Abraham, mocker of idols
The Patriarch Abraham
I was reading an article by Craig A. Evans (“Abraham in the Dead Sea Scrolls” in The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation, pp. 149-158) when I came across this funny story about Abraham taken from Gen.Rab 38.13:
Terah [Abraham's father] was a manufacturer of idols. He once went away somewhere and left Abraham to sell them in his place. A man came and wished to buy one. ‘How old are you?’ Abraham asked him. ‘Fifty years’, was the reply. ‘Woe to such a man!’ he exclaimed, ‘you are fifty years old and you worship a day-old object?’ At this he became ashamed and departed.
On another occasion a woman came with a plateful of flower and requested him, ‘Take this and offer it to them.’ So he took a stick, broke them [the idols], and put the stick in the hand of the largest.
When his father returned he demanded, ‘What have you done to them?’ ‘I cannot conceal it from you,’ he [Abraham] rejoined. ‘A woman came with a plateful of fine meal and requested me to offer it to them. One claimed, ‘I must eat first.’ Thereupon the largest arose, took the stick, and broke them.’
‘Why do you make sport of me,’ he [Terah] cried out, ‘have they any knowledge?’
‘Should not your ears listen to what your mouth is saying?’ he [Abraham] retorted.
I laughed when I read this imaginative piece. Abraham’s father, Terah, makes idols. He trust Abraham to sell them yet Abraham makes a fool of the pagans by pointing out how ridiculous their worship of these idols is. When Terah comes home very upset Abraham tells a story that assumes the life of the idols, yet Terah knows this is foolishness because the idols have no life. This allows Abraham to point out the obvious foolishness of the situation.
The first time I heard this story was in “The gods aren’t Angry” by Rob Bell. It’s quite humorous.
I like how it reads back later Jewish criticisms of idols onto Abraham. I don’t know if Abraham felt that way, but it does seem that much of Israel’s history until the Babylonian exile had a very complicated relationship with the “gods”.
It is interesting to see how some later Jewish writers speculated about the cause of Abraham’s election.
I remember hearing it from Bell as well. Great story! By the way, who created the artwork you provide? I tried to find via Google out but only arrived at it being a Coptic Icon. (?)
@Luke: I googled “abraham icon” and it came up, but I couldn’t find it this time. I did a little research and found it here, though I am not sure if it is the original source: http://74.53.25.146/~copticon/index.php?cPath=18&osCsid=1230d5d036826a74cfe351c5ff735ad8
Thanks, Brian. I find Christian iconography (of this variety, if you know what I mean) quite beautiful. Thanks for sharing the art as well as the story!
@Luke: I’m with you. Coptic style is usually pretty awesome.
Haha! Love it.
The same story appears in the Book of Jasher. I’ve used the story a couple of times when preaching to make a point about believing something against knowledge to the contrary (in fact, I wrote a post about it a number of years ago). It’s really a great story.
@Ryan: Me too!
@Nick: Indeed it is.