Continuing from the last few
posts regarding the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith’s translation along with
the facsimiles used, we now look at Ur
of the Chaldees, for more information on Abraham and where he was nearly
sacrificed to Elkenah.
Abraham’s home in the Sumerian city of Ur (Ur
Kasdim; Ur of the Chaldees), now in Iraq, where the sacrifice of Abraham was to
take place, is claimed by archaeologists to have been first settled in the
third millennium B.C. Though not stated specifically in the Tanakh (canon of the Hebrew Bible, the Masoretic Text or Miqra), Ur is widely
accepted as the birthplace of Abraham, though in the Islamic world it is
considered to be a cave near Adma, later called Edessa, and then Sanliurfa, in
upper Mesopotama, now called Syria.
Ur
is located along the banks of the Euphrates River; Egypt is in the lower left;
Turkey (Asia Minor), is in the upper left; and Elam is to the middle right
During this time, around 2000 B.C., Ur was a major
urban center on the Mesopotamian plain. It is possible that Shulgi (Dungi), son
of Ur-Namma (Ur-Gur), the second king of the Sumerian Renaissance period in the
Third dynasty of Ur, who reigned for 48 years, proclaiming himself a god in his
26th year as king, was the ruler during Abraham’s early years at the
time of the attempted sacrifice.
Ur of the Chaldees, according to the Book of Jubilees (11:3), was founded by
Ur, son of Keśed, presumably the offspring of
Arphaxad. Jubilees also portrays Abraham’s immediate ancestry as dwelling in Ur
Kaśdim, beginning with his great-grandfather, Serug,
and including his grandfather, Nahor, and his father, Terah.
Based on the cuneiform inscriptions
recently uncovered, and the Book of the Cave
of Treasures, a sixth century A.D. sacred history written by a Jacobite,
containing Jewish, Greek and Mesopotamian histories, and tracing the descent of
Christ back to Adam, which was translated from the Syriac text of the British
Museum (London 1927) by Sir Wallis Budge, much is known about Abraham’s day.
At the time, the inhabitants of Ur were
given up wholly to idolatry, their Sumerian chief object of worship being
Nannar (Nanna), the Moon-god (Sin to the Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia). The
symbol of Nannar was the crescent moon (Sakar), and spelled Nanna-ar by the
Assyrians. Sometimes called “Lord of Wisdom,” “Chief of the Gods,” “Father of
the Gods,” and “Creator of All Things.” Nanna’s chief sanctuary at Ur was named
E-gish-shir-gal (House of the great light). It was at Ur that the role
of the En Priestess developed. This was an extremely powerful role held by a
princess, most notably Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, and was
the primary cult role associated with the sect of Nanna/Sin.
According to Jubilees, not only did
Abraham smash his father's idols when a youth, but under the divine guidance he freed
himself from the Sumerian custom of offering up a son to devils.
Further, when he saw his city attacked by hosts of enemies from the north and
from the low-lying lands to the south, there was nothing left for him to do but
migrate to the country which God promised to give him. Putting all the evidence
together, it is clear that Abraham was a great, strong and independent chief in
Mesopotamia, and that his power waxed greater when he established himself at Harrân.
Top 2 Images: An Ur street of
well-preserved private houses excavated in 1920 built around the time Abraham
and his father Terah were living in Ur. The interior walls were built of clay
bricks and the floor of the courtyard paved with flat tile-like bricks. The
gallery and roofs were supported on wooden pillars, and animals were stabled
and stores were kept in the rooms on the ground floor which were entered
through arched doorways. The sleeping and sitting rooms were entered from the
gallery, and a stairway led from the ground floor to the gallery and the roof;
Bottom: A typical Sumerian kitchen of Abraham’s time
What is not regularly known, or even
accepted by many scholars once it was discovered by archaeologist C. Leonard Woolley in 1927 digging in
the Royal Cemetery at Ur, was that ancient Sumerian kings, not even listed on
the King’s List, were buried with their attendants who had been sacrificed for
the burial. This startling discovery pointed out that what once was thought,
and still believed by many today, was actually inaccurate and that there were
far more early Sumerian kings than believed, and their practice of human
sacrifice was quite evident, from as few as half a dozen, to as many as seventy
to eighty, including courtiers, guards, musicians, handmaidens and grooms—in
fact, a new examination of skulls from the royal cemetery at Ur appears to
support a more grisly interpretation of human sacrifice associated with elite
burials, including the driving of sharp pikes into their heads. This was also
done in ancient Egypt and referred to as retainer sacrifice, including high
officials.
We also find in the religion of the
Semites, Babylonian-Assyrian priests who, under the name “Chaldeans,” practiced
sacrifice (nisakku), and among the
semitized Phoenicians, Amonites, and Philistines, these ominous deities found
special veneration with howling and dancing priests who sought to appease the
bloodthirsty Moloch by sacrificing children. Women and children were sacrificed to the Canaanite god Ba’al, also venerated by the
Egyptians, and to Astarte, and during the
time of King Achaz to that of Josias, thousands of innocent children were
sacrificed to Moloch in the Valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem.
(Image D – At the time of Abraham: Left: The Ziggurat at Ur, the temple of the Moon God, Nanna(r); Right:
A bald-headed Sem high priest of Sumeria
During Abraham's early years in Ur, there was
a cult of Egyptian worshippers, with evidently a single main priest over the
group and its followers. Whether he was named Elkenah, or there was an area
named Elkenah (Kenah) from which he originally came, or he represented a god
unknown to history named Elkenah, cannot be ascertained. It would appear,
though that this priest was a bald-headed Sem (see above), a high priest, whether self-appointed, or so
named by a distant Egyptian pharaoh, again is unknown.
However, it should be kept in mind that
the area of Ur of the Chaldees was about 800 miles away as the crow flies, but
some 1300 miles travel distance from Egypt. Any word or control would be slow
in coming to Ur from the Pharoah or even the temple leadership. In any event,
there was a custom in Ur of sacrificing the a son to appease the gods.
In fact, it has been written after a lengthy dissertation on the birth and life
of Serug and Nathan, and the introduction of the worship of idols, that:
“And in the days of Terah, in his
ninetieth year, sorcery appeared on the earth in the city of Aôr (Ur), which
Horon, the son of `Abhâr, built. Now, there was in the city a certain man who
was very rich, and he died at that time. And his son made an image of him in
gold, and set it up upon his grave, and he appointed
there a young man to keep guard over it. And Satan went and took up his abode
in that image, and he spake to the son of the rich man after the manner of his
father. And thieves went into his house, and took everything that the youth
possessed, and he went out to the tomb of his father weeping, and Satan said,
"Weep not in my presence, but go and fetch thy little son, and slay him
here as a sacrifice to me, and forthwith everything which thou hast lost shall
be returned to me here." And the youth did as Satan told him, and he slew
his son, and bathed in his blood. And Satan went forth immediately from that
image of gold, and entered into the youth, and taught him sorcery, and
enchantments, and divination, and the lore of the Chaldeans, how to tell
fortunes, and foretell events, and destinies. And behold, from that time the
children of men began to sacrifice their sons to devils and to worship idols,
for the devils entered into the images, and took up their abodes therein.”
The Sumerians in Ur had a pantheon of gods, sorcerers, and man-gods at
a time when Satan was rampant in Mesopotamia
At about this time, Terah agreed
with the Sumerian priest to sacrifice Abraham, his son. And Abraham was taken
and bound on the altar of Elkenah and would have been slain had it not been for
the angel of the Lord (represented by the hovering bird in the vignette).
All of this Abraham depicted in
his drawing known as Facsimile 1.
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