Abraham
Shortly after the episode with the Tower
of Babel, some of the Jews apparently decided to leave Mesopotamia
where the Sumerians
were, and travel further west towards Canaan and modern Israel. The
Bible says this is because God told them to. Also, this was a bad time
in Mesopotamia, with both invasions and environmental problems, so maybe
it seemed like a good time to leave. They left Uruk and went to Canaan,
which is modern Lebanon and Syria. And then there was a drought
in Canaan (not enough rain) and so the Jews moved on to Egypt,
where they could find work to support themselves through the drought.
This would be about 2000 BC.
When the drought ended, the Jews moved back to Canaan, where they established
themselves as nomadic shepherds.
This part of the Bible has several stories about how cities are evil,
and nomads are pure and good, like the story of Sodom
and Gomorrah (contrast this attitude with that found
in the Epic of Gilgamesh).
In Canaan, the Jews started to mix with the local people, the Canaanites,
and they noticed that the Canaanites practiced human sacrifice:
they killed people (usually babies) in order to please their gods. Now
this was not what the Jews did: the Jews usually sacrificed sheep
for their god. Some of the Jews seem to have started to think that maybe
it would be better to sacrifice people. More impressive, anyway.
In the story of Abraham and Isaac, the Bible makes
it plain that God does not want human sacrifices. God appeared to Abraham
and told him to sacrifice his son Isaac to God. Abraham was very sad
about this but he agreed, and so did Isaac. But at the last minute God
said, "No, stop! I was just testing to see if you would do it. I don't
really want you to." And God told Abraham to sacrifice a sheep instead.
(Compare this story to the Greek story of Iphigeneia)
To buy an excellent Child's Bible, click on the picture (this is the one I learned from, and the one I give my own kids): (though the story of Abraham and Isaac has been left out of this Bible for some reason)
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