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1. Why study the Old Testament, (Jewish Scriptures), when the Christian story is in the New Testament? Answer: Jesus was a Jew, and all he knew in his earthly life about God and God's people, was learnt from the Jews, and from the Jewish Scriptures.

2. Not only modern Judaism, but modern Christianity and modern Islam look back to the Jewish Scriptures for their origins. Their origins are to be found embedded in a small insignificant group of wandering Semitic nomads who were surrounded by the brilliant and sophisticated city-cultures of the ancient Middle East during the 2nd millennium BCE, but whose sacred story has long outlasted all those ancient cultures.

3. Sacred history is an interpretation, a theological interpretation, of ordinary historical events, the story of a people's on-going encounter with its God. (ISRA - EL = the people of God). Over the course of time, the story was handed on verbally from one generation to another, until the time came when the people were able to read and write. Then, and then onwards, all their stories were collected and edited, over and over again, until the prevailing voices among those people have given us the historical drama that still dominates our world.

4. For the Hebrew-Israelite-Jewish people, their relationship with God was founded on a three-fold story involving MOSES: first when he turned aside to investigate an unusual fire; secondly when the slaves in Egypt were 'rescued' in the exodus; and thirdly when the rescued people formally entered into a Covenantal relationship with their God.

5. These people did not begin reading and writing in Hebrew, the original language of their Scriptures, until the time of Kings David and Solomon, about 1,000 BCE, when the cultured city of Jerusalem was captured and adopted as their own capital city. Even the god of Jerusalem, EL-ELYON, was absorbed into their own story of God, as also was its temple, its priests, its organised worship, and even some of its psalms! Always in ancient times it was the priests who were the civil sevants, the scribes and the secretaries.

6. When their duties at court were done, the scribes began to write of contemporary events, particularly of the goings-on within the royal palace - (2 Sam.9 - 1 Kgs.3). They also moved out into the Hebrew villages and holy places, collecting up, and writing down, the stories and poetry of years gone by. The stories around Hebron in the south were mainly of Abraham and his family; the stories of Moses were found further north, near Shecham. Small snatches of ancient poetry can be found in the Song of Miriam, Ex.15.21; the battle cry, Num.19.35f; the story of Deborah, Jdgs.5; and an ancient credal statement in Deut.26.5-10 which takes us back to the beginning of the story 'a wandering Aramean was my ancestor..........' ie ABRAHAM from UR of the Chaldees.

7. Abraham's story begins in Genesis 11.26ff, when his father Terah was head of their clan. They lived in the environs of UR, the oldest and highly sophisticated city-state beside the river Euphrates, near the Persian Gulf. Many thousands of years earlier in the history of humankind, the early cave-dwelling hunter-gatherers had begun to tame some animals and became nomadic herdsmen. They were often on the move, searching for new pastures and more water for their animals. About 10,000 BCE onwards, however, some of them learnt how to cultivate crops year after year in the same place

   They became skilled agriculturists and irrigation experts,able to feed and support other people who performed other tasks in their new and settled communities. Gradually villages became towns, and towns became powerful city-states, needing rules and justice, and also protection from all forms of danger. Beautiful artefacts and sophisticated relics from ancient UR can be seen today in the British Museum - and these pre-date Abraham! UR itself was dominated by a man-made mountain, a ziggurat, on top of which was built a huge temple, dedicated to Nanna, the moon god, patron of the city's well-being. UR was supreme in the area until the rise of Babylon in the reign of King Hammurabi, c1800 BCE. Soon after his time UR was conquered, and the sun god of Babylon, Shamash, was imposed on everyone as the god to be worshipped in the city's temple.

   If this time coincided with the story of Terah, the herdsman, who would have relied on moonlight in the cool of the night to move his flocks, then it is the setting for Terah's departure from UR to HARAN near the Turkish border, where the moon god was still all-important.

8. Like all people of his time Terah would have worshipped more than one god. Besides worshipping the particular 'god of nature' that was all-important for his needs and for the survival of his family, Terah would also have given great honour and respect to a special 'spirit-god', the 'god of his family'. The Family-God would have been housed in a special pottery jar called a teraph, and kept in the most important part of the tent compound, When the family moved in search of new pastures, their God went with them, ......... even from UR to Haran.

9. After the death of Terah in Haran, Abraham inherited the leadership with all its responsibilities for a large number of people and their wealth, numbered in animals. The God of the Family was his responsibility too, the 'God of Abraham' (his 'shield', Gen 15.1). Abraham responded to the inner prompting of his Family-God and led his people away from town life near Haran and pursued the nomadic life further westwards into Canaan, between the river Jordan and the Great (Mediterranean) Sea. His nephew, Lot, broke away and succumbed to the pleasures of town life near the Dead Sea, (Gen 13), but Abraham remained in the hill country of southern Canaan, near the Canaanite town of Hebron. Outside the town he established a sacred place and an altar for his Family God under an oak tree at Mamre.

10. The story of Abraham can be read in the continuous chapters of Genesis, 12-25.

    It covers his 'covenant' with the God of His Family who promised he would have many descendants, even though in old age he was still childless.

    It covers the story of Hagar and Ishmael, which reflects the Lawcode of King Hammurabi, (now in the Louvre in Paris), in legislating for a clan leader without a legitimate heir.

    It covers the unexpected and almost miraculous birth of Isaac to Sarah - a laughable development!

    It also covers the horrendous story of Abraham's willingness to offer Isaac as a sacrifice to his Family God. Maybe this reflects Abraham's concern to give 'his' God the same degree of honour as the neighbouring Canaanites gave to theirs, but never again was human sacrifice an official part of worship in Old Testament times.

11. Abraham's story ended with his first aquisition of freehold land in Canaan - a burial cave near Hebron

© Barbara Hammond Sept 2001