JMAN05:


As Christians we don't think that all the story ends with the bible. However, since we accept the bible as an inspired book and we don't believe Koran is, we thus view it with suspicion.

Any book that contradict what the bible has to say is wrong. If not for you, it is to any genuine Christian. As such, combining the bible with Koran and other sources you have there, and concluding that Abraham venerated idol is unacceptable to a genuine Christian. That makes the info above irrelevant to us.

still I ask, what part of the op contradicts Genesis account of the life of Abraham?

I never said Abraham venerated an idol. ..he was a Pagan who never turned his back against the moon God of his people...totally different thing

is a genuine Christian one that rejects knowledge and truth, to settle for half baked piece of information that most certainly contains distortions?

macof:



still I ask, what part of the op contradicts Genesis account of the life of Abraham?

I never said Abraham venerated an idol. ..he was a Pagan who never turned his back against the moon God of his people...totally different thing

is a genuine Christian one that rejects knowledge and truth, to settle for half baked piece of information that most certainly contains distortions?

Idolatory is good. Why do you think it is bad? Is it offensive in any way?

lawani:


Idolatory is good. Why do you think it is bad? Is it offensive in any way?

Even Christianity and Islam embrace idolatry. ... although many don't realize
the bible, quran, crucifix, tesbil, the black stone in Mecca etc are all idols

but idol worshipping is a different level. to call someone an idol worshipper is silly and a grand show of idiocy

stonemasonn:
Abraham worshiped El Shaddai (god of the mountain).

this is the personal God lawani talked about.

as the deity said to Moses ‘I am Yahweh. To Abraham and Isaac and Jacob I appeared as El Shaddai; I did not make myself known to them by my name Yahweh.’ (Exodus 6:2–3)
yahweh isn't just the Deity of mountains but stars too. .. in the bible. .. countless mention of "Hosts of heaven" under Yahweh's command is made

In the Exodus story, Jethro, Moses’ Kenite (one of the Midianite clans - they were ancient Arabs) father-in-law, is a priest of Yahweh (Exod 18:7-11) even though he is not an Israelite. By combining this observation with Moses’ “discovery” of Yahweh in Midian and other passages, many scholars concluded that Yahweh had originally been a Midianite god whom the Israelites learned about from Jethro via Moses and not Abraham.

Abraham's connection to Yahweh was as a Personal deity ...
we have this in yorubaland too.
one diety can be venerated in your town/family but your personal deity is the one that works with your Ori


Yahweh comes from Sinai.
He dawns upon us from Seir.
he shone forth from Mount Paran. (Deuteronomy 33:2)
this passage tells us where yahweh is really from.

Pls read Habakkuk 3:3-7 see how it describes the origin of Yahweh as well as the fact that his power lays with rocks, mountains and the likes.. a reference to Midian was also made



Deuteronomy 32:8–9 describes the sons of El Elyon(The Most High; not yahweh but a higher God), including Yahweh, each receiving his own people:

When the Most High (Elyon) gave the nations their inheritance,
when he separated humanity,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of divine beings,
for Yahweh's portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.

lawani:


Google contradictions in the Bible.

Seeming contradictions.

macof:



still I ask, what part of the op contradicts Genesis account of the life of Abraham?

I never said Abraham venerated an idol. ..he was a Pagan who never turned his back against the moon God of his people...totally different thing

OK. Jehovah/Yahweh do not make friends from anyone who serves another god. Abraham must turn his back against the moon god before being used by God, Yahweh.

He reproved the Israelites countless times for paying homage to other gods. You should know this so well. That's why your position is inconsistent with what the Bible says.

is a genuine Christian one that rejects knowledge and truth, to settle for half baked piece of information that most certainly contains distortions?

Far from that„ a genuine Christian works with the truth. Gods word is truth.

JMAN05:


OK. Jehovah/Yahweh do not make friends from anyone who serves another god. Abraham must turn his back against the moon god before being used by God, Yahweh.

He reproved the Israelites countless times for paying homage to other gods. You should know this so well. That's why your position is inconsistent with what the Bible says.



Far from that„ a genuine Christian works with the truth. Gods word is truth.

Unfortunately for you, Abraham didn't turn his back away from the God of his father's house. .. where in the bible did it appear he did? that Christians hold him so dear to not imagine him a pagan doesn't change real facts revealed by study

in fact knowledge of Yahweh(a tribal mountain God) came to Abraham through an ancient Midianite clan of smiths (these were the Kenites; mentioned severally in the bible) .... Over time Abraham discovered Yahweh as a Personal deity. .. It was yahweh that asked of him; his son Isaac in sacrifice.
notice how The sacrifice was to be done on a mountain
Moses' father-in-law was a kenite and priest of Yahweh. Moses discovered yahweh on a mountain. Mountains like Zion and Horeb(its other side was called Sinai) have been described as Yahweh's dwelling place

in fact if you want biblical proof that Yahweh was just another deity in the list of many deities in the middle east I will give you. so my position is very in line with the bible .... Abraham was just like any average pagan


it seems to me that a "genuine" Christian is one who is blind to truth.

plaetton:


Absolute nonsense.

God and Idol are two sides of the same coin.
They are interchangeable.
One tribe's God is another tribe's Idol.
Simple.

The Sumerians, Abraham's people, did not WORSHIP their gods. They venerated and SERVED them.

Even Yahweh confessed that Abraham's father SERVED other gods.

Yahweh was jealous ( self confessed) of other gods for the simple reason that they were his peers, not idols.

Clown go and take your medicine.

macof:



there's nothing like idol worshipping. no human being worships idol. .. what is done is Veneration of the Divine; idols are elements of veneration not objects that are worshipped


Abraham feared his God. ..doesn't mean he wasn't a pagan. Pagans fear their God much more than you religionists


God called him out of his country? as a herdsman why do you think he needed to be called out of his country? obviously for greener pasture for the herd and flock

nowhere did Genesis say he turned his back on the God of his father's house
the evidence is overwhelming. .. Abraham was a Pagan like his people back home

U don't know what you are saying.

macof:



Even Christianity and Islam embrace idolatry. ... although many don't realize
the bible, quran, crucifix, tesbil, the black stone in Mecca etc are all idols

but idol worshipping is a different level. to call someone an idol worshipper is silly and a grand show of idiocy

Lying is bad, stealing is bad, cheating is bad, adultery is bad, rape is bad and etc but what is bad in idolatory? Olodumare commands us to worship everything including idols. We are constrained to bow down and worship everything without exception because everything without exception carries the ashe of Olodumare.


Idolatory is beautiful my brother and it is the will of Olodumare for all humans unless you can explain why it is bad. Please bow down and worship trees, rivers, graven images and etc. It makes us healthy spiritually.

macof:

Unfortunately for you, Abraham didn't turn his back away from the God of his father's house. .. where in the bible did it appear he did? that Christians hold him so dear to not imagine him a pagan doesn't change real facts revealed by study

You will agree with me that the bible never said he served the god of his Father. Do you not agree?

With what the Scriptures made us know about Jehovah, He won't be a friend to an idolater. You may have facts, but that does not mean you have the truth.

in fact knowledge of Yahweh(a tribal mountain God) came to Abraham through an ancient Midianite clan of smiths (these were the Kenites; mentioned severally in the bible) .... Over time Abraham discovered Yahweh as a Personal deity. .. It was yahweh that asked of him; his son Isaac in sacrifice.
notice how The sacrifice was to be done on a mountain
Moses' father-in-law was a kenite and priest of Yahweh. Moses discovered yahweh on a mountain. Mountains like Zion and Horeb(its other side was called Sinai) have been described as Yahweh's dwelling place

It is true that the scriptures stated that Mount Horeb is the mountain of the True God, this does not mean he dwells there. He dwells in heaven (1kings 8:39). This mountain was called that of the True God because he revealed his presence there.

Moses' father-in-law was a priest of Yahweh, the God of the Bible. Can I see your proofs?

in fact if you want biblical proof that Yahweh was just another deity in the list of many deities in the middle east I will give you. so my position is very in line with the bible .... Abraham was just like any average pagan

Yahweh is a diety, a God. There are other gods for sure in the middle east. I just don't see any reason to agree with your position on Abraham. It isn't scriptural.

it seems to me that a "genuine" Christian is one who is blind to truth.

Not at all, rather he loves truth.

[quote author=JMAN05 post=44787177]

You will agree with me that the bible never said he served the god of his Father. Do you not agree?

With what the Scriptures made us know about Jehovah, He won't be a friend to an idolater. You may have facts, but that does not mean you have the truth. [quote]


you don't know the difference between facts and truth

.

Naijaboy007:
you don't know the difference between facts and truth

But there is a difference.

The God of Abraham was Abraham's personal or tutelary deity. That should be clear to anyone with a semblance of a brain. If not, it would not have been called the God of Abraham. He constructed and installed that deity according to the practice of ancient people and according to the procedure I earlier described on this thread. Please let us stop fooling ourselves and be serious.

If it was not a tutelary deity it would not have been titled 'The God of Abraham'.

JMAN05:


But there is a difference.

you said he may have facts but that does not me he has the truth

when someone has fact he have the absolute unchallenged truth

His father was a pagan Abraham was not.

johnydon22:


Both Islam and Christianity has their roots from Jewish Religion of which Abraham is the fore-bear of their origin from a sumerian descent.

I'm not an expert in this, but the ancient Hebrew people were one of the many people under the Mesopotamian/Sumerian civilization. This is where the large part of their religious foundation come from. It is also stated in the hebrew bible/old testament.

So Hebrew people, beside their own belief were largely influenced by Mesopotamian religious belief. They were pagans, like all people in the world at that time, and behind a very large and advanced civilizations. But of course, with time as with any religious belief, the religious belief of the ancient Hebrew people changed throughout the various events in their history (wandering in the desert, subjugation under Ancient Egypt, conflicts with other populations and kingdoms in the region, creation of Hebrew kingdoms, etc). Beside Ancient Egypt, most of the other influence on hebrew people seem to be other people who were part of the Mesopotamian empire like Persians, Philistines, etc. Their religious beliefs had similarities and differences with the ancient Hebrew people.

So even after the fall of the Mesopotamian/Sumerian civilization, most of the religious belief of the people around ancient Hebrew people were still a legacy of the Mesopotamian/Sumerian civilization. This is where you find the core roots of the religious belief of ancient Hebrew people. Later on of course, ancient Hebrew have innovated and introduced transformations and changes in their beliefs (as it happens in every religious beliefs around the world with time). Those changes, innovations, transformations are always done in continuity with their past, their past beliefs, their past history (as it is the case around the world for every religious belief) all while adapting and facing new situations and changes in the lifestyles of their people.

Edit:the influence of the Mesopotamian civilization on ancient Hebrew religious belief and the hebrew bible/old testament can be easily searched on the internet. It's well known (floods, garden of eden, genesis, etc) and stated in the bible as the origin of the ancient hebrew people.

lawani:


Lying is bad, stealing is bad, cheating is bad, adultery is bad, rape is bad and etc but what is bad in idolatory? Olodumare commands us to worship everything including idols. We are constrained to bow down and worship everything without exception because everything without exception carries the ashe of Olodumare.


Idolatory is beautiful my brother and it is the will of Olodumare for all humans unless you can explain why it is bad. Please bow down and worship trees, rivers, graven images and etc. It makes us healthy spiritually.

what's with the obsession with idolatry? Don't derail the thread. I'm trying to learn something new.

emrain:



what's with the obsession with idolatry? Don't derail the thread. I'm trying to learn something new.

Cant you see that who I responded to said idolatory is bad? Go back and read the thread. My point is that idolatory is good and beautiful as laid down by Olodumare.


There was an Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten who banned idol worship in Egypt, when he died he was declared an heretic and industry of making graven images resumed operation. I believe ancient Hebrews are descendants of Egyptians that held on to Pharaoh Akhenaten's religion.

lawani:

I believe ancient Hebrews are

We know where ancient Hebrew came from since it's written in the Bible. They are people from Ur in Sumer (Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq).

Captivity in Ancient Egypt:

The Biblical account of the history of the Hebrews (later called Israelites and then Jews) begins with the patriarchal clan leader Abraham, called in Genesis 14:15 "the Hebrew" (Habiru). About 1800 B.C. Abraham led his people out of Ur in Sumer, where they had settled for a time in their wanderings, and eventually they arrived in the land of Canaan, later called Palestine.

About 1700 B.C., driven by famine, some Hebrews followed Abraham's great-grandson Joseph, son of Israel (also called Jacob), into Egypt. Joseph's rise to power in Egypt, and the hospitable reception of his people there, is attributed to the presence of the largely Semitic Hyksos, who had conquered Egypt about 1720 B.C. Following the expulsion of the Hyksos by the pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians. Shortly after 1300 B.C. Moses led them out of bondage and into the wilderness of Sinai, where they entered into a pact or covenant with their God, Yahweh. The Sinai Covenant bound the people as a whole - the nation of Israel, as they now called themselves - to worship Yahweh before all other gods and to obey his Law. In return, Yahweh made the Israelites his chosen people whom he would protect and to whom he granted Canaan, the Promised Land "flowing with milk and honey." The history of Israel from this time on is the story of the working out of this covenant.

http://history-world.org/Hebrews.htm

Since ancient Hebrew were subjugated by Ancient Egyptians (possibly as prisoners of war after the Hyksos invasion), it's quite possible Ancient Egyptians had some influence on the beliefs of those ancient Hebrew people who would later compose the Hebrew bible, but the core belief, language, culture and religion of the ancient Hebrew kept the same core foundation and was quite different than anything in Ancient Egypt. There was a new covenant, so new things introduced in their religions but those new things were mostly based on their own belief as well as people around them (including Ancient Egypt). Similar multiple influences is true for any religion in the world (including in Africa among Yoruba, Igbo, Benin, etc). Christianity was itself based on the religious belief of the ancient Hebrew people (Hebrew bible/Old Testament) adding to it a large number of innovations and changes since it presented itself as a new covenant (again) of some sort. Same thing with Islam with Judaism and Christianity having influenced its writers, as well as being the source of the very idea of writing some sacred scriptures in a book. Islam also present itself as a new covenant of some sort. Every so-called sacred words human write and elaborate is always influenced by the social, cultural and political situation of the individual who came up with them at the time. For example, the Roman subjugation for early Christians writers (speaking Koine Greek). Big changes are often related to big social events.

AmunRaOlodumare:

We know where ancient Hebrew came from since it's written in the Bible. They are people from Ur in Sumer (Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq).

Captivity in Ancient Egypt:



Since ancient Hebrew were subjugated by Ancient Egyptians (possibly as prisoners of war after the Hyksos invasion), it's quite possible Ancient Egyptians had some influence on the beliefs of those ancient Hebrew people who would later compose the Hebrew bible, but the core belief, language, culture and religion of the ancient Hebrew kept the same core foundation and was quite different than anything in Ancient Egypt. There was a new covenant, so new things introduced in their religions but those new things were mostly based on their own belief as well as people around them (including Ancient Egypt). Similar multiple influences is true for any religion in the world (including in Africa among Yoruba, Igbo, Benin, etc). Christianity was itself based on the religious belief of the ancient Hebrew people (Hebrew bible/Old Testament) adding to it a large number of innovations and changes since it presented itself as a new covenant (again) of some sort. Same thing with Islam with Judaism and Christianity having influenced its writers, as well as being the source of the very idea of writing some sacred scriptures in a book. Islam also present itself as a new covenant of some sort. Every so-called sacred words human write and elaborate is always influenced by the social, cultural and political situation of the individual who came up with them at the time. For example, the Roman subjugation for early Christians writers (speaking Koine Greek). Big changes are often related to big social events.

Abraham came from South Arabia. That is just one individual. The ancient Hebrews are more from the Egyptian and Phoenician culture and that will be in their DNA. They intermarried with people in the surrounding culture and all their theology is from the surrounding culture not from South Arabia where they were all like Abraham with personal deities. Their monotheism or monolatory is obviously from Egypt as are names like Moses, Miriam and David but Sabbath is from South Arabia as well as some stories which they modified like the flood story gotten from the epic of sumer. However it did not come down from Abraham's time, they obviously got it during their relatively recent exile in Babylon which was when they learnt modern writing

Naijaboy007:


you said he may have facts but that does not me he has the truth

when someone has fact he have the absolute unchallenged truth

Fact has different meanings. I see the use of fact in his statement as the piece of evidence supporting his conclusion. Those facts do not make it true.

lawani:
∆ Abraham lived in Sumeria and Nimrod was his King. Nimrod would have been older than his father. Any Abraham story in the Quran, not corroborated by Jews are pure lies, figments of the imagination of Prophet Mohammed because Abraham is the property of Jews just like Lisabi is the property of the Egba. Atiba belongs to Oyo, Atakunmosa to Ijesa and etc. Those who knew Abraham learnt of him from Jews and not from anywhere else. His story got to Arabs through Judaism, Christianity and Islam and that was from whom Mohammed first heard the name., So any Abraham story not corroborated by Jews are pure lies. Then Mecca would have not been there during Abraham's time. There may have been human settlements but not Mecca. Same way Ilesa or Abeokuta of that name was not there 3 thousand years ago.

Since Abraham was a Sumerian, it does not need telling before knowing that he was an original Earth man and his people today are Aborisha, Shinto, Hindu and etc. Not Christians and Muslims who are barbarians.

interesting! According to Scriptural records, Abraham's grandfather was Seth and his great grandfather was Noah. So, the allegation that Abraham Himself ever practiced paganism is to be questioned. My father was a .... probably traditionalist...I was never one of those myself. It is quite possible that Abraham was previously exposed to God from His youth.

Kobojunkie:
interesting! According to Scriptural records, Abraham's grandfather was Seth and his great grandfather was Noah. So, the allegation that Abraham Himself ever practiced paganism is to be questioned. My father was a .... probably traditionalist...I was never one of those myself. It is quite possible that Abraham was previously exposed to God from His youth.

The original Sumerians were Hindus and Abraham was a Hindu. Sumerian itself as a language is closely related to Tamil spoken in India today. Abraham.and Sarah is the same thing as Brahmin and Saranatu in Hindu culture. Abraham was just a Hindu of the Brahmin caste and that was not his real.name. The hint that it was not his real.name is in the Bible

lawani:
■ The original Sumerians were Hindus and Abraham was a Hindu. Sumerian itself as a language is closely related to Tamil spoken in India today. Abraham.and Sarah is the same thing as Brahmin and Saranatu in Hindu culture. Abraham was just a Hindu of the Brahmin caste and that was not his real.name. The hint that it was not his real.name is in the Bible

...

Sumerians believed in anthropomorphic polytheism, or of many gods in human form, which were specific to each city-state. The core pantheon consisted of An (heaven), Enki (a healer and friend to humans), Enlil (gave spells spirits must obey), Inanna (love and war), Utu (sun-god), and Sin (moon-god).

lawani:

The original Sumerians were Hindus and Abraham was a Hindu. Sumerian itself as a language is closely related to Tamil spoken in India today. Abraham.and Sarah is the same thing as Brahmin and Saranatu in Hindu culture. Abraham was just a Hindu of the Brahmin caste and that was not his real.name. The hint that it was not his real.name is in the Bible

The Sumerians couldn't have been Hindus, their gods were completely different