Setting: Genesis 11:28
Extra-biblical Sources:
Midrash Ha-Gadol, Genesis 12:1
All of the priestly families have respected the house of Terah. What good fortune for Amathlai, it was thought, that she should be married to this great man.
Midrash Ha-Gadol, Genesis 12:1
All of the priestly families have respected the house of Terah. What good fortune for Amathlai, it was thought, that she should be married to this great man.
Her firstborn - Haran - was strong and kind; an exemplary citizen. Nahor and Abram followed, and were no less strong or kind than Haran. Theirs is a family of extreme hospitality. Even as a young boy, Abram walked calmly when going about his own business, but ran with great haste in the service of others, and this habit he maintained into manhood, despite the fact that it is undignified for our men to run except in war.
It was Abram, more than his brothers, who spent his youth in the ziggurat, close to his mother, contemplating the mysteries of Nanna. He was an avid student of religion, full of wonder and curiosity at the mystery of the Annunaki.
“If Nanna is covered in melam, then how does he shine brightly in the sky at night?” “Why is Nanna round and shiny in the sky, but he also looks like a man, and a cow when we carve him?” “When Nanna is round and shiny, how does he walk without legs? Does another god push him across the sky, or does he roll?”
With time his questions became more sophisticated, but he continued to ask them, until eventually he was asking them of the men of Ur instead of his mother and the gentler priestesses of Nanna.
As time passed he became obsessed with Enki, insisting - as do the more enthusiastic priests of Enki - that it was he who gave to each of the other gods their allotted territories. He began to declare plainly that Enki was a greater god than all others, whose authority was universal and unrivaled. Abram would point out that the moon rules only at night and the sun only during the day, but there is never a time when water does not extinguish fire, or quench man’s thirst, or support the earth, surrounding it both above and below as a backdrop for all else.
“Foolish boy,” was most often the reply, for most men understand that the world is a place of roughly equivalent competing forces. Man is caught in the middle of a great struggle between this god and that, and it is fitting that it should be so, for if Nimsu were unrivaled all would be burned, and if Enki were unrivaled, the great flood would never have receded.
It is the very beginning of wisdom to understand that balance pervades the cosmos, else it could not be sustained at all.
It is the very beginning of wisdom to understand that balance pervades the cosmos, else it could not be sustained at all.
When Abram was confronted with Enki’s failure to destroy mankind, as he had clearly hoped to do in the flood, Abram insisted that Enki had actually partnered with Utnapishtim, warning him in advance to build the ark and save the animals. Apparently Abram had gotten this idea from his great-grandfather, Serug.
Truthfully, the more knowledgeable students of religion would admit when pressed that this same idea was common in other parts of the world, but in general it was frowned upon to give Abram more reason to pursue his destabilizing ideas.
Truthfully, the more knowledgeable students of religion would admit when pressed that this same idea was common in other parts of the world, but in general it was frowned upon to give Abram more reason to pursue his destabilizing ideas.
Yet more disturbing than his obsession with Enki was the boy’s total disregard of sacred statues. It was not uncommon for him to point out that idols are created by the hands of men, rather than men by the hands of idols. We patiently explained that the presence of the Annunaki would come and inhabit the form once it was shaped, but there was something in Abram that could not accept this fact. He was insistent that idols were inanimate because uninspired.
It was not surprising to learn that Abram had aligned himself with the cult of El. For now that I think of it, there is much in that religion that aligns with Abram’s thinking. Followers of El insist that he is the God of gods, that he is responsible for the great flood, and that he is a friend of Utnapishtim, whom they call by the strange name ‘Noach.’ Most strangely of all, they insist that no images be made of El, for he keeps his appearance secret.
They also deny that sacred prostitution has any place in his worship, and this, too, aligns with Abram’s thinking. While as a young boy it is true that he gazed in wonder at the priestesses when they exhibited themselves before the assembly, I have never seen him visit their chambers, and he has asked on more than one occasion why the Annunaki should need us to perform such rights when they might just as soon perform them themselves.
It is hard to watch a young man take such a troubling path. It is even harder to watch his mother as she watches him. How could such a kind and gentle soul as Abram, who exhibits respect for his fathers and his fellow man, disregard the very truths to which his mother devotes her life?
What could I say to Amathlai as I embraced her one last time that night? There transpired between us a knowing look of tragedy.
For the house of Terah must depart from Ur, that much was clear. Scarcely could Terah’s servants postpone Nimrod’s men from burning his house to the ground long enough to remove his household gods and a few other precious items. They departed, driving with them as many as they could wrangle of their countless livestock, and camped, I suppose, not far outside of Ur as they decided where to go next.
May the Annunaki look down and bless that righteous woman and her family.