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  • Abram: Sheikh of Ur

    Abram: Sheikh of Ur

    Why would I call Abram a Sheikh? (That’s probably not how you think of the Abraham of the Bible account.)

    Terah took Abram his son … and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. – Genesis 11:31 excerpt

    Unless you are an archaeologist, ancient history enthusiast or Old Testament scholar you likely have never looked at Abram, Ur, Haran and the history surrounding God’s calling of Abraham to the Promised Land in any light of factual life at that time.

    Let’s back up just a little bit. (& in case you missed the introduction to this: Sons of Tradition)

    Genesis 11:

    24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he fathered Terah. And Nahor lived after he fathered Terah 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

    26 When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

    Why did Terah leave Ur? Moses’ account of Genesis does not tell us.

    We do know this however; Abram would have been a man of stature in his tribe, already married and also responsible for the son of a younger brother who had died after fathering Lot.

    29 And Abram and Nahor took wives… 31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there.

    Ur, the city they left was a kingdom.

    The paragraphs which the author of the “Cave Treasures” devotes to the history of Terah and Abraham throw new light upon the lives of these patriarchs and the conditions under which they lived in the city of Ur, and they contain many interesting details which are not recorded in the Book of Genesis, and some new information concerning the overthrow of the city of Ur by the “Wind Flood.” It is quite clear that Terah and Abraham were great, powerful and wealthy shêkhs, and their large flocks of sheep and goats and herds of camels suggest that they were owners and breeders of cattle on a large scale, and masters of caravans.  Source. 

    … recent excavations at Ur have brought to light  that in Abraham’s day the inhabitants of the city were given up wholly to idolatry, their chief object of worship being Nannar, the Moon-god.

    Further research suggests a possible extra-Biblical motive for Terah’s move of his family to Haran.

    … the moon’s crescent was Nannar / Sin / El’s symbol. He was patron god over the city of Ur. Nannar’s temple in Ur was Egishnugal “House of the Seed of the Throne”  Biblical Terah, Abraham’s father was one of its high-priests.

    Just like the Biblical account of God’s intervention at the Tower of Babel, it would seem from other ancient texts that God was involved in the “wind flood” which devastated Ur during the days of Terah.

    The powerful prince moved his caravans and his households northwest along the Euphrates until Teran and Abram settled into Haran, where they were still rich and powerful Sheiks.

    One last word of definition before we continue on Abraham’s long journey:

    Sheikh – شيخ‎‎

    Shekh— is an honorific title in the Arabic language. It commonly designates the ruler of a tribe, who inherited the title from his father. “Sheikh” is given to a royal male at birth.

    To be continued…

  • Sons of Tradition

    Sons of Tradition

    Two thousand years ago: the setting in Judea, a leavened relic of a Roman province once known as Judah; in fact a thousand more years before, a respected United Kingdom of Israel. Yet Solomon’s kingdom was split, David’s power long lost, Moses’ Law long debated and Abraham’s history much distorted.

    Temples destroyed. Temples rebuilt.

    Religion becomes something of a unifying tradition of ruling God’s people with political compromise and Levitical leverage.

    The faithful expected a Messiah in some generation. Jewish leaders beholden by tribute to Rome’s rich rulers gripped tightly the tenuous reins of the rule of Jerusalem.

    Jesus, or for that matter any man making claim as the promised Messiah, was a threat to everything their traditions had accomplished and every high official with religious power.

    Matthew 15:

    Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.”

    He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

    The Messiah Jesus always had words of hope and blessing for the common disciples who received God’s word. Yet Jesus boldly disputed the motives of religious rulers. He challenged their traditions. Jesus knew them and exposed their hypocrisy before their followers, as had John the Baptizer before Herod had beheaded him.

    Jesus challenged their self-serving interpretations of the Bible. He asked them if they knew their Bible? He told them that they were not like David, not like Moses and not like Abraham. Above all Jesus told the religious rulers that they did know know God, our heavenly Father.

    Into a culture which lifts up the father as the revered head of the family this is high insult. Into a religious culture which claims one God as Father of their nation this borders on blasphemy – at least blasphemy against who the religious leaders claim as God as Father who gives them all authority over God’s people.

    Jesus’ three earthly years of controversial teaching have nearly come to an end. Many miracles have proven this Messiah of God and no learned religious leader has been able to trip Him up. But once more they try.

    John 8:

    21 So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”

    … 25 So they said to him, “Who are you?” …  28 So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me…”

    30 As he was saying these things, many believed in him.

    31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

    Once again, Jesus gives hope to the disciples of His true teaching. But not all believe, especially the religious leaders who must bow down humbly before God and accept the truth of scripture.

    What is it they do? Besides opposing the very Messiah to His face, they twist truth just as they do in their false leading of those who support their Temple – NOT God’s Temple, but Herod’s Temple; for it was Herod the Great, friend of Rome and only half Jewish, who rebuilt the Temple of tradition.

    33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

    If you are a religious leader who suspects you could be standing before the Messiah of God, is this the impertanence you offer before the Lord?

    Further, is it even true what the Pharisees have claimed?

    How can a Jew pretend to ‘have never been enslaved to anyone?’ The history of the Hebrew people proves more the opposite: in Egypt, in Babylon… Do these religious leaders claim to be offspring of Abraham and not know their own history?

    Roger@TalkofJesus.com

    To be continued…

    This is introduction to the series: Abram, Sheik of Ur

  • Interrupting Jesus 3 – interrupted by academia

    Interrupting Jesus 3 – interrupted by academia

    We’ve all met them: the academicians, professors, learned men of logic with indisputable researched proofs of their position; the Doctors of Divinity and PhD’s of wisdom: we’ve all met them.

    If you have not read the books of wisdom in the Bible, notably Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, you have neglected your own education by God. Of course Bibles were not printed in the days of Jesus of Nazareth and such wisdom was only to be gained from the scholars and academicians of the Temple and synagogues who had access to the scrolls of the written word. Young Jesus was not schooled by such learned men, but held his own in their eyes.

    You may be familiar with this story from a parental perspective, yet take a look at this young lad through the eyes of some of the Pharisees present:

    Luke 2:

    41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. 43 And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it…

    46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 And when his parents saw him, they were astonished…

    52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

    Jesus’ mission from his youth was interrupted by the trappings of everyday life.

    Again, another story so familiar for the importance of Jesus’ teachings to a teacher of Israel that we may have missed sight of the person who was the interruption in Jesus’s journeys. Nicodemus is part of the inner circle of Bible scholars. His knowledge of God’s word, Hebrew history and influence is comparable to Saul of Tarsus (Paul) who will follow in just a few years. Jesus is sitting with a VIP of the highest caliber, once again more than holding his own.

    John 3:

    Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night.

    “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”

     “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

    “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

    “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

    7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

    “How can these things be?”

    10 Jesus answered him,“Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

    11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

    Even unbelievers have heard Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus, the reason God our Father sent the Messiah to the world in the flesh.

    Jesus is sitting in the room with Nicodemus, a VIP Jew of Jews, who wants to do what God wants him to do. Nicodemus has come to the Son of Man at night, to where our Lord is resting. Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, does not invite Jesus Christ to his home; rather Nicodemus interrupts him privately.

    Jesus tells the respected leader of the Temple:

    • You must be born of water and the Spirit. (Purified by repentance and receive the Holy Spirit of God as Counselor to your eternal soul.)
    • No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. (Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, ‘I AM the Messiah.’)
    • 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

    Imagine that you think you have learned all there is to know about God from the Bible, historical books and prayer. You walk into the home of a man at night to learn more. Then Jesus tells you: I AM the Son of God, sent as the Messiah of Israel and Savior of the world! You have interrupted God Almighty the Person of the Son, who tells you:

    God loves you. Believe in the Son, Christ Jesus, and you will have eternal life.

    Nicodemus and the Pharisees believed in the resurrection. Some like him met Christ and believed.

    How old was Nicodemus when he met Jesus?

    I could speculate that as a leader of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus may have been in his fifty’s or sixty’s, while Jesus is a relatively young man of thirty. It is not inconceivable that Nicodemus could have been one of the up and coming young men of the Temple twenty years earlier when Jesus as a boy interrupted His parent’s pilgrimage with a three-day schooling in ‘His Father’s House.’ At the very least, Nicodemus undoubtedly would have known of the encounter, not to mention the recent teachings of John the Baptizer.

    John 1:

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

    The Testimony of John the Baptist

    19 And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”

    24 (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) 25 They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”26 John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27 even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”

    Nicodemus knew the Messiah (the Christ) of God was coming and wanted to confirm His identity.

    Nicodemus may have been waiting for the Son of God to give him a command of what to do as a leader of the Temple. Rather than taking His rightful authoritative position over the Temple and Jerusalem, the Son of Man chose to humbly obey the purpose of Sacrifice for which He was sent.

    Jesus has a mission of love for those who will believe. All evidence points to the fact that Nicodemus believed.

    Faith does not dispute knowledge, but confirms truth beyond the limits of its proof.

    Nicodemus would argue that Jesus should be given a fair trial. [John 7:50-51] Nicodemus obtained permission for the crucified Christ Jesus to be buried and contributed to the costs. [John 19:38-40] Nicodemus may have even been one of the many to whom Christ appeared after His resurrection. [1 Corinthians 15:6]

    Suppose a VIP comes to you unexpectedly and asks if Jesus is the Christ. Are you prepared for that interruption?