Abraham - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

According to the biblical account

The history of Abraham is told in the Torah (the “Pentateuque” of the Old Testament for the Christians), more precisely in the book of “Béréchit - At the beginning ”, called “delivers Genèse” by the Christians (chapters XII to XVI).

Abram

' Abram (Hebrew: He אברם - abrām , high father ) appears in the chapter 11 verse 21 of the Genesis in the genealogy which follows the episode of the “Tower of Babel”. This time would be approximately 2000 years before Jesus-Christ. Abraham goes down from Sem, one of three wire of Noah. It has two brothers: Nahor and Haran. Haran dies, leaving a son, Loth (Batch) (which is thus the nephew of Abram). Abram marries Saraï (his/her half-sister) which is sterile.

Terah, the father of Abram, leaves Ur towards the Pays of Canaan with Abram his/her son and Lot his small son by Haran (verse 31). They are fixed finally in way at Harran (Harra or Charan), known to be at the same time a great center caravaneer, and one of the two principal sanctuaries (with Ur) which is dedicated to the God-Moon Sîn venerated by the Mésopotamie NS.

In chapter 12, Abram receives the divine order to leave Harran with its family and her herds to go to the place which God will indicate to him, while his/her father remains in Harran (his/her brother Nahor is in Mésopotamie). It is accompanied by Loth (verse 4). Abram then crosses undoubtedly the Euphrate to Karkemish, then it enters the Pays of Canaan until the site of Sichem (verse 6), where God appears to him again and promises to him “to give this ground to its descent”. Abram builds a furnace bridge, then carries on its road in the area of Bethlehem and Have, then towards the Negev, from where a famine drives out it towards the Egypt. The Pharaon removes Saraï that Abram had made pass for his/her sister (so that its life is not threatened by the beauty of his wife). He ends up releasing it following wounds afflicted by God.

On its return in the Country of Canaan, Abram separates from Loth with which divergences appear. This one settles close to Sodome. Then Abram receives the promise of God (YHWH) to multiply his descent for which the ground of Canaan is intended, “since the torrent of Egypt to the large river of Euphrate” (Chap 15, verse 18).

In same time, a coalition of four Eastern kings tried to subdue the rebellion of five kings cananéens. The rebels are overcome, Sodome and Gomorrhe put at bag, Loth is made prisoner. Abram continues the attackers and demolishes them close to Damas. Loth is thus released and the completely returned spoils. On its return, Abram is accommodated with benevolence by kings de Sodome and of Salem. It sets out again towards the Negev and settles in the Oasis of Beer-Sheva.

The alliance of Abraham

To ensure her husband an offspring, Saraï (SRY) gives to Abram its maidservant, Agar, like concubine. At the end of chapter 16 of the Genesis , Ismaël is born thus from the Agar maidservant. Thirteen years later, in chapter 17, verses 4 to 6, Abram is 99 years old, and God proposes a alliance to him: “You will not be called any more Abram (He אברם, ABRM), but your name will be Abraham (He אברהם, ABRHM), because I make you father of a crowd (HMWN, Hamon - HM is the end of the word Abraham and the beginning of the word Hamon ) of nations (GWYM, Goyim ). I will bear fruit you much, much, you will generate nations, kings will leave you”. Abram accepts this alliance which passes by the Circoncision of all the men of its house and becomes Abraham. Saraï consequently becomes Sarah (SRH) alliance, with verse 15.

The circumcision at the eighth day is the sign of this alliance between God and the descent of Abraham.

The Eternal visits Abraham with the oaks of Mambré (1-2)

The chapter 18 is that of the well-known scene of the Annonciation in Abraham and Sarah, by the appearance of the Eternal (1-2) and then of three men. The following scene of Loth to Sodome (1) made state of two angels, certain interpretations consider that in Mambré, the Eternal would be itself is one of the three men. God is not designated here any more by Elohym , but by Tétragramme, YHWH. In this episode, Abraham and Sarah receive the promise to have a son, Isaac (to laugh, joy), which will have to be circoncis at its eighth day as a sign of Alliance. The name of Isaac is related to all the kinds of laughter which the advertisement of the child causes: joy, amazement, but also astonishment, incredulity of Sarah who is ménopausée and do not sleep any more with her husband.

The promise will be carried out when Isaac is born, in chapter 21.

During the same visit, the destruction of Sodome and Gomorrhe are announced in Abraham.

Sodome and Gomorrhe

Chapters 19 and 20 are intercalated, as if it were necessary as much as possible to separate the design from Isaac of its birth. The text connects on the judgment of Sodome and Gomorrhe. Sodome is a city where reign sexual confusion. Children are born, but it is not possible to allot to them of father. However so that a city remains, it is fundamental that there a court sits which recognizes filiations. At the verse 22 set up the two interlocutors of a bargaining between Abraham and the Eternal. Commercial Abraham the number of members of the Court: 50,45,40,30,20? Finally, ten Right would have been enough to save Sodome and of to make being transcendent, which preexists to the individuals who form it, survives after their death, and keeps the name and the memory of it. The " Miniane ", the quorum necessary to any Jewish ceremony, is of ten members.

Birth and " ligature" of Isaac

With chapter 21, Isaac is born finally. It is named name accepted jointly by Abraham and Sarah, it is circoncis at the eighth day. Isaac grows. One day, Ismaël indicator to make fun of Isaac, Sarah requires of Abraham to drive out Agar and its Ismaël son. With verses 12 and 13, God comforts Abraham on the future of his Ismaël son. He will make a great nation of it but it is with the descent of Isaac that Alliance is reserved. He thus encourages it to carry out all that Sarah said to you . Abraham thus returns in the desert its Agar maidservant and her son, Ismaël, which misses perishing there. An angel appears then in Agar, saves his/her son and promises to him to make the " of it; father of a great nation ".

Following this episode, at the chapter 22 God (Elohym) puts Abraham to the test and asks him “to return” his/her son to him, to sacrifice it. It accepts. By doing this, he thus recognizes That of which he holds the child. Like the young boy, with verse 7, calls it aby , “my father”, and that bény answers him, “my son”, they also recognized himself mutually. God (YHWH) intervenes and saves the boy, attached on the furnace bridge, of the blade of his father, and promises to him in its turn to be the father of a great nation. A ram is sacrificed to its place. The Jewish tradition places this sacrifice stopped at the current site of the Dôme of the Rock at Jerusalem. The dissension with the Coran relates to the identity of the child (see further).

In the Jewish tradition, the sacrifice of Abraham is rather indicated like the " binding of Isaac" ( Akeda ). The memory of this sacrifice is commemorated at each Jewish New Year's Day, at the time of the festival of Rosh Hashana.

It is a scene often represented in the Christian iconography (Rembrandt…, Jean Goujon…) cf.

See the teaching file of the BNF.

Burial of Sarah and marriage of Isaac

After the death of Sarah, a negotiation is tied between Abraham and the wire of `Het, BNY AND He בניחת, Bné `Het (Hittites), in connection with the field and of the cave of Hebron where Sarah will be buried. Ephron, wire of Het, want to give him, Abraham wants to pay them. Finally, it pays. Eber, ŒBR He עבר (of ŒBR He עובר, `Over , to pass) is the ancestor of Abram the Hebrew, ABRM HŒBRY He אברםהעברי, Avram ha' Ivry . The paid price by Abraham for the field and the cave was of 400 sicles (SQL He שקל, shekel ) of money “during the merchant” (ŒBR, `Over, literally “passing” in the merchant). Just as Hebrew, the language, " passe" one with the other, the money " passe" of hand in hand.

Abraham orders then with its servant (anonymous, but that Midrash compares to Éliézer), of going in Mésopotamie (Aram) to find a woman with Isaac. Éliézer chooses Rébecca, girl of Betouel, close to a well of Paddan Aram, for its beauty and its generosity: it waters not only the travellers, but also their camels. It returns with it to Hebron.

After having married his/her son, Abraham takes a new wife, Ketourah, of which it has many children. Then he dies at the 175 years age “in a happy old age”. He is buried at the sides of Sarah to the Tombeau of the Patriarchs.

According to the Islamic religion

Abraham ( Ibrahim in Arabic) within Islam is an envoy of God, with the Men to give them on the right way. He is liked and cherished like all the other envoys of God like Brace ( Mûsâ in Arabic), Jesus ( Îsâ ) and many other cities in the Bible.

Abraham is quoted several times in the Coran and there exists a Sourate which bears its name.

The Coran speaks about the youth of Abraham and how he worked without slackening with the conversion of his father and his people and to lead them to disavow the idols which they venerated.

One day, profiting owing to the fact that everyone left to a festival, it destroyed all the idols and saved largest of them. With the return of its people to the village, he was shown destruction. At this point in time it defied them in their asking to ask that the largest idol to show them than they was not more than heaps of rock without being able any.

Abraham was condemned to be flaring and an imposing fire was prepared during days. When they threw Abraham in fire, God ordered fire to lose his faculty to burn, and Abraham remained in fire during days without nothing arriving to him.

Abraham marries Agar ( Hajar in Arabic), the maidservant of his first wife, it has a Ismaël son of them. The Sourate XXXVII does not name any of the two women, and names Isaac with the turning of a sentence.

At this point in time the divine order has just sacrificed Ismaël, this only sons which has great importance with the eyes of Abraham. The tradition places this event close to Mecque, with the site named Mina. The Koranic account explicitly does not name the sacrificed son, but the context strongly suggests that it is Ismaël, exploiting the ambiguity of the " wire unique" (Genesis/Bereshit 22:2; Coran 37:99 - 111 cf will infra).

Then, God, in reward, gives him a son of his first wife, Isaac.

Abraham is given like the model of the Musulman because it is submitted to God even when the divine order can seem absurd. God has just promised a many descent to him and in the same time of immoler his/her only son asks him. Coran calls Islam “the religion of Abraham”.

The sacrifice requested from Abraham

The Bible and Coran take again both the history of Abraham accepting of immoler his/her son in holocaust with God. This gesture is founder of the perfect act of faith requested by God from Abraham, to which it is worth in the Bible Alliance, and in Coran makes it be regarded as the first of the Moslems, because of its act of total tender to God.

But whereas the Bible indicates Isaac as being this wire, Coran and Hadiths indicate that sacrificed was Ismaël.
Le Midrash, while working out on Gen. 22:2, indicates that both were the only sons of their mother, or that Ismaël was the only sons of Abram , while Isaac was the only sons of Abraham .
Toutefois, the Moslem tradition estimates that Isaac was never the only son of Abraham, and that the original text of the Tawrat carried according to any Ishmaël probability instead of Yitzhaq. Ibrahim prepares with the sacrifice of her only son, thus depriving himself of any descent, when an angel stops its arm and that Ibrahim sees a ram which it then sacrifices to the place of his son. This only sons, before the birth of Isaac, is Ismaël, born from Hajar, Egyptian maidservant of his Sarah wife. When Isaac is born from his wife, this one made drive out Hajar and Ismaël. Arab tribes Ismaélites, of which that of the prophet Mohammed, the Quraych ites, would be direct descendants of Ismaël.

The Aïd Al-Kebir (literally the great festival ), also called Aïd Al-Adha ( festival of the sacrifice ), mark end of the Pilgrimage to Mecque, the tenth day of the twelfth month of the Moslem Calendar hégirien (Dhou l-Hijja). This festival of the sacrifice is celebrated each year to commemorate the tender of Abraham to God at the time of the attempt at sacrifice of his/her only son Ismaël.

Theses on the significance of the sacrifice requested

One can see in this episode an act of faith, of total confidence as a God in front of a diverting request. The sacrifice requested from Abraham is often brought closer to two other episodes:

the Jewish law which requires that very first born be devoted to God, the men are repurchased as well as the impure animals, the pure animals are sacrificed (Numbers 18 verses 15 to 17). Within this framework, the sacrifice of Isaac is the application of this law which will be then formalized by Moïse.
the death of Jesus on the cross: Abraham was ready to sacrifice his/her Isaac son for God, Isaac being submitted to his/her father; God in the same way sacrificed his only son Jesus to save the men, Jesus subjected himself to the will of God (Philippiens 2:8). This act would be thus an image of the future sacrifice of Jesus.

One has as advanced as the sacrifice of Abraham would mean the end of the human sacrifices for the Jews, practical which exists and perdure among other Semitic people. The phenicians (Carthaginian in particular) continued to sacrifice the first born male in pledge of fruitfulness in the sanctuaries of Tanit and Baal Hamon. The places where these sacrifices were practiced are called “Tophet S”. This rite would have been prolonged until the II {{E}} century before J. - C. according to the excavations carried out in Sardinia, Sicily and with Carthage. From this point of view, Abraham would have achieved a coherent ethnic rite with the promise of a many descent, instead of observing a divine command diverting.

Other accounts report practice of the human sacrifices; most remarkable is the history of Tantale: confronted with the same situation that Abraham, it reacts by refusing the sacrifice and by faking the rite. The result of this revolt against (them) god (X) does not appear convincing since, if one believes mythology of it, Tantale will be punished hard and the human sacrifices will perdureront in its line and more generally among Greeks: Iphigénie will have to be sacrificed by Agamemnon for example.

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