From Abraham to Jacob, Moses Wrote of Children's Behavior And How They Grew Into A Valiant People

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

  Terah , Abraham, Sarah  leaving Ur of the Chaldees near the Euphrates River for Canaan, a trek of 897 miles !  Figure: 10-15 days to walk 300 miles;    So, it would take at least a month to go 900 miles.  Hopefully, they traveled with wagons and camels, of course.  At some point around 3500 B.C. in Mesopotamia, wheels were added to sleds to make the first carts. Wheeled vehicles were soon used in warfare. These early wheeled vehicles gave rise to animal-powered chariots and wagons, allowing people to travel far from their homes. This helped to build great empires.  

The Land of Israel (Hebrew: אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Modern: ʾEreṣ/Eretz Yisraʾel, Tiberian: ʾEreṣ Yisrāʾēl) is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land.  Palestine should not be used until after the year 135 when the Romans named it for the Philistines, vindictively.   (see also Israel (disambiguation)). The definitions of the limits of this territory vary between passages in the Hebrew Bible, with specific mentions in Genesis 15, Exodus 23, Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 47. Nine times elsewhere in the Bible, the settled land is referred as "from Dan to Beersheba", and three times it is referred as "from the entrance of Hamath unto the brook of Egypt" (1 Kings 8:65, 1 Chronicles 13:5 and 2 Chronicles 7:8).

Abram/ Abraham changed his outlook of religion.  His father, Terah, was an idol maker, and one day, Moses, accidently knocked over an idol which of course, broke. 

 His father yelled at him when he got home, and Abram said that the other idol in the room had hit this idol and knocked it down!  Fast thinking, but maybe Abraham was thinking about how people could bow and pray to the clay statue that his father had formed.  G-d had spoken to Abram.  When he was married to Sarah, daughter of Haran, and  also son of Terah, he talked his father into leaving with them and head out for Canaan.  He wanted to get away from these narrow-minded people who all believed in these idols so that they could have a good life.  

Abram had married his niece, the beautiful Sarai while in Haran.  Much later, when they thought Sarah had missed the window of conceiving,  they had a son, Isaac.

Sarah had proved to be barren.  Earlier, when Sarai had given up hope, she had told Abram to take her handmaid, Hagar,  who could conceive as she was young.  She bore Ishmael. When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him. 

On that very day Abraham took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household or bought with his money, every male in his household, and circumcised them, as God told him. Abraham and his son Ishmael were both circumcised on that same day. (Gen. 17-10-14)

They were set apart as a people by being circumcised. (an uncircumsised male who will not circumcise the flesh of his foreskin--that soul shall be cut off from its people-he has invalidated My covenant.)  

 At the age of 90, Sarai had the surprise of her life by giving birth to Isaac who was circumcised at 8 days.  Abram was tested by G-d by telling him to sacrifice Isaac, and he just about used his knife but stopped, said to stop through intervention of an angel (Esau's guardian angel).   

Isaac in turn, at age 40,  married Rebekah and Jacob and his twin, Esau were  born.   Famine drove Isaac from the Negev to the Philistine country. The twins were not identical but fraternal twins,  and were complete opposites, having difficulties throughout their life.  

Ishmael, jealous of the new-born half-brother, Isaac, pinched and bothered him so much that Abraham had to lead away both Hagar and his son away from the camp.  With the age difference and different mothers, they were not about to be friends.  

Esau and Jacob, fraternal twins, the oldest by minutes, lost his birthright and firstborn's special blessing because of the cleverness of Jacob, causing the worst kind of friction between them.  Esau was out to kill Jacob, who realized this and had fled back to Haran.  They met again 20 years later.  The twins symbolize the two nations' relationship who develop to the point of great hostility. 

Genesis 26:34–35 describes Esau's marriage at the age of forty to two Hittite Canaanite women: Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. This arrangement grieved his parents.  In Gen.35, he is identified with the Edomites.  Esau was born into a godly family, but turned to the more material path, and that his Hittite wives led him completely away from the belief of One G-d that Abraham had introduced and Isaac followed.   It only took Esau, a 2nd generation to ignore his parents' path of religion.  This shows that children all have their own minds and do not always stick together in practices and beliefs.   

Basemath (Gen.26:34) 1st of Esau's wives.  Tradition has it that Esau had hunted, eaten, and drunk for years with sons of Elon, his wife's brothers,  and also had sworn, sacrificed and vowed to their false gods of the fields and groves.  Having outdone her brothers in his debaucheries, Esau finally had brought Bashemath, a Canaanite, and Judith, daughter of Beeeri, another Canaanite, into the covenanted camp of his father.   

Judith (Gen.27:1) had grieved and vexed Esau's parents.  Judith did not worship the one G-d.. The account of Esau losing 1st born blessing   comes immediately after marrying his Hittite wives (Genesis 26:34).               

Jacob, after returning to Haran, married his uncle Laban's 2 daughters, separately, Leah and Rachel.  By them and their handmaids, Bilhah and Zilpah, he had 12 sons, progenitors of the 12 tribes-and a daughter, Dinah.  He returned home, which would have been the Negev, and he struggled with a heavenly emissary and overcame him,  and was rewarded with the name of Israel.  His son, Joseph disappeared, but finally Jacob was reunited with him in Egypt where Joseph  had become Pharaoh's chief minister.  Jacob settled in Goshen in Lower Egypt, dying there at the age of 147.  His body was taken back to Hebron and buried in the Cave of Machpelah.  The name, Jacob, has been found in Akkadian and Egyptian sources and is in the Torah.  

By a 2nd generation, especially if a family has had to divide and live in many parts of the country, can lose sight of the religion of their fathers.  One hopes that a 1st-born son will follow through, but not always.  As in Isaac's story, if the son has married outside his faith, chances are that without that special helpmate, the practices might become lost.  

What we're facing is what Abram and Sarai faced with Ishmael- a generation cut apart from the family and taking on another religion, or not accepting all the customs which managed to hold the family together as a religious unit.  It doesn't take much, just a generation or 2 and they are lost to the family values.  We went through this during the Greek era of Hellenizing.  Now, with the Holocaust destroying families, it's leaving people either to practice Judaism or to become atheistic, or at odds with Judaism.

Our holidays of celebration have managed to hold us together.  Passover is one of them that goes through our history and teaches us of our ancestors and what they did and why we are to remember them.  We celebrate with a feast at a dinner table with a book and food:  

The Seder Plate holds:  3 matzos and:a bowl of salt water-representing the tears of slaves-dip the karpas into it, 

1. Maror - Bitter herbs, which symbolize the bitterness of the slavery that the Jews endured in Egypt. To represent maror, many people use grated horseradish or a whole horseradish root.
2. Charoset - A sweet, brown paste-like mixture that represents the mortar used by the Jewish slaves to build structures in Egypt. While recipes for charoset do vary, it typically includes some combination of apples, nuts, red wine, and spices. Dates and raisins are other common charoset ingredients.
3. Karpas - A leafy vegetable, often parsley or celery, that is a symbol of spring and hope. It is dipped in liquid (typically salt water) at the beginning of the Seder.
4. Zeroa - A roasted lamb bone that represents the special Paschal sacrifice on the eve of the exodus from Egypt.
5. Beitzah - A hard-boiled egg that symbolizes the temple sacrifice and rebirth.

At my Passover Seder 2018, end of meal as I see the coconut macaroons on the table

Family Seders are when a family gets together
 

Families hold a seder on the first and sometimes second night of Passover. It is fundamentally a religious service set around a dinner table, where the order in which participants eat, pray, drink wine, sing, discuss current social justice issues and tell stories is prescribed by a central book called the Haggadah. 

The seder is time to reflect our history of a major event, the Exodus. It's a time of role play, as we imagine we were there.  Food on the table reminds of of what we went through. Each speaks to us in reminding what happened.   The more we do, the more meaningful our history becomes.   Our history book is the Haggadah (Haggadah shel Pesach) which tells the story. 

From time immemorial, Jews have celebrated Passover in memory of their liberation from slavery in Egypt, as described in the book of Exodus in the Bible.  throughout the festival, matzah (unleavened bread) is eaten instead of ordinary bread, to recall the hurried baking of matzah during the Exodus itself. A really great Seder takes over an hour between  going through our textbook Haggadah and eating including all the historic elements. We learn that on the last night in Egypt, each Jewish household ritually slaughtered a lamb and then consumed it at a family gathering.  This ritual was commemorated in Temple times by each householder in the sacrifice of a lamb at the Temple on Passover Eve.  Then lamb was then eaten at a festive gathering of the family or by a group of friends, who spent the evening recalling the memory of the historic deliverance with prayers and psalms.  this banquet---reverent in purpose and joyful in practice---has been perpetuated through the ages in the Seder ceremony.    

Jews from all over the world have clamored to return and many have.  Somehow through the ages, they held onto their religion, or at least parts of it.  According to statistics presented by the Population and Immigration Authority, 57,223 people immigrated to Israel from May 2022 until the beginning of January 2023 – 41,813 from Russia, 13,490 from Ukraine and 1,990 from Belarus. Of these immigrants, 32% (18,149) are currently not residing in Israel.That means 68% of the 57,223 are still there.  Even if they only last 5 years, it will be a life-changing experience for them that should bring them much closer to the culture and religion and value system of Jews, and more of a personal identification that most all people are looking for. It's pretty exciting when so many people in a town in Israel are Spring Cleaning, and stores are full of Passover goodies.  I made aliyah in September of 1980 and had to return by Thanksgiving 1985.

This year of 2023 is another where Ramadan, Passover and Easter come at the same time.  Ramadan, a month-long festival, lasts from Evening of Wed, Mar 22, 2023 - Evening of Thu, Apr 20, 2023.  Passover's 1st seder is  Evening of Wed, Apr 5, 2023 - Evening of Thu, Apr 13, 2023, and Easter is Sun, Apr 9, 2023. On April 9th, all three religions will be celebrating.  

A Chanukah Story: Taking On the Greeks

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

Israel was a great and mighty empire under King David and his son, King Solomon.  A kingdom made up of 12 tribes, the best of the northern 10 were  kidnapped; taken as hostages or slaves in 721 BCE by the Assyrians, leaving the two left, Benjamin and Judah, to fend for themselves.  The Israelites differed from other people in that they were monotheistic; they believed in one G-d, while the others were all polytheistic.                          

  Benjamin and Judah joined for security, but were also forced to leave their land by the Babylonians in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE who had taken the place of the Assyrians. The siege of Jerusalem was a military campaign carried out by Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, in 597 BCE. Before, In 605 BCE, he had defeated Pharaoh Necho at the Battle of Carchemish, and subsequently invaded Judah. Unlike Israelites, the Judeans were given the green light by the next king  to return to Jerusalem by 538 BCE, 59 years later.  Many did not return who had not been born and raised there, but remained in Babylonia.

                                                

Those that returned to Judea were to face the Greeks 374 years later. In 164 BCE, Judah Maccabee crushed the numerically superior Greeks under Lysias at the Battle of Beth Zur and restored the temple in Jerusalem.  This is celebrated each year since then with the holiday of Chanukah.   Not only were the Greeks superior in numbers, but they should also have been  superior in war tactics with their well developed logical minds, honed by Plato and Aristotle.                                            

The Seleucid Greeks has used elephants in their attack.  The war elephants unnerved Judah's troops. As the Jews began to break for the rear, Maccabee's younger brother, Eleazar Horan, attempted to show his fellow men that the elephants were vulnerable. 1 Maccabees 6:43–47 tells how, charging into the mouth of the Syrian assault, he spotted a large elephant bearing the royal seal. Eleazar cast himself under the animal and thrust his sword into its soft belly.

                                                

                          Tapestry that tells the story.  In 163 BCE, the enemy king Lysias, with 120,000 men and 32 war elephants, met with the Israelite leader Judas and his army close to Jerusalem. Although Judas' men killed 600 enemy soldiers, they were forced to retreat into the city. During this battle, Judas' younger brother, Eleazer, died when he single-handedly attacked a large elephant that he believed to be carrying the enemy king. (1 Macabees 6:46).

 The elephant died immediately and fell onto Eleazar, killing him. This show of bravery was not enough to rally the Jewish forces, which collapsed under the heavy pressure of the Greek phalanx.  Logic should have forewarned Eleazar, but he didn't think it out. He acted out of impulse.   How would the elephant act after being stabbed? Eleazar was  the brother of Judah, the Maccabee.  This story is not in the Tanakh but the original Hebrew is lost and the most important surviving version is the Greek translation contained in the Septuagint. (No wonder it was new to me-though in my Jewish Encyclopedia.)  

The Greeks were known for their logic and their teachers.  Plato 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BCE) was an Athenian philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, founder of the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.                                                                                   

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.), while also interested in ethics, studied different sciences like physics, biology, and astronomy. He is often credited with developing the study of logic, as well as the foundation for modern-day zoology.   

Fragments of early proofs are preserved in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and the idea of a deductive system was probably known in the Pythagorean school and the Platonic Academy. The proofs of Euclid of Alexandria are a paradigm of Greek geometry.  

While the ancient Egyptians empirically discovered some truths of geometry, the great achievement of the ancient Greeks was to replace empirical methods by demonstrative proof. Both Thales and Pythagoras of the Pre-Socratic philosophers seem aware of geometry's methods.    Yet, the Greeks were polytheistic.  They believed in many gods.  Everyone did at this time, except the Jews.       

     14 of the many Greek gods: Zeus, Hera, Ares, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Demeter, Hephaestus, Athena, Hermes, Persephone, Posidon, Artemis, Hades, Apollo

• Zeus- God of the Sky;  Poseidon- God of the Sea.; Ares- God of War.; Aphrodite- Goddess of Love.; Hera- Goddess of Women.; Demeter- Goddess of Harvest.; Athena- Goddess of Strategy.
• Apollo- God of the Sun, Music and Poetry.; 
• Artemis- Goddess of the Hunt; Hephaestus- God of Fire; Hermes- the Messenger God
• Dionysus- God of Wine; Persephone (aka Kore) was the Greek goddess of agriculture and vegetation, especially grain, and the wife of Hades, with whom she rules the Underworld.
• Hades, Greek Aïdes (“the Unseen”), also called Pluto or Pluton (“the Wealthy One” or “the Giver of Wealth”), in ancient Greek religion, god of the underworld. Hades was a son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and brother of the deities Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera, and Hestia.
  
  
  
• Not only did they believe in multiple gods but they also used idols, and every god called for a temple to worship it in. 
•  Jews had left a world of polytheism when they left the city of Ur, led by Abram, born in about 1948 BCE.  For the past 1,784 years, Israelites had been monotheistic, believing in one G-d, an invisible G-d.                                       
  
• They had a teacher named Moses who taught them facts that he was told by the one and only G-d that only he received in his head.                                       
  
• It started one day when Abram's father, Terah, an idol maker, had left Abram in charge of the idol's that were stored in a room in their home.  Abram accidently knocked one over and being made of clay, it cracked into many pieces.  When Terah came home and saw what had happened, he questioned Abram, who replied, Father, that one on the floor and this one had a fight, and that one knocked this one down.  Abram and Terah knew that they were only clay objects without any power as Terah had made them, but people put all their faith into these objects.    

All this development of the thinking process in solving problems, yet they still believed in a polytheistic religion made up of many gods who were in charge of all of nature's actions.  They could not conceive of a one G-d of the universe.  Furthermore, they wanted all other peoples to believe as they did.  

Jews, today's Israelites,  are so monotheistic that they don't even believe in drawing pictures of G-d.  They don't use G-d's name in vain.  

                                                

• Jupiter/ Zeus. ...Juno/ Hera. ...Neptune/ Poseidon. ...Minerva/ Athena. ...Mars/ Ares. ...
• Venus/ Aphrodite. ...Apollo / Apollo. ...Diana/ Artemis.

The Romans developed enough to take on the Greeks, and they became the rulers of the world, using their teachers and people as their slaves, and even borrowed aspects of their religion to add onto their very similar polytheistic religion.  About the only thing that changed were the names of the many gods.                    

                                   

They had really humanized their gods, knowing that work must be delegated to those with the skills, they could not comprehend a force that could do all.  Well, I could not comprehend TV when my father tried to explain it to me, in view that we would be getting one in a few years.  i thought he was crazy, at the time.  My brain had to grow, to develop, the dendrites had to have a workout before I  could accept that we at home would have movies like we did in the movie theater. And as I have grown, I am in awe of Moses and the Israelites who accepted such a new idea and stuck with it.  No one else could.  Judah Maccabee saved the day. if he hadn't stopped the Syrian Greeks when he did, we might all still be worshipping Greek or Roman gods.  

                                              

The amazing story of Chanukah is that when the Israelites took out the idols that were placed in their holy Temple, they cleaned it thoroughly but found only  drop or two of oil in their eternal light holder, so they sent runners to fetch more.  Those few drops lasted the 8 days and nights that it took the runners to return with oil.  It was a miracle.  So we remember with a Chanukiah,  made with 9 holders to tell this story. The tall piece holds the helper candle that does the lighting.   Each night we light one more; first night with 1, next night with 2, etc.  It's a happy holiday and celebrated with gifts.  

Resource:

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

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

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

https://web.archive.org/web/20070929115110/http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/fortitude/whoswho.asp

Prophets Elijah Elisha,and Malachi Do We Have Any Prophet-Like Leaders Today

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                       

Worship of Baal in northern Israel with Jezebel's introduction to it. 
It became too popular in northern Israel
Cutting themselves away from Jerusalem caused them
to fill in the need with this opposing religion
Jezebel was a native of the Canaanites who worshipped Baal.  It was a principal god of the sky and fertility sect.  It was originally a name for the many local gods, usually represented in the form of a bull or a man with the main common characteristic of being worshiped as gods of fertility, both of the field and the womb.  After the Israelites entered Canaan they tended to adopt the deities or Bealim of the local natives, even though the prophets protested loudly.  Later this was identified with the Greek god, Zeus, the Abomination of Desolation set up in the Temple by Antiochus which was that of a Baal Shamin, the Lord of Heaven. 

Jezebel, King Ahab's wife and Queen  of the northern kingdom of Israel, had the chutzpah to introduce her cult of worshipping Baal, one of the many gods that her people worshipped, to Israel.  
                                                   

King Ahab had married her to keep the peace of the area, something kings did in those days. He was weak and didn't stop her.  She was beautiful and clever.  She could get him to give her anything she wanted.  Sexy doesn't describe her enough.  
                                                     

   
The Canaanites were steeped in sacrificing human beings in the cult of Moloch.  For starters this was the name of one of the many gods, later for one of the aspects of Baal-used for the Sidonian god of hell.  The Canaanites sacrificed first born children to Moloch by passing them through fire.  The practice is strictly forbidden in the bible in Leviticus, but persisted both in the northern kingdom and even for a time in Jerusalem where altars were built to Moloch at Topheth in the valley of Hinnom.  To the ancient mind, a cult without sacrifice was unthinkable, but the Jews gave sacrificing a monotheistic tendency and concentrated them in the Jerusalem Temple instead.  No animals were slaughtered except by sacrifice until the time of the Mosaic Law.  Moses or G-d attempted to wean them away from human sacrifice.   The sacrifices were of either animal, meal-offerings, or libations.  All animal-offerings had to be perfect and unblemished and were divided into the highest class of sacrifice;  burnt offerings, sin-offerings, guilt-offerings, congregational peace offerings, and sacrifices of a minor grade-a person's sin offering, the first born, animal tithes, and the paschal lamb.  

The prophetical condemnation of sacrifice can perhaps be connected with its similarities to Canaanite worship and the desire of the prophets to purify the Jewish cult.  As explained by Maimonides, the true objective was to attain to the worship that is in the heart.  He was Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon (1186-1237) Court physician to the Sultan Alkamil, who wrote many works in Arabic including the book of Satisfaction for the G-dfearing, an encyclopedic work on Judaism and commentaries on the Pentateuch, the Talmud and his father's book .  

The prophet Elijah,  in that 9th century BCE, known as the Tishbite, was striving his best to restore the purity of Divine worship, something losing out to the many distractions found in northern Israel from the natives.  Ahab felt it had to be this way to help out his political objectives to tolerate the cults of the neighboring peoples in the country, and now with Elijah's interference, he was livid, actively opposing Elijah.  
                                                        
Ahab's rebuttal was so strong that it forced Elijah to flee the land and take refuge in the desert..  The climax of his efforts to free Divine worship from alien influences was the great assembly on Mt. Carmel when Elijah turned to the people asking, "HOW LONG HALT YE BETWEEN 2 OPINIONS?"  Eventually, with the help of his supporters, slew the prophets of Baal.  

Today's people share the same temptations of putting their trust into other areas such as drugs, money, and getting away from all the things that make up a safe community and there are very few Elijah's around to slay the tempters offering these things.  Instead, we have TV and radio commercials singing their praises for them and urging people to do them.  
                                                         

Elijah

What surprises me is that Elijah , with his supporters, which sounds like a small unit of armed men, killed the opposing prophets.  Isn't that the same as murder?  Was it okay to do because they were interfering with the laws of Moses?  We'd never be able to do this today; we've come to no excuse except for self defense.
                                                        

Elijah also fought very hard in the interests of social justice and rebuked the king for murdering Naboth in order to get possession of his vineyard.  Here we see a murderer rebuking another murderer for an unjustified murder.  

People in those days must have thought of nothing for committing murder in order to get what they wanted.  It was the norm.  According the the Biblical account, Elijah didn't die but ascended to Heaven in a fiery chariot.  He occupies a prominent place in Jewish lore.  According to the book of Malachi (3:23-5), Elijah will reconcile fathers and children "before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord."  this led to Elijah's being depicted in later tradition as the harbinger of the Messiah.  
                                                     

   
At the Passover Seder, a glass of wine is traditionally poured for Elijah into a special cup referred to as "Elijah's cup"  and at the circumcision ceremony, a chair is prepared for him.  He is popularly believed to come to the help of Jewish communities, and also individuals, in die distress, and it is believed that he will clarify all obscurities in Talmudic law upon his return.  He is one man we share with Christianity and Islam.  They also love him and they have included him in their legends as well.  
                                                     

Prophet Elisha

Elisha was another Israelite prophet who lived in the 9th century BCE.  He lived in the days of King Jehoram (853-843 BCE).  He was held in esteem by the people who told of many miracles that are attributed to him including the resurrection of the dead.  

His chief importance  was that he was the disciple and successor of Elijah, and, like Elijah, is depicted as earnest, brave and forceful.  He was also interested in politics, so foretold Hazael's accession to the Syrian throne.  Then he anointed Jehu (843- 816 BCE)  as king over Israel.  His activity as a prophet lasted some 60 years.   
                                                         

Moses (1391 BCE) , a lawgiver and prophet, founder of the
Jewish religion.  He was born in Egypt to Jewish
slaves, then taken away to save his life from a pogrom of killing little
babies.  G-d communicated with him through a
burning bush that was not consumed.  He had received
a divine command to lead his people out of Egypt at the age of 80.
It took him 40 years to do the job.  

Prophets served a purpose in those days.  They were designed by G-d to convey His message to men and to give guidance for the future.  I don't remember ever reading about a prophet who shirked his duty.  Prophecy was an ancient institution originating in primitive times.  Though the 800s BCE seems primitive to me, it was a part of civilization then.  Prophecy appeared among early Semitic people in Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Canaan, but in Israel it took on a distinctive form.  The Hebrews implicitly believe that they had been chosen by G-d who had sent them prophets to point out the right path.  

The prophet was primarily the protagonist of monotheism and morality and fulfilled a decisive role in Jewish religious life and development alongside the PRIEST (with the Cohen genes) and the sages.  Only hints and mutilated information throw light on the pre-Mosaic period but thereafter there were main periods;
    The prophecy of Moses decided the main content of the late prophecies and by the means of the Torah-the nation's spiritual content, the way of life and their mission in life.  It was continuous and not the result of a sudden inspiration.  Moses brought on religious leaders guiding the nation in times of difficulty, and they had a lot of that.  
                                                          

   Deborah, a female, and Samuel came with the rise of the monarchy when policy was now handled by rulers and ministers of the rulers, and the prophet became increasingly prominent as a fighter for social morality, with necessary rebuking the King for his moral lapses.  We see Nathan,  and Ahijah the Shilonite in this role.  Together with  their disciples or sons of the prophet, they zealously opposed any manifestation of paganism, in which Elijah and Elisha were trying to do.  They were fighting against the pagan religion that was about to take over.  The rhapsodic prophet appeared early in the 8th century BCE, first in Israel and later in Judah, of the south.  Before, the prophets had mainly contented themselves with the spoken word, while prophetic circles committed accounts of earlier prophets to writing.  from the time of Amos, the prophets wrote their own words, generally in a lofty language that made up the culmination of biblical poetry.  As before, the central motif is the attack on religious corruption, but  Concomitantly the drive against social corruption arises.  The prophet saw national disaster which was followed by consolation.  The rhapsodic seers also told about visions concerning the gentiles, but the central subject was still Israel.  
                                                   

    Where newspapers and TV might take on the role of social morality, we have none of that today, really.  The newspapers or political groups may have chosen a path and work to lead people down the path of their choosing.  We do look for such people and sometimes find them, our today's prophets?  

During the Messianic age, the faculty of prophets would be renewed, so the good book  tells us.  In the Hebrew Bible the title FORMER PROPHETS applies to the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings.  In the Christian tradition, other historical portions of the bible are also comprised;  LATTER PROPHETS is applied to Isaiah,  Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets.  

"G-d communicated to people through prophecy for nearly the entire biblical period, from Adam until Malachi. According to a prevalent Jewish tradition, prophecy ceased with Malachi, not to be renewed until the messianic age. In this article, we will consider a few traditional explanations of why prophecy ceased and some spiritual implications for Judaism over the ensuing 2,500 years and counting."  He was a prophet who lived from 460 to 450 BCE.  Some people identify him with Ezra.  Modern scholars also hold the view that Malachi is not a proper name.  the prophet protested against transgressions in matters of sacrifice and tithes.  The priest must turn the multitude from sin and himself maintain a high level of morality.  Malachi also complained of mixed and broken marriages.  His thoughts were about the vision of the "Day of the Lord" preceded by the advent of Elijah.  It seems all 3 prophets were involved in thoughts of the END OF TIMES AND THE COMING OF THE MESSIAH.  

I suppose that if someone comes along and gives us a  successful prophecy about world events, we might think he has prophetic ability.  So far the pundits haven't been batting 100%.  What they might tell us to do might be received with a shudder.  

Resource: the New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.jewishideas.org/article/end-prophecy-malachis-position-spiritual-development-israel

ABRAHAM, WHO ROCKED THE RELIGIOUS WORLD

Nadene Goldfoot                                           

Abram with his niece, Sarai who is his wife.  Sarai is bringing Hagar, her Egyptian handmaid
to Abram.  Hagar  gives him a son, Ishmael.  Sarai then later gives Abram a son, Isaac. From
Isaac came the Jews and from Ishmael came the Muslims. 

In the 2nd millennium BCE, which is over 4,000 years ago, Abram was born to Terah, people of the Ivrim (Hebrew speakers) migrating from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers westward.  They settled in Ur of the Chaldees, a city in today's Iraq.  Terah was an idol maker.  Idols were being fashioned all over the world as objects giving off protection to the owners from the many dangers in the world that people were constantly facing.
                                                     

Idol Hadad of Syria
with such a face he should scare off any dangers lurking about 

One day when Terah was out of their house, Abram decided to play with the idols stacked up from his father's workshop.  He accidentally knocked one over and of coarse, it broke.  When his father came home and saw he was going to lose money with a broken idol lying in a heap, he turned on Abram and asked him what had happened.  Abram replied that the larger idol in the corner had pushed that one over.  Terah lashed out that Abram was lying and that he knew they were just clay objects!  It dawned on both at that moment that idols were just clay objects and that they were duping their clients.  Any protection was all in their clients' heads.                                  

Baal of the Phoenicians 

Abram felt that there was a power in the world.  He had many questions in his mind.  Who made the world?  How did people come to be?  The people he knew believed in many gods; gods who controlled the forces in the world.  When they were really scared, they would even sacrifice people to these gods.  Much of the world thought like this, no matter where they were even though they had no contact with each other.

Abram is only known about through the writings by Moses which is in the Torah, the 5 books of Moses which most people know about in their Old Testament or "Bible."  This telling of the history of the Jewish people tells how Abram's name was changed to Abraham after having a flash of understanding.  Abram had visions and experiences in his praying to his singular G-d as he came to think of this power controlling the world.  We're finding that some physical conditions can cause such experiences.  Perhaps this is the way G-d communicates with people, an alteration in the body in some manner.   At any rate, what Abram did caused a complete alteration to man's thinking, and we went from a world of polytheism to a world controlled mostly by monotheism.  
                                                    
There was a moment that Abram was asked by G-d to sacrifice his son, Isaac and he prepared to do it, being it was the one and only G-d asking him.  He was stopped just in the nick of time in the act, finding out that there was to be no more of sacrificing humans and that this had been a test of loyalty.  This was a break in common practice of sacrificing people, at least in this one culture.  

Abram decided that the environment he had been surrounded by in Ur was not compatible with his new religious philosophy, so he took his family and moved away.  It would take many years before other people  came to accept such an utter change in attitude toward  understanding the world and beyond.  
                                                

"Polytheism and Egyptian religion.
Pictured is a god of half man and half animal. 

"Abram had visited Egypt.  His wife's handmaiden was Egyptian.  That was a polytheistic country.  As in the rest of Africa, the people of ancient Egypt were polytheistic throughout the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom. That means that they believed in many gods. Some of these gods were Ra, Anubis, Seth, Osiris, Isis, and Horus."
     

The Assyrians who attacked Israel in 722-721 BCE also believed in many gods. Our 10 tribes northern tribes were thrust into an environment of polytheism after being freed of slavery for 400 years in Egypt and being freed by Moses who introduced monotheism.  About 1341 BCE was the time of the Exodus.  Moses died in 1271 BCE.  The Israelites had been monotheistic for 620 years before the Assyrian attack.  They were going through much temptation already from the surrounding neighbors who were polytheistic and idol worshippers.  They were primed for slippage back into this life again.  
                                                       

Greek gods

The Greeks believed in a world above beyond the sky called Olympus over their own Mt. Olympus between Thessaly and Macadonia in Greece,  populated by a king, queen and many other gods.  They ate ambrosia and drank nectar.  They were:   Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hestia, Demeter, Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, Dionysus, etc.  Today this belief is called a mythology.  "Around 700 BCE, the poet Hesiod's Theogony offered the first written cosmogony, or origin story, of Greek mythology.  This knowledge comes 1,300 years after we know about Abraham's monotheistic belief.  
                                                                     

T
The Romans came along and adopted this belief from the act of overtaking the Greeks.  Here are the top 5 gods they both believed in:

• Zeus (Jupiter, in Roman mythology): the king of all the gods (and father to many) and god of weather, law and fate
• Hera (Juno): the queen of the gods and goddess of women and marriage
• Aphrodite (Venus): goddess of beauty and love
• Apollo (Apollo): god of prophesy, music and poetry and knowledge
• Ares (Mars): god of war.       
• The Romans went one step beyond the Greeks.  " There arose a body of rules, the jus divinum (“divine law”), ordaining what had to be done or avoided."   
• Greek- Roman gods even came down to earth and mated with humans, producing half-gods with extra skills, more like creating a Superman.  Such a demi-god was "
• Dionysus: son of Zeus and Semele, a mortal. Later on he became a god, part of the Olympians when Hestia gave up her seat for him.                                        

• 

  A chanukiah, menorah of 8 candles to celebrate the 8 days of this holiday
  commemorating overcoming the Greek Syrians and cleaning out the temple-getting rid of  the idol, Jupiter Greek Syrians had placed. 

  The Seleucids, a Hellenistic royal dynasty,  Greek Syrians, seemed to be a blend of both Greeks and Romans.  Their Syrian king Antiochus III, lived from 222 to 186 BCE.  
• They did such things as put a statue of Jupiter into Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and expected a monotheistic people to suddenly accept their belief and worship this idol.  Thus we have coming up our holiday of Chanukah which commemorates the cleaning out of the Temple and getting rid of that horrible idol, Jupiter and other idols and getting the people back to their own basic beliefs, as they were being submerged in this foreign religious polytheism. 
• The Celts:  Of what became Great Britain and parts of Europe also believed in this pantheon of gods controlling their world. They were people who had come in contact with the Roman world and the coming Christian one.   They all could not conceive of a single power, probably because they had come to realize no man could do everything needed to support their own civilization.  They go back to the Iron Age (1200-1000 BCE)  with their beliefs.  One way they differ from the rest of the world is that the Greek and Roman gods looked like people.  Egypt and the rest of the world had rather grotesque science fictional types as gods pretty much.   The later the belief, the more human form was prevalent.                              

• 

  Taranis (with Celtic wheel and thunderbolt), Le Chatelet, Gourzon, Haute-Marne, France

  The Celts also worshiped a number of deities of which little more is known than their names. Classical writers preserve a few fragments of legends or myths that may possibly be Celtic.
• According to the Syrian rhetorician Lucian, Ogmios was supposed to lead a band of men chained by their ears to his tongue as a symbol of the strength of his eloquence.
• The first-century Roman poet Lucan mentions the gods Taranis, Teutates and Esus, but there is little Celtic evidence that these were important deities.     

  

  Thor, king of the Norse gods
  If you are watching THE VIKINGS on TV, you should understand
  their religious beliefs 

Scandinavians also were embroiled in a pantheon of gods.  "Norse mythology is the body of myths of the North Germanic peoples , stemming from Norse paganism and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia and into the Scandinavian folklore of the modern period. ... The cosmos in Norse mythology consists of Nine Worlds that flank a central cosmological tree, Yggdrasil.

They also had a kind of Olympus populated by many many gods. 

1. the hammer-wielding, humanity-protecting thunder-god Thor, who relentlessly fights his foes;

2. the one-eyed, raven-flanked god Odin, who craftily pursues knowledge throughout the worlds and bestowed among humanity the runic alphabet; 

3. the beautiful, seiðr-working, feathered cloak-clad goddess Freya who rides to battle to choose among the slain; 

4. the vengeful, skiing goddess Skaði, who prefers the wolf howls of the winter mountains to the seashore; 

5. the powerful god Njörð, who may calm both sea and fire and grant wealth and land;

6. the god Frey, whose weather and farming associations bring peace and pleasure to humanity;

7.the goddess Iðunn, who keeps apples that grant eternal youthfulness; 

8.the mysterious god Heimdall, who is born of nine mothers, can hear grass grow, has gold teeth, and possesses a resounding horn;

9. the jötunn Loki, who brings tragedy to the gods by engineering the death of the goddess Frigg's beautiful son Baldr;" and more. 

Abraham was one in a million.  He had made a quantum leap in faith.  Only one Pharaoh before his time had become monotheistic in a way, worshipping the sun as the god.  "Akhenaten the Heretic 1352–1336 BC. Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten and defied tradition by establishing a new religion that believed that there is but one god; the sun god Aten."  It's interesting that Abram lived in about 1948 BCE, almost 600 years before Akhenaten.  One wonders how the belief hadn't reached Egypt by then as things spread today.  It was not to be later in the days of communication to hapen.  

• 
  

Abraham's god was unseen, as Moses verified.  Abraham believed in kindness and one unseen G-d.  He maintained his beliefs and taught them to his family in a world of polytheism, idol worship and human sacrifice.  He was selected for his stiff-necked courage to stick to these principals and he changed the world.  

Resource: https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Places/Mount_Olympus/mount_olympus.html
https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/greek-mythology
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Roman-religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_mythology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_mythology
https://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/102978/jewish/The-Story-of-Chanukah.htm
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/10/following-in-footsteps-of-abraham.html