Theories about Abraham

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PossibleThrowawayAccount

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I have not yet read the entire Bible but I do know the Torah sections by heart. Every time I read/hear them I think of something new. Over the years I have come up with a few theories regarding Abraham and want to share them with you all to hear what you think.

For starters, it is clear that the pre-Israelite territories were wicked even before the time of Moses. For example, when God says "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" in Genesis 15:16, it prints a picture that these were already a wicked people. That brings me to my first theory: God did not promise Abraham his ancestors would inherit the land just as a way of rewarding him for being righteous, but because the territories the Hebrews would later inherit were inhabited by people who needed to be wiped out and God wanted the most righteous person's descendants to be the ones to replace them.

My next theory is about the birth of Isaac. Remember, Sarah was barren until after God opened the wombs of Abimelech's people. Is it possible that Sarah was made fertile with them and God helped them all, her included, conceive at once? The next thing that happens in Genesis is the birth of Isaac.

My next theory comes when God tests Abraham and tells him to sacrifice Isaac. Is it possible Abraham knew God would stop him at the last moment (remember when God told Abraham His covenant is with Isaac when Sarah had him throw Hagar out)?
 

quietthinker

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I have not yet read the entire Bible but I do know the Torah sections by heart. Every time I read/hear them I think of something new. Over the years I have come up with a few theories regarding Abraham and want to share them with you all to hear what you think.

For starters, it is clear that the pre-Israelite territories were wicked even before the time of Moses. For example, when God says "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" in Genesis 15:16, it prints a picture that these were already a wicked people. That brings me to my first theory: God did not promise Abraham his ancestors would inherit the land just as a way of rewarding him for being righteous, but because the territories the Hebrews would later inherit were inhabited by people who needed to be wiped out and God wanted the most righteous person's descendants to be the ones to replace them.

My next theory is about the birth of Isaac. Remember, Sarah was barren until after God opened the wombs of Abimelech's people. Is it possible that Sarah was made fertile with them and God helped them all, her included, conceive at once? The next thing that happens in Genesis is the birth of Isaac.

My next theory comes when God tests Abraham and tells him to sacrifice Isaac. Is it possible Abraham knew God would stop him at the last moment (remember when God told Abraham His covenant is with Isaac when Sarah had him throw Hagar out)?
Abraham and Sarah were types of the incarnation in the sense that Isaac was a miracle child and the rite of circumcision given was a symbolic cutting off of the male member to indicate that God doesn't require man's seed to fulfil his promises.

I wonder whether God told Abraham to sacrifice his child seeing human sacrifice was stickily forbidden by later Hebrew Law even though Abraham thought God told him. It happens today that people are convinced God told them something but they are mistaken.....no reason the same didn't happen then.
The inhabitants of Mesopotamia were practitioners of human sacrifice. They rationalised that God would accept their most valuable gift.....and that was their children.

In spite of peoples misunderstandings, God still worked with their limitations
 

Jay Ross

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For starters, it is clear that the pre-Israelite territories were wicked even before the time of Moses. For example, when God says "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" in Genesis 15:16, it prints a picture that these were already a wicked people. That brings me to my first theory: God did not promise Abraham his ancestors would inherit the land just as a way of rewarding him for being righteous, but because the territories the Hebrews would later inherit were inhabited by people who needed to be wiped out and God wanted the most righteous person's descendants to be the ones to replace them.

If you know the Torah section of the scriptures well, you will know that there were up to ten generations of descendant generations born while Jacob's descendants where living in Egypt for 430 years. Joshua was one such example of being the tenth descendant generation born to Ephraim who was born prior to Jacob's journey down to Egypt.

! Chronicles 7:20-29 provides the descendants of Ephraim. From memory, the chronological listing of Ephraim's descendants is also found in the book of Numbers.

In Genesis 15:16, the Hebrew root 1755 has the meaning of and "Age" or "generation" which is a period of time that is around 1,000 years in duration.

It is my understanding that 1948 is being referenced in Genesis 15:16 when some of Abraham's descendants returned to the Land of Canaan and at that time the iniquities of the Amorite people group had not yet reached its completion. In 1948, the Amorite people group who live in the Land of Canaan at that time held to the Muslim faith where one of the tenants of the Islamic faith is that "Jesus is not the Son of God."

Please note that 1948 is not part of God's gathering of the Israelites to Himself, which is still a near future event.

Your theory also falls over because the Amorite peoples were not wiped out when Israel were taking possession of the "Promised Land," but rather, they were left in the Land to be a thorn in the side of Israel because of Israel's adoption of the idolatrous worship practices of the people groups that occupied the Land of Canaan at that time.

The Promised Land as defined in Genesis 15:17-ff was God's response to answer Abraham's question in Genesis 15:7-11: -

Genesis 15:7-11: - 7 Then He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this earth to inherit it.”​
8 And he said, “Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?”​
9 So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. 11 And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.​
Which was defined in Gen 15:17-ff: -
Genesis 15:17-21: - 17 And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. 18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying:​
“To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates — 19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”​

This description of the Land that would be given to Abraham's descendants was to confirm to them that they would inherit the whole earth at some future time. The description of the land also fits the land that Abraham had walked over and see as described in Genesis 13:14-17: -

Genesis 13:14-17: - 14 And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: "Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are — northward, southward, eastward, and westward; 15 for all the earth which you see, {that (entity)}, I will give to your descendants for a long period of time whose ending, which is beyond man’s comprehension, is at the vanishing point, {of this particular time period}, in the future.[1] 16 And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. 17 Arise, walk in my earth through its length and its width, for this I will give. "​
My Paraphrasing of the Hebrew Text shown in Bold

I hope that the above is of some help for you.

Shalom


[1] Another way of saying this verse might be: - “15 for all the earth which you see, that entity, I will give to your descendants for a long period of time where the end point of that time period, is beyond man’s capacity to comprehend when it will occur in the future. The end point for this prophecy occurred in 70 AD when the last portion of Israel was scattered throughout all of the earth.
 

Space_Karen

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My next theory comes when God tests Abraham and tells him to sacrifice Isaac. Is it possible Abraham knew God would stop him at the last moment (remember when God told Abraham His covenant is with Isaac when Sarah had him throw Hagar out)?

I think anyone curious about this topic should read introductory portions of the wikipedia page on infanticide:


Infanticide​

Infanticide (or infant homicide) is the intentional killing of infants or offspring. Infanticide was a widespread practice throughout human history that was mainly used to dispose of unwanted children

Most Stone Age human societies routinely practiced infanticide, and estimates of children killed by infanticide in the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras vary from 15 to 50 percent. Infanticide continued to be common in most societies after the historical era began, including ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the Phoenicians, ancient China, ancient Japan, Aboriginal Australia, Native Americans, and Native Alaskans.

...

History​

The practice of infanticide has taken many forms over time. Child sacrifice to supernatural figures or forces, such as that believed to have been practiced in ancient Carthage, may be only the most notorious example in the ancient world.

Paleolithic and Neolithic​

Many Neolithic groups routinely resorted to infanticide in order to control their numbers so that their lands could support them. Joseph Birdsell believed that infanticide rates in prehistoric times were between 15% and 50% of the total number of births,[8] while Laila Williamson estimated a lower rate ranging from 15% to 20%.[1]: 66  Both anthropologists believed that these high rates of infanticide persisted until the development of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution.[9]: 19  Comparative anthropologists have calculated that 50% of female newborn babies were killed by their parents during the Paleolithic era.

Child sacrifice was common in the ancient world due to many lacking sufficient food to feed their own children.

Lack of food was one of the main reasons child sacrifice became so common.

I do not think that Abraham knew God would stop him. Child infanticide was simply an unfortunate and common practice in those times.