Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [80]
The biblical patriarch Abram—his name was later changed to Abraham, Hebrew for “father of a multitude”—is one of the most revered men in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What generations of believers may not know about this man, hailed as the “father of all nations,” is that he was from ancient Mesopotamia. According to Genesis, Abraham came from the city of Ur in Sumer, and was born in a direct line descended from Adam. According to Genesis, he then received a divine message to go to Canaan, a land that God promised to Abraham and his descendants. He dutifully obeyed God’s every command and was richly rewarded with many children and great herds.
But there is no specific proof outside the Bible or Koran that such a person existed. His name and exploits appear nowhere in Mesopotamia’s surviving tablets. While some scholars maintain that there was an actual Abraham, it is generally believed that he was a legendary figure. Supporters of the position that Abraham truly existed say that certain aspects of his life and travels fit within the framework of Mesopotamian history. References to many of the specific customs mentioned in the biblical story, including the idea that a man could have a legitimate heir conceived by his wife’s servant—as Abraham did—buttress their position.
Of course, to believers, the “historical” Abraham doesn’t matter as much as what he represents—a pioneer of faith. That faith is underscored in a crucial biblical event heavy with mythic overtones—the story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. By agreeing to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac at God’s request, Abraham passes what is viewed as the supreme test of individual faith.
The aborted sacrifice of Isaac and the substitution of an animal in his place is, in the view of most scholars, the symbolic moment in which the ancient Jewish people rejected human sacrifice. In many of the cults and religions of the ancient Near East, including Mesopotamia, human sacrifice was practiced. In most of these cultures, the victims were ritually killed in a way that was meant to appease the gods, often to assure the fertility of the crops. In Mesopotamia, the whole purpose of human existence was to provide the gods with the necessities of life.
But back to the essential question: Did Abraham of Mesopotamia exist? Or was he the invention of Hebrew writers who created a “foundation myth” to justify Israel’s presence in the lands it eventually conquered? Doubts linger. And perhaps—barring some remarkable archaeological discovery—it is an unanswerable question. Given the historical background of Mesopotamian life and society, many of the details of Abraham’s story certainly have the historical ring of truth. Chances are that a man named Abraham—or an ancient Semitic version of that name—may well have existed and, like Gilgamesh or King Arthur, he was turned into a national legend over the centuries.
The story of Abraham ultimately stands as one more example of how one man’s myth is another man’s faith.
MYTHIC VOICES
Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and worshipped the Baals, and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and bowed down to them and they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord, and worshipped Baal and the Astartes.
—Book of Judges 2:11–13
Who were El and Baal?
Any discussion of the myths of Mesopotamia would not be complete without discussing Canaan, the “Promised Land” that Abraham and his descendants had been granted by God. Located as a sort of land bridge connecting the great empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt, Canaan was both a battleground and a bustling bazaar that felt the influence of the great empires around it. Set in this crossroads