Terah, Abraham's Father's Homeland and What He's Remembered For

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

They were immigrants in Ur.  Terah was Abram's  father.  He left the city of Ur of the Chaldees that sat near the Euphrates River to travel to the land of Canaan with Abram and his nephew, Lot.  On the way they settled in the town of Haran where Terah died.  The book, the Aggadah, depicts Terah as a devout idolator challenged in his beliefs by Abram, later to be called Abraham.  The land of Ur has become a city in Iraq!!!  One can conclude that the male line (Y haplotype is J1) as suggested by DNA and genealogy.  

Haplogroup J1 (J-M267) is a Y-chromosome haplogroup that originated in the Near East, specifically in the northern parts of West Asia around 20,000 years ago. The major branch, J1a1a1-P58, evolved later, around 9,500 years ago, in the Arabian Peninsula, southern Levant, and southern Mesopotamia. 

 Terah is listed as the son of Nahor and father of the patriarch Abraham. As such, he is a descendant of Shem's son Arpachshad. Terah is mentioned in Genesis 11:26–27, Book of Joshua 24:2, and 1 Chronicles 1:17–27 of the Hebrew Bible; and Noah's 3 sons Noah's three sons, according to the Bible, were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. These three sons, along with their wives, and Noah and his wife, were the only survivors of the flood and would repopulate the earth, according to Genesis 9:18-29.  and Luke 3:34–36 in the New Testament.

Terah was an idol-maker.  In the stories, he scolded Abram when he came home because he found one of the idols smashed, lying on the floor.  Abram told him that the idol had a fight with the other one near him, and lost.  His father told him that he knew better;  the idols were only clay and couldn't move or fight.  ah ha!

When they left Haran, The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country and the people of your father's family. Go to the land that I will show you.

2 I will cause your descendants to become a great nation. I will bless you. Everyone will know your name. You will bring my blessing to other people. 3 I will bless those people who bless you. But I will curse anyone who insults you. Through you, I will bless all the families of people on the earth.’

4 Abram did what the Lord had told him. He left Haran. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran. Lot went with him. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot. He took everything that belonged to them. He also took the people that worked for them in Haran. They all left to go to the land of Canaan.
                                                                             

When they arrived in Canaan, 6 Abram walked through the land. He went as far as Shechem (renamed Nablus) , to the special oak tree of Moreh. At that time, Canaanites lived in this land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram there. He said, ‘I will give this land to your descendants.’ So Abram built an altar in that place to worship the Lord. He did that because the Lord had appeared to him.

Later, Abraham had a conversation with the pharaoh of Egypt and told him that they were a family of sheep-herders, which they were.  He was asked by the Pharaoh to also tend the Pharaoh's few cattle along his sheep.  Cattle and sheep do not get along, foraging differently for food, but he did well.  

His father, Terah, had come from sheep herders east of the Euphrates River that was between that river and the Tigris River-land.  The land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers was historically known as Mesopotamia, which is a Greek term meaning "between rivers". This region is also part of the larger Fertile Crescent, a crescent-shaped area where some of the earliest civilizations developed. 

In Bible literature, sheepherders, or shepherds, were individuals who tended flocks of sheep or goats. Many important figures from the Hebrew Bible, including Abraham, Moses, and King David, were also shepherds. Shepherding was a common occupation, and shepherds were often nomads, known for their simple lives and connection to the land. King David ruled from 1010 BCE to 970 BCE; or from 3,035 to 2,995 years ago.  

Mesopotamia was home to several early civilizations, most notably the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. The Sumerians are often considered the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia, and some believe they may have been the first human civilization. Other civilizations like the Akkadians and Babylonians later emerged in Mesopotamia, adopting and building upon aspects of Sumerian culture. 

As for Terah, it's likely that he came from the Babylonians of Mesopotamia since he found Ur a comfortable city to settle in, knowing the language and habits of thepeople.  Babylon was known as the land of Shinar or of the Kasdim (Chaldees). TheBook of Genesis regards it as the cradle of humanity and as the scene of man's firstrevolt against G0d as in "THE TOWER OF BABEL." 

       Evosheep,  cuniform writing about sheep telling how to be raised :   from the third millennium BCE to the second millennium BCE

Yes, Mesopotamia was generally good land for grazing sheep, particularly in the steppe regions. While the area was arid, sheep were well-adapted to surviving on limited resources, and areas like the steppe provided grazing land. They focused above all on the cultivation of cereals (particularly barley) and sheep farming, but also farmed legumes, as well as date palms in the south and grapes in the north.

Resource:

https://archeorient.hypotheses.org/24818

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Mesopotamia

On the Road to Canaan was Gaza

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                       

Abram or Abraham, as he was later called, faced the same problems back in 1948 BCE (20th millennium BCE) that many men of today are facing;  that of being fed up with their environment and planning to move to the countryside with their new family. This was about 4,000 years ago.                                           

Abram lived in a congested city of Ur, actually far enough away from the city of Babylon, (land of Shinar or of the Kasdim (Chaldees) which had become a den of iniquity.  "A den of iniquity" refers to a place where illegal or immoral activities take place. It's a phrase often used to describe a location with a reputation for wrongdoing, such as a brothel or a secret gambling den. The term can also be used figuratively to describe situations or organizations where wicked actions or unfair practices are prevalent. " Babylon influenced the Uranian people who were trying to copy their way of life. They sacrificed people  when they needed something from their many gods.  Abram's father, Terah, was an idolmaker.                                                                   

One day Terah had come home to find his latest work lying in shambles on the floor and was angry.  He questioned Abram about it, who said that they had argued and fought. You ought to know better than that!" said Terah.  It was then that Abram decided to take his father andfamily and leave for the hinterland of Canaan. When Abram left Ur (Haran) for Canaan, he was accompanied by his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all of their possessions and people they had acquired in Haran, according to the biblical account in Genesis 12. While his father Terah also initially left Ur with them, he settled in Haran and died there. Therefore, the number of people heading for Canaan from Haran with Abram was at least four: Abram, Sarai, Lot, and the unspecified number of household members they had acquired in Haran. 

                                          Tell es-Sakan in September 2017

Tell es-Sakan in Gaza was inhabited by the Canaanites from approximately 2600 BCE to 2300 BCE, reinhabiting an earlier Egyptian settlement.  Tell es-Sakan was the first archaeological site discovered in Gaza to that dates from the end of the Early Bronze Age I and Early Bronze Age II to III periods (spanning the 4th and 3rd millennia B.C.E.) – a poorly represented span in the region's archaeological record. Just think;  Abram was born in the 2nd millennium!                        

Gaza (2 miles from the sea)  was later populated by traders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, mentioned in Egyptian documents, later captured by the Philistines and built 5 cities, temple of Dagon, later allotted to tribe of Judah by Joshua, city where Samson lived and died, by 720 BCE annexed by Sargon II of Assyria-Sargon II, king of Assyria (721-705 BC) Sargon II ascended to the Assyrian throne in the midst of a countrywide rebellion. He built a lavish new residence city, Dur-Šarruken, but died on the battlefield just one year after its completion. Sargon (flourished 23rd century bce) was an ancient Mesopotamian ruler who reigned around 2334–2279 bce. He was one of the earliest of the world's great empire builders, conquering all of southern Mesopotamia as well as parts of Syria, Anatolia, and Elam (western Iran);  in 521BCE by Cambyses of Persia-Cambyses I (flourished 6th century bce) was a ruler of Anshan c. 600–559 bce. Cambyses was the son of Cyrus I and succeeded his father in Anshan (northwest of Susa in Elam) as a vassal of King Astyages of Media..  Alexander the Great recolonized it as a hellenistic city in 332 BCE-Alexander the Great lived from 356 BC to 323 BC. He was born in Pella, Macedonia, and died in Babylon. .  Annexed again by Antiochus III of Syria in 198 BCE-In 198 BCE, Antiochus III, the Seleucid king of Syria, defeated Scopas at the Battle of Panium, securing control of southern Syria and the end of Ptolemaic rule in Judea. He also used this time to expand his influence in Asia Minor.  Alexander Yannai captured it in 96 BCE-Alexander Yannai (Jannaeus) was the Hasmonean ruler of Judea (103–76 B.C.E.), son of John Hyrcanus; was high priest and king. According to Josephus, Yannai was hated by his father and for this reason was forced to spend his childhood in Galilee. When his eldest brother, Aristobulus, inherited the high priesthood from their father, he was imprisoned together with other brothers and his mother for fear they would attempt to seize power. Upon the death of Aristobulus, his widow, Salome Alexandra, designated Yannai as the successor, and the new high priest married his sister-in-law, in accordance with the Jewish rite of levirate., Pompey did not free Gaza in 61 BCE. In fact, he incorporated Gaza into the Roman Empire in 63 BCE, not 61 BCE.  Pompey's actions ended Jewish rule in Gaza and brought it under Roman control.  Following its conquest by Pompey, Gaza was rebuilt by the Roman governor Aulus Gabinius. 

 Jews lived in Gaza throughout the Middle Ages;  captured by Napoleon in 1799, center of Sabbetaism in 17th century, Jews left in 1917, some returning in Arab disturbances in 1929.  By 1949 it had a population of 30,000-swollen by many refugees.  Captured in November 1956 by Israel forces who remained there until March 1957. It was under Israeli rule during Six-Day War in  1967.  Census later in 1967 found 119,000.  From October to December 1948, Israel drove out Egyptians except the Gaza Strip.  It stayed in Egyptian rule from 1949 to November 1956 when captured by Israeli forces, returned in March 1957.  May 1967 Nasser withdrew the UN force with Israel.  By 1967 census showed 352,260 in Gaza Strip (172,520) were refugees. They have stayed and multiplied many times over.                                      

Canaan :  was an ancient Semitic-speaking civilization and region of the Southern Levant during the late 2nd millennium BCE, which is when Abram was born.   Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna Period (14th century BCE) as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Assyrian Empires converged or overlapped. Much of present-day knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo, En Esur, and Gezer.

Canaan, the name used then for today's Syria in the 15th to 13th century BCE (1500 BCE-1300 BCE),  while Abram left much earlier in about the 2000 BCE.  The native people were thoughto be descended from Canaan, son of Ham, son of Noah.  They had divided into 11 differentpeoples who occupied the area between the Nile and the Euphrates (Gen.10:15-19).  They became a mixture of Horites, Hittites, and Hebrews, dating back to the Hyksos period of the17th century BCE.  

 The description of ancient Gaza as being made up of "little city states" primarily refers to its time as part of the Philistine Pentapolis during the Iron Age, roughly from the 12th to 7th centuries BCE. 

In the Bible, Canaan is described as a land, often referred to as the "Promised Land," which God promised to Abraham and his descendants. It's characterized by fertile land and strategic location, but also inhabited by various peoples who were seen as a challenge to the Israelites' faith.                                                         

The Abraham Accords:  The Abraham Accords are a series of diplomatic agreements normalizing relations between Israel and several Arab and Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. They were signed on September 15, 2020, at the White House, with Donald Trump as a witness. The agreements aim to foster mutual understanding, cooperation, and peace in the region through diplomatic relations, trade, and cultural exchange. 

Resource;

The New Standard Jewish Encylopedia

World-Wide Human Sacrifice: Measure of Social Development in Cultures Part 1

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

Abraham of the 2nd millennium BCE, born in about 1948 BCE, over 4,000 years ago,  believed in human sacrifice.  He is known to have made the attempt to sacrifice his son, Isaac, so dear to Isaac's mother, Sarah and Abraham.  The story is told in order to relate that this act was the last try allowing human sacrifice.  It was not to be practiced thereafter.  For Abraham's descendants, that may have been true, but not for the rest of the world. 

The practice continued in Israel as they took in people from other cultures.   Foreign wives would bring the practice with them in Israel.  A Phoenician princess who worships Baal, the pagan god of fertility, Jezebel, daughter of king of Sidon- now in Lebanon (Phoenicians) ,  marries King Ahab,(876-853 BCE)  son of King Omri  of the northern kingdom of Israel. It was Omri that had forged an alliance with Sidon.  According to the Moabite Stone, he subdued Moab, today's Jordan. Worship of Moloch  was an extension of Baal worship.  The god, Moloch, especially Baal-Melkart, was from Sidon and was their god of hell.  

She persuades him to tolerate her alien faith of Baal worship, then becomes entwined in the vicious religious conflict that ends in her death.  Solomon (961-920 BCE)   had many wives, some that also brought such worship into Israel.  

The practice, seemingly coming from a genetically induced thought, (fear and overcoming it) continued to be practiced. This took place after Abram and Sarah had left Ur for good.  The Hebrew Bible mentions human sacrifice being carried out by Israelites several times; however, researchers do not agree on how often the practice occurred or whether it took place at all. Prophets fought against the practice constantly. As to the Temple, sacrifice continued but only with animals, meal offerings, and libations; never people.  

When Moses (1391-1271 BCE)  sent his spies out to view Canaan, they were also searching for answers:  belief in what gods and were they human being sacrificers...at least that's what Moses wanted to know;  and they were.  Evidence of this was not mentioned.    

Ur, Abraham's city of birth, The Great Death Pit at the ancient city of Ur, in modern-day Iraq, contains the remains of 68 women and six men, many of which appear to have been sacrificed. Dating back about 4,600 years, a variety of fantastic treasures, including a statuette known as the Ram in the Thicket, which is made of silver, shell, gold, lapis lazuli and carnelian, were found in the death pit. Archaeologists believe that the pit was used to bury Ur's rulers. (Sir Woolley's finds)   

Canaanites and Human Sacrifice: 

Canaanite belief in the god, Moloch included human sacrifice, especially of 1st born children to Moloch, through a passage of fire.  (Lev.18:21; and 20:3-5) but persisted in the northern kingdom and even in Jerusalem in a period where altars were built at Topheth in the valley of Hinnom.  Seems as if the whole world was under the cloud of sacrificing humans, wherever one went, and would not die out.                                         

Human sacrifice occurred around 5,000 years ago during Egypt's early history. Human sacrifices have been found by the graves of early pharaohs at Abydos, a city in southern Egypt that served at times as Egypt's capital and was the cult center for Osiris, the god of the underworld. The practice appears to have become less common or completely phased out by the time the Giza pyramids were built around 4,500 years ago.  Seems that Egypt was the original center of many things, a very early cultural center.  

AN AZTEC PRIEST REMOVING A MAN'S HEART DURING A SACRIFICIAL RITUAL, OFFERING IT TO THE GOD HUITZILOPOCHTLI. in 1521, only 500 years ago

The Aztecs of Central America much later on were known to practice human sacrifice on a large scale.  The rationale for Aztec human sacrifice was, first and foremost, a matter of survival. According to Aztec cosmology, the sun god Huitzilopochtli was waging a constant war against darkness, and if the darkness won, the world would end. The keep the sun moving across the sky and preserve their very lives, the Aztecs had to feed Huitzilopochtli with human hearts and blood.  So was from the fear that the workings of the cosmos would come to an end. They realized their dependency on the sun for life.  When the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1521, they described witnessing a grisly ceremony. Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their still-beating hearts to the gods. They then tossed the victims’ lifeless bodies down the steps of the towering Templo Mayor.  They practiced such sacrificing only 500 years ago. While most pre-Columbian historians believe that ritual cannibalism took place in the context of human sacrifices, they do not support Harris' thesis that human flesh was ever a significant portion of the Aztec diet.      

A  Native American sacrifice was going on  1,000 years ago.  A 10-foot (3 meters) mound called Mound 72 by modern-day archaeologists holds the remains of 272 people, many of them sacrificed. It is located at Cahokia, a city located near modern-day St. Louis, Missouri that flourished from A.D. 1050 to 1200.  The archaeology of the mound is complex, but it appears as if people were sacrificed gradually in a series of episodes. In one episode, 52 malnourished women ages 18 to 23, along with a woman in her 30s, were sacrificed at the same time. In another episode, it appears that 39 men and women were clubbed to death. The mound also holds the remains of two individuals who were buried with 20,000 shell beads. It's possible that some or all of the sacrifices were dedicated to the two individuals.  (Seems that the original reasoning of human sacrifice can evolve to suit a different reasoning).  

Archaeologists in China found hundreds of tombs, some of which held human sacrifices. One sacrificed victim was around 13 years old. Archaeologists have also found thousands of human sacrifices at Shang Dynasty (1600 – 1040 B.C.) around 3,600 years ago,  sites in the modern-day city of Anyang. The practice of human sacrifice seems to have stopped or become very rare by the time China was unified in 221 B.C. by Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. The first emperor's Terracotta army, made up of thousands of life-size clay warriors, allowed him to take an army with him to the afterlife without sacrificing real-life warriors. 

Hawaiian islanders practiced human sacrifice.  Periodically, they would throw a sacrifice into the volcano that threatened their lives.  Other forms of human sacrifice were also practiced here.  Captain Cook was shown the remains.  These graves marked where the bodies of those sacrificed lay, confirming human sacrifice was practiced in the Hawaiian Islands. The truth was that sacrifice was not uncommon. War captives and those that broke a kapu (taboos) were brutally sacrificed. Methods ranged from strangulation to bone breaking and removal of intestines. Significant events like the dedication of a war temple to the tiki war god Ku were considered appropriate times for sacrifices. The practice of human sacrifice persisted until the collapse of the kapu system after the death of King Kamehameha in May 1819.  (Why is it that I feel this had evolved into punishment and sadism along with"sacrifice"? ) 

Stonehenge is a possible center.  Stonehenge was constructed between roughly 5,000 and 4,000 years ago, and was part of a sacred landscape that included shrines, burials and additional circles made of stone or wood. Not all archaeologists are convinced that human sacrifice took place at Stonehenge, but future research into the nearby landscape and its burials may help resolve the debate. The skeleton of a man found buried in a ditch at Stonehenge has been interpreted by Jacqueline McKinley, an osteoarchaeologist with Wessex Archaeology, as a sacrificial victim. The man, who McKinley said was 5 foot 10 inches and had a robust muscular build, was shot repeatedly with arrows. McKinley interprets the location of his burial and nature of his execution as indicating that he was killed as part of a human sacrifice. Her research was featured in 2014 in a Smithsonian channel documentary showing a re-creation of his sacrificial execution.                                    

The upper part of the teenager’s skull was missing, while the body was laid among two lines of stones on an east-west axis, with stone slabs covering the pelvis. Photograph: Uncredited/AP.  The discovery of a 3,000-year-old skeleton in Greece has excited archeologists, who believe that the finding may confirm one of the darkest legends of antiquity.

Skeletal remains 'confirm ancient Greeks engaged in human sacrifice'. Bones found on Mount Lykaion – where animal offerings to Zeus were also made – but some are urging caution over how to interpret the discovery.  Bremmer said that until now, most studies of human sacrifice in ancient Greece had concluded that it was probably fiction.    

Resource:

Genesis: ( 22:1-19) 

https://www.history.com/news/aztec-human-sacrifice-religionhttps://www.livescience.com/59514-cultures-that-practiced-human-sacrifice.html

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/10/skeletal-remains-confirm-ancient-greeks-engaged-in-human-sacrifice#:~:text=Bremmer%20said%20that%20until%20now,not%20common%20among%20the%20Greeks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argei

http://www.mythichawaii.com/kahuna-Liholiho.htm

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Celts_and_human_sacrifice#Greco-Roman_antiquity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch