abraham destroyed idols bible verse

And Terah answered his son Abram and said, Behold those who created us are all with us in the house. In a world where there are many doubts about the historicity of core events in the Torahs narrative,[24] establishing the palace of Torah upon a higher foundation would seem to be a constructive goal. ), or adding matres lectionis (). Is it less true than a simple chronology of events describing the beginning of the world and of humankind? When his father returned, he asked him: Why did you do this to them? [Abraham] replied: Would I hide it from you? But Abram said that the largest of the idols had killed all the others in a fight over an offering brought to them. A man walked in and wished to buy an idol. (U) Far be it from you! Considering this, insofar as observance is concerned, is it important to defend the belief that all of the stories narrated in the book of Genesis actually happened? Abraham chose to follow God alone, and he demonstrated his commitment by circumcising every male in his household. If you have any questions, please review our Privacy Policy or email us at privacy@biblegateway.com. [Abraham] understood that there was a God in heaven, a living and true God, and that no man should worship any other God but Him. The Torah tells the story in a certain way, and other traditions tell it in different ways. 5 From . Psalms 135:15 - 127:17 - The idols of the . 19Also for the sons of Aaron, the priests, who were in (U)the pasture lands of their cities, or in each and every city, (V)there were men who were designated by name to distribute portions to every male among the priests and to everyone genealogically enrolled among the Levites. According to this second phrasing, the events described in the Torah are part of Gods narrative; whether this narrative has a basis in historical fact doesnt matter. Abrahams father had instructed him in the doctrines of these idols, and had sought to induce him to have faith in them and in their power, authority, and dominion, telling him what great personages they were. 25 And his mother did so, and she fetched a kid, and made savory meat thereof, and brought it to Abram, and Abram took the savory meat from his mother and brought it before his fathers gods, and he drew nigh to them that they might eat; and Terah his father, did not know of it. Will Gods story be diminished if we do not connect it with the actions of specific people, as great as they may have been? The Torah crafts its story line purposefully in such a way as to support the aims of the Narrator, including the Narrators values and moral lessons. Rambams approach here applies to our case as well. An ahistorical Torah is not subject to being disproven by archaeology or academic historical reconstructions. If this is a story, he said, it is a very human story. An event with significant import to the wider population that is never reported will end up being known by only a handful of people who witnessed it.[12]. God stopped him from actually following . [1] According to Jewish tradition, Terah was an idolater. [3] Haran died in Ur of the Chaldees, in the presence of his father, Terah.[4]. Even religious feeling, if it is possible to speak of this as a thing, is poised to gain from the intimate connection that is formed between humanity and God, when one understands the Torah as God telling a story just as a parent tells a story to his or her child. A business deal that took place before witnesses, but without documentation, can end up being a source of dispute and fraud if the witnesses disappear and never return. 42 Is there in these gods spirit, soul or power to do all thou hast told me? The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me. why would the ancient Greeks have Worshipped Demeter. 34 And when he had done breaking the images, he placed the hatchet in the hand of the great god which was there before them, and he went out; and Terah his father came home, for he had heard at the door the sound of the striking of the hatchet; so Terah came into the house to know what this was about. Abraham told him that a woman came in to make an offering to the idols. The first statement, the simpler one, would probably be acceptable to anyone. Save 15% for life! Please support us. Would you worship a being like that? But nevertheless our history informs us that the priests were angry and stirred up his father against him. 52 And the king sent three men of his servants, and they went and brought Abram before the king. The opposite is the case. His father came in and asked what he had been doing, what great sin this was that he had committed, why he was so sacrilegious in his feelings and so wicked as to seek to destroy these gods? And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem. Instead, the full power of the divine message comes once the message finds its place within a persons heart. Thus, we can say that there is no reason not to ascribe great literary prowess to God. To attempt an answer, I suggest that dry mechanical lists of rules, such as do not murder and do not steal, couldnt accomplish the transmission of lofty values to humankind. It is one that any person who wishes to renew his or her faithperhaps even to limit its horizons for a timeshould take to heart. Then all the children of Israel returned, every man to his possession, into their own cities. Bible. NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. 43 And Abram answered his father and said to him, And how canst thou then serve these idols in whom there is no power to do any thing? In contrast to the midrash, the Bible itself never credits Abraham with monotheistic beliefs. 1 Kings 15:13 And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron. For an English version explaining Breuers approach, see: Mordechai Breuer, The Study of Bible and the Primacy of the Fear of Heaven: Compatibility or Contradiction, inModern Scholarship in the Study of Torah(ed. 39 And Abram answered Terah his father and he said, Not so my lord, for I brought savory meat before them, and when I came nigh to them with the meat that they might eat, they all at once stretched forth their hands to eat before the great one had put forth his hand to eat. Why is Abraham is cutting up all these animals in Genesis 15? not in the hands of heaven,) in order to say something about the God he discovered and followed. Narrower concepts. His Test Abraham leaves the home of his childhood and youth. He is the father of three children including the Patriarch Abraham. 14 In the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, 2 these kings made war with Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar). This Midrash can be interpreted as an example of persecution against those of monotheistic beliefs during a time when polytheism dominated.[8]. [13]Even if its conclusions will, in the end, be rejectednot always and not necessarilyby practical halacha. 36 And Terah entered the room and found all the idols fallen down and broken, and the hatchet in the hand of the largest, which was not broken, and the savory meat which Abram his son had made was still before them. I am not surprised, therefore, at the literary prowessvery much like human literary prowessdemonstrated in Torah by its author. 61 And when Abram had ceased speaking before the king and princes, Abram lifted up his eyes to the heavens, and he said, The Lord seeth all the wicked, and he will judge them. [20]For more discussion on this question, see the position of R. Mordechai Breuer as he expressed it first inDeot12 (Winter 5720): pp. If I were pushed to offer some sort of response to this question anyway, I would say that just as any great author can breathe life into his or her characters and describe them from many angles, so too can the Divine Author, the greatest of authors. Whether our actions motivate us to work for labor and the downtrodden or peace in Israel, we activate a certain "Abraham" within to destroy the idols of prior perspectives and belief systems, and . And you shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and you shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. The text designates Terah, Abraham's father, as a "manufacturer of idols." One day, while Terah is away from his workshop, he entrusts it to young Abraham. Hence the verse in Genesis 11:28, And Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.[6], The Midrash is not the only mention of this storythe Quran discusses the story in great detail as well. Is there spirit, soul, or power in these gods to do all thou hast told me? Said he, Father, I did not do anything to them, they quarreled among themselves and went to work fighting and knocked one another down, broke one anothers heads and knocked off one anothers arms and legs. Oh, said his father, my sons do not tell me anything of that kind, for they are made of wood and they could not move or stir from their place nor knock one another down; it has been some other agency that has done it. Why, father, said he, would you worship a being that could not stir or move, that had hands and could not handle, that had legs and could not walk, a mouth that could not speak, and a head and it was of no use? [27] Putting this view forward before those who believed that God had a body probably caused those believers a crisis of faith. Bible verses related to Idols from the King James Version (KJV) by Relevance. Abraham is known to have done something similar. I.e., wooden symbols of a female deity (Asherah). In this story, he or she creates a new reality that never before existed, or, to be more precise, he or she describes a reality that bears a relationship with events that did occur in the past, but is not an exact replica of those events. [7]Doubtless, this claim reveals an important educational principle whose significance is beyond reproach. I simply believe it. Will not the Judge(V) of all the earth do right?(W), 26The Lord said, If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake. This is true even for a person who can digest the nuances of the ahistorical approach to the Torah. Abraham at last thought he would teach his father a lesson by making a clean sweep of his gods. Abram is now 50 years old; he has lived with Noah and Shem for 39 years and a cave for 10. In an ahistorical reading, we exchange Abraham the man, his biographic detailsonly some of which have any connection to Godwith Gods Abraham. Lord. She said to [Abraham]: Here, offer this before them. [Abraham] picked up a staff and broke [the idols] and placed the staff in the hands of the largest of them. Abraham is to be killed for his righteousness, and is saved by God Inasmuch as Abrahams fight against idolatry is a common theme in the Bible, so is the prophet of God, in the face of adversity, being persecuted for his beliefs. Abraham did destroy his father's idols though. See:The Complete Works of Achad Ha-Am(Tel Aviv, 1947), p. 342 [Hebrew]. His analysis deals with how in modern times, Abraham came to be seen as the only monotheist. At this point, Terah took Abraham to Nimrod. window.location.replace(""); Furthermore, this objection often remains inchoate and not fully articulated. Abraham's father in fact agrees with Abraham regarding idol worship unlike the Qur'anic version! How Modern Prophets Contextualized This Account, [Abraham] understood that there was a God in heaven, a living and true God, and that no man should worship any other God but Him. Numbers 33:52 Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places: Judges 2:2 And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this? Establishing the pillars of faith upon the bedrock of the historicity of past events requires an honest person to evaluate, without bias, the question of the historical reality of the Torahs claims. However, see the words of Maimonides about Adam, Eve and the serpent inGuide of the Perplexed(2:30). And Nimrod and all his princes and servants were that day sitting before him, and Terah sat also before them. [25] Freeing the Torah from its historical crutches not only frees the narrator from having to keep the narrative in line with past events, but it also neutralizes the basis for the attack against the validity of a person maintaining his or her faith. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children[ a] by her." Abraham's father, Terah, joined the adamant opposition to his son in Harran, which indicates that he had continued to cling to his profession of making and selling idols. Therefore, by necessity we would need to distill from his historical persona what parts of his life were his own choice, (i.e. The interpretive strategy of the received text is paramount takes an entirely different approach, which attempts to encounter the word of God without any mediation. Haran is the son of Terah, brother of Abraham, and the father of Lot. Abraham responds that wind pushes clouds. President Nelson shared the following story last April: I adored my parents. [10]In my opinion, which is based on multiple encounters with a number of different groups, this critique can be found at the heart of many peoples objections to ahistorical reading of the Torah, and feeds their intuitive rejection of this paradigm. If he had possessed the spirit which his son had, he would have said there is no power with these gods; but he did not, and Abraham had to flee from his fathers house, confiding in the Lord, who gave many promises to him and concerning his posterity. [4]There is a third as well, which I deal with in my book, in a later chapter. The plot point of Abrahams fattempted murder for his beliefs is found in four source texts. So Nimrod declares they worship wind. The image of Abraham smashing idols in his fathers store and blaming it on the god is likely to bring a smile to the lips of any person who is familiar with the story from his or her childhood. Copyright 2019 by Zondervan. 11Then Hezekiah commanded them to prepare (M)rooms in the house of the Lord, and they prepared them. Abraham responds that clouds hold water. This is something best accomplished by narrative, not by list of laws or principles. And wilt thou and thy people rise up now and do like unto this work, in order to bring down the anger of the Lord God of the universe, and to bring evil upon thee and the whole earth? They meant the world to me and taught me crucial lessons. 50 And Terah, seeing all that Abram had done, hastened to go from his house, and he went to the king and he came before Nimrod and stood before him, and he bowed down to the king; and the king said, What dost thou want? Child sacrifice. Bible verses about False Idols. 37 And when Terah saw this his anger was greatly kindled, and he hastened and went from the room to Abram. A divinely originated narrative has no need for real historical events in order to grow sinews and flesh and become something substantial. Save 15% on BibleGateway+ with code SPRINGSTUDY15. What if only ten can be found there?" He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it." [19] The various literary layers identified by biblical scholars in the text do not contradict its status as divine. Conversely, if the Torah is only telling stories, it would appear, at first glance, more difficult to account for the similarities between its stories and those of the surrounding cultures. This one, enraged against them on account of their behavior, took the hatchet and broke them all, and, behold, the hatchet is yet in his hands, as thou mayest see., Then Terah turned in wrath upon Abraham, and he said: Thou speakest lies unto me! Such narrative strategies, as I mentioned above, would be subject to factual investigation as well as comparative evidence, taking into account alternative versions. See,Iggrot Raayahvol. [16]Whether one must take the account of the Sinai revelation as historical or not is dealt with in chapter 4 of my book. In order for such values to find a permanent place in the spiritual life of individuals, they must be narrated. Some critics of the Bible point to the story of Abraham, who laid his son Isaac on an altar and prepared to sacrifice him as directed by God (Genesis 22:1-14). 15[i]Under his authority were (P)Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah, in (Q)the cities of the priests, to distribute their portions faithfully to their brothers by divisions, whether great or small, 16without regard to their genealogical enrollment, to the males from [j](R)thirty years old and upwardeveryone who entered the house of the Lord (S)for his daily obligationsfor their work in their duties according to their divisions; 17as well as the priests who were enrolled genealogically according to their fathers households, and the Levites (T)from twenty years old and upward, by their duties and their divisions. I loved learning about the gospel. Nimrod came from a line which was cursed by Noah: "Cursed be Canaan, a slave of slaves shall he be unto his brothers." By birth, Nimrod had no right to be a king or ruler. The interpretive strategy of the accepted rendition is paramount emphasizes the importance of our mediated encounter with the text, the reading that I was taught by my teacher, and he his teacher, going all the way back to the law given to Moses at Sinai. In short, the tradition is of utmost value. Rabbi Amit Kulaisthe rabbi of Kibbutz Alumim as well as of Beit Midrash Daroma at Ben Gurion University. One day I jumped on the streetcar and went to an LDS bookstore to find a book about the Church. It is thou that didst place the hatchet in his hands, and then sayest he smote them all. These events occurred at some point in the past, and the Holy Author (God) describes them from the unique perspective of the divine. Rav Kook believed that this model should be copied when wrestling with notions that were current in his day, like the theory of evolution. In many ways, the challenge faced by such a person is similar to the one faced by Rambam when he tried and demonstrate to the world that God has no body. Rambam expressed this idea in his unique idiom. 13 "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Thy servants to whom Thou didst swear by Thyself, and didst say to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall On the other hand, Haran needed to see that Abraham would be saved by God before believing, and because of this, Haran was not saved from the fire by God. [7], There are several different ways in which this Midrash has been discussed. Cautiously, I would like to suggest that doing so is not important. 2 Chronicles 31:1 Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Psalm 16:4 Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips. Why did God choose to limit the divine creative impulse to the (apparently) inadequate framework of narrative? [2] Terah also made and sold idols, as the Midrash Genesis Rabbah 38 explains. Continue Learning about Religious Studies. 2 And Sarai said to Abram, "Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. 4Also he told the people who lived in Jerusalem to give (F)the portion due to the priests and the Levites, so that they might devote themselves to (G)the Law of the Lord. The commentary explains what happened to Abraham when he was a young boy working in his father's idol shop. In my book, I explore a middle position that distinguishes between cases where it is necessary to free ourselves from a historicity that strangles the spirit of the text and cases where the historicity of the story would actually make the spirit of the story that much brighter. It is this perspective in particular, and the interpretation of the event expressed in it, that is of interest, religiously speaking, for within this retelling of the event lies its religious value. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.". Regarding this, seePinkasei Ha-Raayahvol. [26] Therefore, even if a believers intellectual powers allow him or her to consider the possibility that an ahistorical Torah could be more sophisticated and spiritual than a historical one, nevertheless, he or she cannot ignore the outer voiceor even the inner voicethat makes it difficult to be satisfied with scholarly justifications. Conjunctive waw | Verb - Piel - Conjunctive perfect - second person masculine plural, Noun - masculine plural construct | third person masculine plural, Noun - feminine plural construct | third person masculine plural, Verb - Qal - Imperfect - second person masculine plural | Paragogic nun, Conjunctive waw | Noun - feminine plural construct | third person masculine plural, A Phoenician goddess, also an image of the same, Verb - Piel - Imperfect - second person masculine plural | Paragogic nun, Conjunctive waw | Noun - masculine plural construct, gods -- the supreme God, magistrates, a superlative, Noun - masculine singular construct | third person masculine plural, Holy things must be eaten in the holy place, and holy things must be eaten in the holy place, Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers, OT Law: Deuteronomy 12:3 And you shall break down their altars (Deut. [19]InThe Guide of the Perplexed(3:31), Rambam sharply criticizes people who believe that it would be best not to ascribe positive human characteristics to God. When the Torah describes various events that appear to be rooted in a concrete time and place, its account is more a retelling than a reconstruction. 21 And Terah said to his son, Behold these are they which made all thou seest upon earth, and which created me and thee, and all mankind. Conjunctive waw | Verb - Piel - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular, A Phoenician goddess, also an image of the same, Verb - Piel - Perfect - third person masculine singular, Conjunctive waw, Article | Noun - masculine plural, Preposition-l | Verb - Hifil - Infinitive construct, Conjunctive waw | Noun - masculine singular construct, Preposition-b | Noun - masculine singular construct, Israel -- 'God strives', another name of Jacob and his desc, Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular, Preposition-l | Noun - proper - feminine singular, Jerusalem -- probably 'foundation of peace', capital city of all Israel, He takes order for the repair of the temple, Josiah sends to Huldah to enquire of the Lord, Huldah prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem, but respite thereof in Josiah's time, Josiah, causing it to be read in a solemn assembly, renews the covenant with God, Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers, OT History: 2 Chronicles 34:7 He broke down the altars and beat (2 Chron. Idolatry, in this sense, means abandoning the way of God for another aim. Ibn Munzir said that pictures and statues made of wood or metal, etc. 46 Did not our fathers in days of old sin in this matter, and the Lord God of the universe brought the waters of the flood upon them and destroyed the whole earth? Rambam, in contrast, uses this claim to explain why God commanded humans to act in certain ways and forbids them to act in others.) Ge 22:12, 18; 26:5; 2Sa 8:15; Ps 17:2; 99:4; Jer 23:5, Ex 23:7; Lev 4:3, 22, 27; Nu 16:22; Dt 27:25; 2Sa 24:17; Ps 11:4-7; 94:21; Eze 18:4; 2Pe 2:9, Jdg 11:27; Job 9:15; Ps 7:11; 94:2; Heb 12:23, Ge 20:4; Dt 32:4; 2Ch 19:7; Ezr 9:15; Ne 9:33; Job 8:3, 20; 34:10; 36:23; Ps 58:11; 75:7; 94:2; 119:137; Isa 3:10-11; Eze 18:25; Da 4:37; 9:14; Mal 2:17; Ro 3:6, NIV, Lucado Encouraging Word Bible, Comfort Print: Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV, Story of Jesus: Experience the Life of Jesus as One Seamless Story, NIV, The Story: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People, NIV, Beautiful Word Bible Journal, Galatians, Paperback, Comfort Print, NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, Red Letter Edition: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture, NIV, Beautiful Word Bible Journal, Revelation, Paperback, Comfort Print. then he. 2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. [18]It must be admitted that the long genealogical lists, which specify the origins of the entire human species (see, for instance, Gen. 4:18-5:32), stand in some tension with the above-offered claim. Abraham). "You shall not delay the offering from your harvest and your vintage. NASB, Zondervan NASB Study Bible, Red Letter Edition, NASB, Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible, 2nd Edition, Comfort Print: Holy Bible, New American Standard Bible, NASB, Super Giant Print Reference Bible, Red Letter Edition, 1995 Text, Comfort Print, NASB, Thinline Bible, Large Print, Red Letter Edition, 2020 Text, Comfort Print, NASB, Thinline Bible, Red Letter Edition, 1995 Text, Comfort Print, NASB, Thinline Bible, Red Letter Edition, 2020 Text, Comfort Print. Studying the real life of the giant among men, our founding father, Abraham the man of faith and kindness, would, in theory, give us an opportunity to uncover the God in which he places his trust. Douay-Rheims Bible And when he had destroyed the altars, and the groves, and had broken the idols in pieces, and had demolished all profane temples throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.
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