Erling jeppesen biography of abraham

God promised Abraham children Genesis ; His wife, Sarah was still childless, so she told Abraham to sleep with her handmaid, so that they might get a child from the union. A son was born from this union; his name was Ishmael. Isaac was the name of the son that came from the union of Abraham and Sarah; it would be through Isaac that the nations would be blessed.

When God told Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child in their old age, they both laughed. I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son. We would like to think Abraham believed God at once without any doubt, but this is not the case. After all, Sarah is well past the age of childbearing.

His hospitality to angels and his intercession for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah further illuminate his character. His burial place in the Cave of Machpelah remains a sacred site, underscoring the lasting impact of this pivotal figure in the Abrahamic faith traditions. Abraham, originally named Abram, was born in the city of Ur, which was located in ancient Mesopotamia.

At the time of his birth, Ur was part of the Chaldean empire, which is roughly in modern-day Iraq. In the book of Genesis, God made a significant covenant with Abraham. A covenant is a solemn agreement or promise. Also Read: Matthew in the Bible. This covenant is considered one of the most foundational in the Bible and plays a central role in the history and theology of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

At Babel, people had sought to make a name for themselves , but God promises that he will make a great name for Abraham and his descendants through their involvement with him and dependence upon him. Abraham does demonstrate remarkable faith in God by following his call to leave country and kindred and go to the land that God will show him Yet the same longing for autonomy that we saw in Genesis 3 and 11 remains present in Abraham.

Thomas V. Brisco, Holman Bible Atlas. Read Genesis 12— Seeking to understand Jesus in the terms he chose to describe himself: son of man his identity , and kingdom of God his mission. Like Like. Hi Constance.. He went to Egypt about B. Then he went back to Canaan, before the destruction of Sedom, about B. The year of the destruction of Sodom varies quite a bit.

What do you think? Thank you. Email me your reply. Personally, he thought the southern site was more probable, but it illustrates how we must live with uncertainty about the world as it was so long ago. I pressed sent. What church are you affiliate with??? Are you a born again Christian, believer? According to Nissim Amzallag , the Book of Genesis portrays Abraham as having an Amorite origin, arguing that the patriarch's provenance from the region of Harran as described in Genesis associates him with the territory of the Amorite homeland.

He also notes parallels between the biblical narrative and the Amorite migration into the Southern Levant in the 2nd millennium BCE. Fleming and Alice Mandell have argued that the biblical portrayal of the Patriarchs' lifestyle appears to reflect the Amorite culture of the 2nd millennium BCE as attested in texts from the ancient city-state of Mari , suggesting that the Genesis stories retain historical memories of the ancestral origins of some of the Israelites.

He also suggests that the Patriarch's name corresponds to a form typical of the Middle Bronze Age and not of later periods. The earliest possible reference to Abraham may be the name of a town in the Negev listed in a victory inscription of Pharaoh Sheshonq I biblical Shishak , which is referred as "the Fortress of Abraham", suggesting the possible existence of an Abraham tradition in the 10th century BCE.

Furthermore, many interpreted blood ties between tribe members as common descent from an eponymous ancestor i. Abraham's Journey from Ur to Harran could be explained as a retrospective reflection of the story of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile. Indeed, Israel Finkelstein suggested that the oldest Abraham traditions originated in the Iron Age monarchic period and that they contained an autochthonous hero story, as the oldest mentions of Abraham outside the book of Genesis Ezekiel 33 and Isaiah 51 : do not depend on Genesis 12—26; do not have an indication of a Mesopotamian origin of Abraham; and present only two main themes of the Abraham narrative in Genesis—land and offspring.

Abraham is given a high position of respect in three major world faiths, Judaism , Christianity , and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the covenant, the special relationship between the Jewish people and God—leading to the belief that the Jews are the chosen people of God. In Christianity, Paul the Apostle taught that Abraham's faith in God—preceding the Mosaic law —made him the prototype of all believers, Jewish or gentile ; and in Islam, he is seen as a link in the chain of prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Muhammad.

In Legends of the Jews , God created heaven and earth for the sake of the merits of Abraham. Before leaving his father's land, Abraham was miraculously saved from the fiery furnace of Nimrod following his brave action of breaking the idols of the Chaldeans into pieces. Abraham is generally credited as the author of the Sefer Yetzirah , one of the earliest extant books on Jewish mysticism.

According to Pirkei Avot , Abraham underwent ten tests at God's command. In Christianity , Abraham is revered as the prophet to whom God chose to reveal himself and with whom God initiated a covenant cf. Covenant Theology. Throughout history, church leaders, following Paul, have emphasized Abraham as the spiritual father of all Christians. He is also commemorated in the calendars of saints of several denominations: on 20 August by the Maronite Church , 28 August in the Coptic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East with the full office for the latter , and on 9 October by the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

The first time is on 9 October for those churches which follow the traditional Julian Calendar , 9 October falls on 22 October of the modern Gregorian Calendar , where he is commemorated together with his nephew "Righteous Lot". The other is on the "Sunday of the Forefathers" two Sundays before Christmas , when he is commemorated together with other ancestors of Jesus.

Abraham is also mentioned in the Divine Liturgy of Basil the Great , just before the Anaphora, and Abraham and Sarah are invoked in the prayers said by the priest over a newly married couple. A popular hymn sung in many English-speaking Sunday Schools by children is known as "Father Abraham" and emphasizes the patriarch as the spiritual progenitor of Christians.

Some Christian theologians equate the "three visitors" with the Holy Trinity , seeing in their apparition a theophany experienced by Abraham [ ] see also the articles on the Constantinian basilica at Mamre and the church at the so-called " Oak of Mamre ". Islam regards Ibrahim Abraham as a link in the chain of prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Muhammad via Ismail Ishmael.

In Islam, Abraham holds an exalted position among the major prophets and he is referred to as "Ibrahim Khalilullah", meaning "Abraham the Friend of God ". Besides Ishaq and Yaqub , Ibrahim is among the most honorable and the most excellent men in sight of God. The Druze regard Abraham as the third spokesman natiq after Adam and Noah , who helped transmit the foundational teachings of monotheism tawhid intended for the larger audience.

Mandaeans consider Abraham to have been originally a Mandaean priest, however they differ with Abraham and Jews regarding circumcision which they consider to be bodily mutilation and therefore forbidden. No one supported him except his nephew Lot and "one or two other individuals of no consequence". Abraham then came to "these regions", that is, to the Holy Land.

The purpose of God, moreover, was to sacrifice him as a ransom for the sins and iniquities of all the peoples of the earth. Paintings on the life of Abraham tend to focus on only a few incidents: the sacrifice of Isaac; meeting Melchizedek; entertaining the three angels; Hagar in the desert; and a few others. The Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus depicts a set of biblical stories, including Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac.

These sculpted scenes are on the outside of a marble Early Christian sarcophagus used for the burial of Junius Bassus. He died in This sarcophagus has been described as "probably the single most famous piece of early Christian relief sculpture. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. The Old Testament scenes depicted were chosen as precursors of Christ's sacrifice in the New Testament , in an early form of typology.

Just to the right of the middle is Daniel in the lion's den and on the left is Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac. George Segal created figural sculptures by molding plastered gauze strips over live models in his work Abraham's Farewell to Ishmael. The human condition was central to his concerns, and Segal used the Old Testament as a source for his imagery.

This sculpture depicts the dilemma faced by Abraham when Sarah demanded that he expel Hagar and Ishmael. In the sculpture, the father's tenderness, Sarah's rage, and Hagar's resigned acceptance portray a range of human emotions. The sculpture was donated to the Miami Art Museum after the artist's death in Abraham can sometimes be identified by the context of the image — the meeting with Melchizedek , the three visitors , or the sacrifice of Isaac.

In solo portraits a sword or knife may be used as his accessory, as in this statue by Giovanni Maria Morlaiter or this painting by Lorenzo Monaco. The Bible describes him as an "older" person. As early as the beginning of the 3rd century, Christian art followed Christian typology in making the sacrifice of Isaac a foreshadowing of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, and its memorial in the sacrifice of the Mass.

See for example this 11th-century Christian altar engraved with Abraham's and other sacrifices taken to prefigure that of Christ in the Eucharist. Some early Christian writers interpreted the three visitors as the triune God. Thus in Santa Maria Maggiore , Rome, a 5th-century mosaic portrays only the visitors against a gold ground and puts semitransparent copies of them in the "heavenly" space above the scene.

In Eastern Orthodox art, the visit is the chief means by which the Trinity is pictured example. Some images do not include Abraham and Sarah, like Andrei Rublev's Trinity , which shows only the three visitors as beardless youths at a table. In some Orthodox icons , Abraham is portrayed as one of the biblical figures waiting for the Christians in Heaven after the Final Judgement.

Kierkegaard wanted to understand the anxiety that must have been present in Abraham when God asked him to sacrifice his son. Hardy 's novel Father Abraham tells the fictionalized life story of Abraham. In , Steve Reich released an opera named The Cave. The title refers to the Cave of the Patriarchs. The narrative of the opera is based on the story of Abraham, and his immediate family, as it is recounted in religious texts, and understood by individuals from different cultures and religious traditions.

Bob Dylan 's " Highway 61 Revisited " [ ] is the title track for his album Highway 61 Revisited. In each stanza, someone describes an unusual problem that is ultimately resolved on Highway In Stanza 1, God tells Abraham to " kill me a son ". God wants the killing done on Highway Abram, the original name of the biblical Abraham, is also the name of Dylan's own father.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. Hebrew patriarch according to the Hebrew Bible. Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see Abraham disambiguation , Abram disambiguation , Avraham disambiguation , and Avram disambiguation.

Ur of the Chaldees , Mesopotamia. Hebron , Canaan. Sarah Hagar concubine Keturah. Oldest to youngest:. Terah father Amathlai , according to Talmud mother. Closest to furthest:. The Abraham cycle in the Bible. Structure and narrative programs. Main article: Abraham and Lot's conflict.

Erling jeppesen biography of abraham

Main article: Battle of Siddim. See also: Covenant of the pieces. See also: Hagar and Hagar in Islam. Three visitors. Abraham's plea. Main articles: Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot biblical person. See also: Endogamy and Wife—sister narratives in the Book of Genesis. Main article: Binding of Isaac. See also: Abraham's family tree. Historicity and origins of the narrative.

Main article: Historicity of the Bible. Origins of the narrative. Amorite origin hypothesis. Palestine origin hypothesis.