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The atheist who wouldn't sit still
Modern atheists, especially those of the arm chair variety, tend to define themselves as people who don't believe in God, which is a statement that requires a theology based on a fixed definition of God, which violates the First Commandment just as much as any religion that won't budge (Exodus 20:4).
Terah of Ur had no business with that kind of idolatry and wasn't going to sit still anywhere near a mentality that wouldn't change while everything else in the world did.
Terah famously left Ur of the
Chaldeans — Ur means light and the Chaldeans were the priestly caste of Babylon; in other words: Terah was not simply a tourist; he had said goodbye to his religion. Terah died in
Haran (means Mountainous and is possibly an image of multiple concentrations of wisdom), but YHWH spoke to his son Abram and he pressed on.
Abram
traversed (יעבר, same as "
hebrewed") the world as far as
Shechem (means Sense Of Responsibility) and the oak of
Moreh (Genesis 12:6; Moreh means Teacher and is related to the word
Torah) and by the time Abram was called "the Hebrew", he was living at the oaks of
Mamre (Genesis 14:13; Mamre probably means Bitter or Strong and is related to the name
Mary).
In English all this oak-dwelling sounds like a pretty sturdy affair but in Hebrew it reveals that academically, Abram wasn't doing very well — see our article on the word אלון (
'allon), meaning oak; an unmistakable symbol of weakness and foolishness."
The amazing name Hebrew: meaning and etymology