Abraham, patriarch

During this period, sometime between 2000 and 1825 b.c.e., the patriarch of the Hebrew people, Abraham, left the Babylonian city of Ur and brought his people to the other end of the Fertile Crescent, to what is now Israel. There they founded a religion that focused on their one tribal god to the exclusion of all others. This was the beginning of the monotheistic biblical tradition that led to the creation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. 

The patriarch of the Hebrew people, Abraham, leaves the Babylonian city of Ur and brings his people to what is now Israel, where he founds the Jewish religion. 

Hermetis saith It is a single Numen, a divine, wondrous, and holy office, while it encloseththe whole world within it, and will become true with all else, and truly overcometh the elements and the five substances. Eye hath not seen, nor hath ear heard, neither have entered the heart of any man, how the heaven hath naturally embodied to truth of this Spirit, in it the truth doth stand alone, therefore it is called the voice of truth. To this power Adam and the other patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, owed their bodily health, their long life, and finally prospered in great wealth thereby. 

The widespread honour accorded Abraham leaves us with an impressive portrait of the man. In contrast, the Bible humbly paints him as an unassuming herder and reluctant Patriarch. It is perhaps most appropriate to regard Abraham as an archetype of the emergent proto-Israelite political identity. 

Gen 18.17-32 the patriarch Abraham s efforts to persuade God not to destroy Sodom. 

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