Nadene Goldfoot
Abraham was the first to break away from the usual way of thinking. He explained it as G-d talking to him, and this in itself can be the subject of a never-ending discussion of belief, but the end result is that he came to the conclusion that there was one super power in the world, a power alone that created the universe, from the ants in the ground to people. This was because God was a new concept. People spoke of gods. To appease the gods was something they did constantly. To question and come to conclusions evidently was breaking the mold of the people, as he was at least remembered and recorded in people's minds as the first to create a new belief.
The construction of the ziggurat was finished in the 21st century BC by King Shulgi, who, in order to win the allegiance of cities, proclaimed himself a god. During his 48-year reign, the city of Ur grew to be the capital of a state controlling much of Mesopotamia. Many ziggurats were made by stacking mud-bricks up and using mud to seal them together.
This one superpower or God's creation included the sky, stars, sun, moon, air, water, everything one could see, hear, taste, smell. There was only one god to please, a power that was unseen.
He knew this because his father made idols out of clay, and his customers were as naive as could be, thinking that by praying to them, they would be heard and would grant their wishes. People were fearful beings, just as a child needed their parent for protection, so did people need their long-gone protection, deceased parents, and idols became the substitute. He knew that the clay used to create idols had no power because he had bumped into one, causing it to crash into another and they both broke. Nothing happened. They were just pieces of broken clay.
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No one in his extended family listened to him. So he decided that his children would not be brought up with such people, so took his father, Terah, wife Sarah and children and left his home. They migrated to Canaan, west of Ur of the Chaldees where they lived.
Isaac was born to Sarah and Abram, a 1st generation immigrant. Jacob was born to Isaak and Rebecca, 2nd generation immigrant. Twelve sons were born to Jacob through 4 women; Leah, Rachel, and their two handmaids, Zilpah and Bilhah. A daughter, Dinah, was also born to Leah. This history was remembered and written down as writing had been going on in Egypt for many years. One's ancestry was very important to people in those days. Names included names of fathers, such as David, son of Moshe.
One day, he had heard G-d tell him to sacrifice his son, Isaac. That was something that went on back in his old home in Ur, and now he was asked to give his son up, the son he had wanted for so long. It turned out to be a test of whether or not he still believed in God, the one God of his belief. He did believe that he had to do what he was asked, as he prepared the kindling on the altar and was ready to swipe his flint on a rock and cause a fire. His son, Isaac, was actually compliant, depending on his father who was usually so sane and fair. Abraham didn't follow through, stopped, he said, by an angel. Abraham never tried to sacrifice another person again, and neither did his sons. That was the end of this family line's sacrificial practices.
How do atheists explain the universe? Do they even try or do they just accept it as their world without any pondering? Greeks may have been the first to ponder and ask questions besides Abraham who lived in another part of the world.
In Egyptian mythology, the universe emerged from a vast cosmic ocean of nothingness. For countless eons, the creator-sun god
The Greeks believed in another dimension full of gods who controlled our world. In the beginning there was Chaos, a yawning nothingness. Out of the void emerged
As for the Romans, We think, with some justification, of the Greeks as thinkers and the Romans as doers. This doesn’t mean the Romans were ignorant. They commonly used Greek slaves as teachers for their children, and Greek learning was known to educated people throughout the Roman Empire – partly because the Greeks themselves lived throughout the Empire. The Ptolemys ruling Egypt, who included Cleopatra, were Greeks.
Bronze and Iron Age religion in Europe as elsewhere was predominantly polytheistic (Ancient Greek religion, Ancient Roman religion, Basque mythology, Finnish paganism, Celtic polytheism, Germanic paganism, etc.). The Roman Empire officially adopted Christianity in AD 380.
Jewish understandings of creation are based on the Genesis account and reflect different views of that account. Is it a parable or must it be interpreted literally? The one belief central to Judaism is that Elohim (God) created the world and that human beings are Elohim’s special creation. How and when creation occurred, on the other hand, is the subject of a fascinating range of explanations.
Christianity: Like Jews, Christians base their understandings of the creation on the Genesis account. A fundamental belief is that God created the universe out of nothing, reflected in the classic doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. Some Christians read the Genesis account very literally.
Resource:
https://www.memphis.edu/hypostyle/meaning_function/model-universe.php#:~:text=In%20Egyptian%20mythology%2C%20the%20universe,out%20of%20the%20cosmic%20sea.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/big-history-project/what-is-big-history/origin-stories/a/origin-story-greek#:~:text=In%20the%20beginning%20there%20was,)%2C%20who%20then%20fertilized%20her.
https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/early-greek-idols-re-ocr-last-few-pages/#:~:text=Idols%20were%20most%20commonly%20given,were%20built%20in%20ancient%20Greece.
https://robinhl.com/2012/01/30/what-the-romans-knew-of-the-universe/
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