible, but of his existence, and of his over-ruling providence as far as it can be allowed to man to attain to such; (216) for which reason he is the first person who is said to have believed in God,38 since he was the first who had an unswerving and firm comprehension of him, apprehending that there is one supreme cause, and that he it is which governs the world by his providence, and all the things that are therein. And having attained to a most firm comprehension of the virtues, he acquired at the same time all the other virtues and excellencies also, so that he was looked upon as a king by those who received him,39 not indeed in respect of his appointments, for he was only a private individual, but in his magnanimity and greatness of soul, inasmuch as he was of a royal spirit.
of Alexandria Philo and Charles Duke Yonge, The Works of Philo : Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996), 661-62.0 -
There are several passages in both the NT and OT that say God does not save us or call us because of any prior good in ourselves, whether it be belief in one God or otherwise. It is purely because of his mercy that he reaches out to us. I see no reason to think Abraham would have been an exception to that pattern. Yes, we do need to respond to his initiative, but the initiative is totally God's. It is not based on our righteousness.
Deut 9:5-6; Rom 9:11; 2 Tim 1:9; Tit 3:5. And if you include the Apocrypha, there's also Baruch 2:19.
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I don't believe the Lord calls us on any prior knowledge or even good works of righteousness either. He wakes us up, so to speak, regeneration before faith. But what i'm looking for is this:
Not that God called Abram because God saw in him some kind of moral/spiritual credit that said to the Lord, "I see Abram 'down' there and he meets some kind of qualification that I demand in my kingdom so therefore because he has this spiritual quality I will call him."
I had an OT/Hb. professor (Dr. Dwayne Garret) who mentioned that God called, not that he had anything righteous in him, but called him as an instrument of furthering the kingdom period dot.
What Garret suggested was that Abram had a monotheist faith/belief/worldview etc., while living in Mesopotamia even before God sovereignly chose him and am not looking for Bible verses that support that view, if there are any, but I'm looking for books that support that view.
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thanks Jim. i didn't pick up on the Philo search.
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Unless the LORD of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.
The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
We love Him because He first loved us.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.0 -
amen Michael.
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Milkman said:
but I'm looking for books that support that view.
I don't know if it does but my Search returned this:-
“Abraham, Akhenaten, Moses and Monotheism,” in He Swore an Oath: Biblical Themes from Genesis 12–50, ed. R. S. Hess, G. J. Wenham and P. E. Satterthwaite (2d ed.; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994)
[Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch (17). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.]Dave
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Milkman said:
What Garret suggested was that Abram had a
monotheist faith/belief/worldview etc., while living in Mesopotamia even
before God sovereignly chose him and am not looking for Bible verses
that support that view, if there are any, but I'm looking for books that
support that view.Abraham is completely unattested in ancient sources
outside of the Bible, as are all the patriarchs (see New American Commentary: Genesis 11:27-50:26),
so any books which support the view that Abraham
was a monotheist before he was called by God would be merely making
speculations based on what is known historically about the surrounding culture/religion in Mesopotamia at the time.Nevertheless, to help you locate some resources which take that position anyway, I tried searching to see if your professor Duane Garrett (turns out that's the correct spelling) had written anything on this himself. Closest I could find was a book called Rethinking Genesis, but I couldn't find any preview of it to see if it might mention this detail.
I also poked around some more on Google Books searching for things like Abraham and monotheism and more (to narrow down the search results). Here are some interesting finds:
From The Problem of the Old Testament Considered with Reference to Recent Criticism by James Orr: "The truth, it seems to us, lies midway between those who affirm, and those who deny, a monotheistic substratum in the Babylonian religion. That Israel borrowed its idea of the one God from this source is another matter. The name JA'U—corresponding with Yahweh—may or may not be found, as alleged, on tablets of the Hammurabi age. Reading and meaning of the inscriptions are still under discussion. But this, though interesting in its bearings on the age of the name, proves nothing as to its Babylonian origin. F. Delitzsch himself does not take it to be a native Babylonian name of God."
From Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible by John H. Walton (pp. 150-151):
Comparative Exploration: Religion of Abraham
The information that has been presented here concerning family religion in the ancient Near East now offers us a new perspective for exploring the religious experience of Abraham.
T. Jacobsen has identified the primary development within Mesopotamian religion during the second millennium as the idea of a ''personal god," which van der Toorn has shown is to be understood as the equivalent to the family god. Typically the role of personal god was played by minor deities, though it is not impossible that the great cosmic deities could so function. In return for obedience and worship, these deities provided for the well-being of their worshipers.
Close and personal relations—relations such as he had to the authorities in his family: father, mother, older brother and sister—the individual had only to one deity, to his personal god. The personal god was usually some minor deity in the pantheon who took a special interest in a man's family or had taken a fancy to the man himself. In a sense, and probably this is the original aspect, the personal god appears as the personification of a man's luck and success.
It is clear from the Mesopotamian texts that this deity was not worshiped exclusively, but he did dominate the personal aspect of the individual's religious practice. "To his personal god, then, before any other a man owed worship and obedience."While this bears little resemblance to philosophical monotheism, it may have often taken the appearance of a practical monotheism. It is this trend more than any other that characterizes the period during which the patriarchs emerged from Mesopotamia.
The Hebrew Bible makes clear that Abraham's monotheism was not part of his religious heritage. Abraham was of general Semitic stock described in the Pentateuch as "Aramaean" (Gen. 25:20; 28:5; Deut. 26:5). Joshua 24:2 and 14 assert that the relatives of Abraham, including his father, served other gods, and the text of Genesis gives us no reason to question that assessment. Jacob has to urge his company to put away their other gods (Gen. 35:2-4), and teraphim, the images of the ancestral family gods, are important in Laban's religious practices (Gen. 31). It is clear, then, that the biblical record does not attribute monotheism of any sort to the family of Abraham. In addition, we would search in vain for any passage in which Abraham or any of the patriarchs deny the existence of other gods. Nevertheless, the perspective of the biblical text is that all of the worship of Abraham that is recorded is focused on a single deity, though that deity is called by different names. The Bible, however, nowhere explicitly insists that this is the only God that Abraham ever worshiped. It can be safely inferred from the biblical data that Abraham showed a distinct preferential loyalty for a single god.
Is it possible that Abraham's perception of Yahweh/El Shaddai would have been similar to the typical Mesopotamian's perception of his personal deity? The way in which Abraham and his God interact would certainly suit the paradigm of relationship with a personal god in Mesopotamia. Yahweh provides for Abraham and protects him, while obedience and loyalty are given in return. One major difference, however, is that our clearest picture of the personal god in Mesopotamia comes from the many laments that are offered as individuals seek favors from deity or complain about his neglect of them. There is no hint of this in Abraham's approach to Yahweh. In the depiction in the text, Abraham maintains an elevated view of deity that is much more characteristic of the overall biblical view of deity than it is of the Mesopotamian perspective. On the whole, however, it is not impossible, and may even be likely, that Abraham's understanding of his relationship to Yahweh, in the beginning at least, was similar to the Mesopotamian idea of the personal god. In Mesopotamian language, Abraham would have been described as having "acquired a god." That he was led to a new land and separated from his father's household would have effectively cut any ties with previous deities (located in city and family), and opened the way for Yahweh to be understood as the only deity to which Abraham had any obligation. By making a break with his land, his family, and his inheritance, Abraham was also breaking all of his religious ties. In his new land Abraham would have no territorial gods; as a new people he would have brought no family gods; having left his country he would have no national or city gods; and it was Yahweh who filled this void, becoming the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," the "God of the Fathers." But it is only in Israel, Jacobsen observes, that the idea of the personal god made the transition from the personal realm to the national realm." Van der Toorn adds, "Family religion was the ground from which national religion eventually sprang."
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MJ. Smith said:
I want the Talmud and I want it NOW ... okay it is still scheduled for this coming month.
Here you go MJ, as of today I see that Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud Collection (50 vols.) is slated for 4/30 I suspect the date will slip, but at least there's a target to start aiming for.
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Well thanks Rosie for that information - that was great! Yes I guess I spelled Duane's name incorrectly. I could have looked at his books to see the correct spelling but just too lazy. I suppose he's not following any forums or the like anyhow to correct me
I'll have to check is personally autographed Rethinking Genesis closer. It was during his tenure at our Seminary that he not only wrote the commentary (along with others) but these are in part some of his lectures.It's an interesting subject and one that I wanted to find out for a while. Anyway thanks again to you and all the others for your contributions.
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What MJ is hinting at is a Talmudic tradition that does indeed assert that Abram was a monotheist, if not an outright worshipper of YHWH while living in Mesopotamia. The story goes something like this:
Abram was in his father Terah's idol-making shop and saw that Terah had many smaller idols lying around, while there was one much larger idol standing upright on the floor. Abram's inner wheels started turning and he got an idea. He picked up his father's hammer and smashed all of the smaller idols into smithereens. Then he placed the hammer in the large idol's hand and waited for his father to return. When Terah entered, he exclaimed in horror, "Abram, what has happened here?" Abram said, "Clearly, father, the larger idol used your hammer to smash the other idols." Terah responded, "Abram, you know that the idol is not capable of doing such a thing." Abram replied, "Well then, father, why do you worship it as if it were a god?"
This story is possibly (perhaps probably) apocryphal, but like many other such stories which add non-textual details to Biblical records, there is always the possibility that there is some nugget of truth and/or accuracy behind it.
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David Paul said:
Abram was in his father Terah's idol-making shop and saw that Terah had many smaller idols lying around, while there was one much larger idol standing upright on the floor. Abram's inner wheels started turning and he got an idea. He picked up his father's hammer and smashed all of the smaller idols into smithereens. Then he placed the hammer in the large idol's hand and waited for his father to return. When Terah entered, he exclaimed in horror, "Abram, what has happened here?" Abram said, "Clearly, father, the larger idol used your hammer to smash the other idols." Terah responded, "Abram, you know that the idol is not capable of doing such a thing." Abram replied, "Well then, father, why do you worship it as if it were a god?"
This story is possibly (perhaps probably) apocryphal, but like many other such stories which add non-textual details to Biblical records, there is always the possibility that there is some nugget of truth and/or accuracy behind it.
Great story, whether it's apocryphal or not. Thanks for sharing it! [:)]
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