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Abraham: So Abraham
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Abraham was born Abram, son of Terah, at the beginning of the second millennium BC in Ur, the capital of Mesopotamia at the height of its splendor as a highly developed ancient world. According to Jewish tradition, he was the son of an idol maker and smashed all of his fathers idols - except one - in a story that foreshadows his devotion to one God. The Koran tells of a time when Abram confronts his father about his idol worship and is condemned to burn in a furnace by King Nimrod of Babylon, but God protected him. His family left Ur - in modern day Iraq - to travel northwest along the trade route and the Euphrates River to the city of Haran. Abram settled down in Haran - in modern day Israel - with his family. He married Sarai and entered into a lifelong partnership with her.
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Abraham still believed but was starting to get a little impatient with God. His only male heir was a servant, Eliezer of Damascus: "Look, you have given me no offspring so a slave born in my house is my heir!" He was not so gently pointing out to God that if he didn’t do something about the promise the only descendants Abraham would have would be through legal customs and not his own offspring. And yet God steadfastly affirmed the promise, this time giving Abraham more specifics on the outworking of the promise. The word of the Lord came to him, in verse 4: "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir." For the first time God specified that it will be Abraham’s own physical descendant that will be the inheritor of the promise. And again God reaffirmed the larger promise to Abraham (v. 5): "Then he brought him outside and said, ‘Look now toward heaven, your descendants will be like the stars of the sky.’"
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The Israeli settler movement is largely fueled by the concept that Abraham's covenant with God grants the Jewish people the Holy Land. Meanwhile, Christians misused passages on Abraham written by Paul in the New Testament to encourage anti-Semitism and possibly the Crusades. There are ... discrepancies about which of his sons did what. The Muslims and Jews have two totally different stories on which son was exalted and inherited the birthright. The Koran also claims that Abraham was the first Muslim, not a Jewish prophet. Biema says, "His story constitutes a kind of multifaith scandal, a case study for monotheism's darker side."
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Abraham sent his servant to bring home a wife from native peoples for his son Isaac. He found Rebecca in Mesopotamia. Later, Abraham married Keturah, with whom he had 6 sons: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. Abraham died at the age of 175 from natural causes, and was buried in the Machpelah cave at Hebron with his wife. Here the story of Abraham ends, and the story of the Jews begins.
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Abraham's footprint is displayed outside the Kaaba, which is on a stone, protected and guarded by Mutawa (Religious Police). The annual Hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam, follows Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael's journey to the sacred place of the Kaaba. Islamic tradition narrates that Abraham's subsequent visits to the Northern Arabian region, after leaving Ishmael and Hagar (in the area that would later become the Islamic holy city of Mecca), were not only to visit Ishmael but ... to construct the first house of worship for God (that is, the monotheistic concept and model of God), the Kaaba -as per God's command.[6] The Eid ul-Adha ceremony is focused on Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his promised son on God's command. In turn, God spared his son's life and instead substituted a sheep. This was Abraham's test of faith. On Eid ul-Adha, Muslims sacrifice a domestic animal — a sheep, goat, cow, buffalo or camel — as a symbol of Abraham's sacrifice, and divide the meat among the family members, friends, relatives, and most importantly, the poor.
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Abraham's youngest son, Thomas, who became the father of the president, was born in Rockingham county, Va., on Jan. 6, 1778. After the death of his father, he roamed about, settling eventually in Hardin county, Ky., where he worked at carpentry, farming, and odd jobs. He was not the shiftless ne'er-do-well sometimes depicted, but an honest, conscientious man of modest means, well regarded by his neighbors. He had practically no education... and could barely scrawl his name.
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So Abraham