My father Abraham: prelude (1)

Well, I know my carnal father's name wasn't actually Abraham. I'm not deluded. My father's name was Erik, a traditional Norwegian name by the way. But as a believer, I really have several 'fathers', and one of them is the patriarch who lived out his days as a willing exile in a place called Canaan - 3000 years ago.

So, what's the fuss? Why care about someone who's been dead and gone for three long millennia? It's impossible to answer that question in just a few paragraphs, but I will attempt to explain why I harbour a deep and long-lasting interest in this revered figure, to which three major world religions all lay claim (Judaism, Islam and Christianity).

ABRAHAM - STILL A KEY (WORLD) PLAYER

Abraham matters to me for several reasons. First, he is in the Bible described as a key figure in God's plan of salvation, referenced countless times in subsequent portions of Scripture. Second, the brief biographical sketches that we do get in the Old Testament (Genesis mostly) tell of an unusual character who - through simple acts of worship and obedience - shaped, and continues even today to shape, world history. Third, his personal experiences with God continually inspire me to emulate him - and to seek this God myself. Fourth, Abraham's life is also worth studying in that through God's dealings with the Aramean, God has chosen to reveal much about the ways in which He will forever interact with all of humankind.

BACKGROUND: WHO WAS ABRAHAM OF UR?

Since the man himself was alive so long ago, our misinformed minds tend to imagine Abraham a simpleton, an uneducated and unsophisticated man mired in the superstitions and pre-scientific conceptions of his day. Granted, Ur of the Chaldeans 2000 BC bore little resemblance - on the surface of things - to modern cities. Technological advances (telecommunication, transportation by air, nuclear power) as we know them today didn't exist, and the predominant agrarian and trading communities that clustered around or centered on Ur demanded much less conspicuous and complex structures of civic government. Life behind literal walls was, on the whole, as safe as it was predictable and simple - compared to our postmodern existence.

But, the descendants of the Sumerians were far from being simpletons: theirs was a time that knew highly developed international trade, construction techniques allowing for multiple storey houses (the Zigurats), advanced applied mathematics in the fields of proto-astronomy (astronomy in the pre-scientific era), and more:

• Sumerians already mastered the revolutionary art of writing, and had thus reached a level of civilization providing them with the possibility of recording and preserving their collective memory: their history.
• Simultaneously, Chinese officials had created what may have been the world's first zoo. And even if there is no evidence that Ur possessed a similar facility, it serves to illustrate that these supposedly primitive cultures and people were actually far from just that: primitive. 
• At about the same time as Abraham was thriving in Ur, Babylonian and Egyptian mathematicians were the first to divide days into hours, minutes and seconds.
• Mesopotamians had learned around the year 2000 to solve quadratic equations.
• The first code of medical ethics was authored, also by Mesopotamians.
• And courier systems of communication were being developed in both China and Egypt.

Against this backdrop of civilization and a surprisingly technologically advanced society we are presented with a highly unlikely superstar: Abram son of Terah. Join me in exploring what we can learn from this man "who was looking forward to a city whose architect and builder is God".