[Abraham] introduced [the Egyptians] to arithmetic and transmitted to them the laws of astronomy. For before the coming of Abraham the Egyptians were ignorant of these sciences, which thus travelled from the Chaldeans into Egypt, whence they passed to the Greeks. (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 1.8.2)

This is a very interesting quote… but is it true? Certainly Josephus, writing around 90 AD from Rome, trying to convince a Greco-Roman audience of the antiquity and nobility of the Jewish nation, had reasons to embellish the Biblical narrative a bit.

Likewise we, as Christians, have a desire to write our heroes into the stories of great civilizations; to speculate that perhaps Samson inspired Hercules, or that Job built the great pyramid, or that Plato’s wisdom was acquired from Solomon’s writings. Some of these kinds of things are simply not true. Most of it is highly speculative, at best.

So we need to keep a healthy dose of skepticism about any claims like this; but that being said, Josephus was very conscientious for an ancient historian, and – by ancient standards – fairly rigorous in citing proof that his contemporaries were able to check, even though we may not have access to his sources today; for example:

Berosus mentions our father Abram without naming him, when he says thus: ‘In the tenth generation after the Flood, there was among the Chaldeans a man righteous and great, and skillful in the celestial science.’ (Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews 1.7.2)

We know also that when the temple was destroyed, Josephus was given the holy books of the temple by Titus Caesar, which he then used as the basis for his history (Life of Josephus, 414). So he had access to a lot of documents, likely including lost books of the Bible such as the Wars of the Lord, and the books of Iddo, Nathan, Ahijah, and many others referenced in the Bible which don’t exist today (Numbers 21:14, 2 Chronicles 9:29).

Of course, he also had access to a lot of books we consider apocryphal, uninspired books full of Jewish fables which he probably also borrowed from – fables which Paul warned us about (Titus 1:14). And yet the New Testament writers did quote from books we don’t have.

For instance, Paul refers to Melchizedek as being “Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life” (Hebrews 7:3). What’s important is that he isn’t teaching this, he is using this as an accepted fact which he then uses to prove that Melchizedek must be the Person who became Jesus.

Yet Genesis 14 says nothing about Melchizedek’s birth, or lack thereof. So what was Paul and his Hebrew audience reading? Likewise, Paul references “Jannes and Jambres”, the Egyptian magicians who withstood Moses (2 Timothy 3:8). And while the event is in our Bibles, there is no mention of their names (Exodus 7:11).

Yet there are an abundance of contemporary Hebrew stories – some obviously fantastical and absurd – which speak of these magicians by name. Honestly, I’d be inclined to dismiss them all as nonsense, but for the fact that their names were included in the inspired scriptures, which means there must be some truth to some of the Jewish fables of that time – those same fables Paul told us not to put faith in!

Similarly, Jude refers to Michael disputing with the devil over Moses’ body – which is not in our Bibles. And note, again, that Jude considered this a fact his audience already knew, which he was using to prove a different point.

But while the story isn’t in our Bibles, we do know that Moses was buried using supernatural methods (Deuteronomy 34:5-6). We know the Lord doesn’t generally do things Himself, but sends angels to do it for Him; and given Moses’ importance, we could guess He would probably send the highest ranking angel – which we know to be Michael, the “Archangel”, which literally means “chief angel”.

Given that, we could easily have guessed that the devil would have resisted – based on his behavior in Daniel and with Jesus. And finally, we could infer that since Michael was doing the Lord’s business, he wouldn’t need to fight the devil, simply rebuking him was enough.

And since we know him as a righteous angel, we can further conclude that he wouldn’t choose to curse the devil out since it wasn’t the right thing to do. Hence, we have reason to believe the words of Jude – besides faith in the inspiration of our Bibles – since they basically flesh out a story we could have inferred from the facts we do know.

But this in turn means that Jude was reading some book that told this true story we don’t have access to today! There are many other examples, but suffice it to say that Josephus had sources for facts about Abraham we simply don’t have. Indeed, it’s impossible that he didn’t have access to more things than we do, since NT writers reference them.

So while the story about Abraham may not be true, it might be. The only way to decide is to find more witnesses to confirm his words with archeology and history. And even though it was 4,000 years ago, there’s a lot more of them than you might think.

FROM UR TO EGYPT

Beginning with the things we know for certain; Abraham came from Ur, then went to Haran, and later passed through Canaan, into Egypt, and back again. So he could have been the conduit for the transmission of knowledge.

Further, it seems likely that the Egyptians had some mathematical and astronomical help to build the pyramids; in fact, the man who designed the first pyramid in Egypt, Imhotep, was later deified and worshipped for his immense contributions to the wisdom of Egypt.

Imhotep was an ancient Egyptian genius – a brilliant architect, mathematician, physician, astrologer, poet, priest, and Chief Minister to Pharaoh Djoser. Imhotep’s name means “the One Who Comes in Peace.” Although he was born a commoner, Imhotep rose to become King Djoser’s vizier and was in charge of building Djoser’s tomb at Saqqara. (EgyptianMuseum.org, Old Kingdom Architects, Imhotep).

It’s way too early to even hypothesize that this might be Abraham, but it’s worth mentioning that Imhotep means “he who comes in peace” – as in, a stranger who came to Egypt from somewhere else. Also it’s worth noting that Imhotep’s skills correspond closely to what Josephus said about Abraham.

The pyramid of Djoser (left) was an immense leap forward in technology compared to the earlier tombs, called “mastabas” (right). The time of Djoser began the Third Dynasty and with it the Old Kingdom which was Egypt’s first and arguably greatest golden age.

His reign also coincided with a major shift in Egyptian religion, with the beginning of mummification and a shift in which Gods were worshipped and how. So we know something was going on then. It’s hard to overstate the accomplishments of the early Old Kingdom.

The pyramid of Djoser, above, was probably the tallest man-made structure in the world until the great pyramid surpassed it about a century later, becoming definitely the tallest structure in the world – a record it would hold at least 3,000 years, until 1311 AD!

What’s more, there is a truly astounding number of ways that the pyramids are aligned with stellar events and phenomena, either along their various axes or as seen from Heliopolis, the most holy temple in the area, literally “the city of the sun”.

The base of the Great Pyramid is nearly a perfect square, with only a 5.5-inch difference between the western and eastern sides, an astonishing 0.01 percent difference. Which for a structure of this magnitude and age is unbelievable. And the space between blocks is 1/50th of an inch (less than half a millimeter).

The great pyramid covers 13 acres but is level to within just over 3/4 of an inch (2.1 centimeters); the average deviation of the sides from true north is 3′6″ of arc; for comparison, that’s an error of about three times the apparent width of the planet Jupiter in the sky. So… really close.

So close it’s impossible that it was not based on extensive observations of the motions of the heavens over decades, if not centuries. And, if the written histories are correct, it was built in only 20-30 years… meaning that 2.3 million blocks of stone were placed, with one being cut, transported, and perfectly fit… every 3 minutes.

So where did they figure out how to do that? Yes, it is possible they gave birth to their own Newton or Da Vinci – but unlikely considering the knowledge of how to do these things already existed on the other side of the known world… in Abraham’s hometown!

OLDER PYRAMIDS

It’s likely that the tower of Babel – which predated Abraham by a few hundred years – was the first attempt to create a pyramidal structure. The technology and science involved – perhaps with angelic inspiration under Nimrod – would have created a template for later efforts at pyramid building worldwide, from the Americas to Asia, after the nations were dispersed by God.

There are ruins of a massive temple at Babel, and several historical references to what it looked like; based on those, it would have looked something like the picture below. According to ancient Babylonian records it was about 200′ tall – the same as the pyramid of Djoser, give or take. Based on ancient descriptions, it would have looked something like the picture below.

And contrary to what most people assume, the Bible doesn’t say it was destroyed – simply that the people “left off to build the city” (Genesis 11:8). On the contrary, it seems they went on and built towers in every town in the area. Most importantly for our purposes… in Ur of the Chaldees.

Figure 1: Ziggurat of Ur

Ur was the center of worship for Sin, the moon God who was, at times, considered to be the king of the Gods and father of all things (at earlier times he was a lesser God, son of Enlil and Ninlin, grandson of Anu, father of the Gods). At right is a computer reconstruction of the ziggurat of Ur as it was originally built around 2000 BC, give or take – which is to say, Abraham’s timeframe.

But what’s interesting about Ur and Sin is that His worship involved extensive astronomical observations for which they used the pyramids! For these were not used merely as temples, or houses for the God, but as astronomical observatories to keep track of celestial motions!

During the period that Ur exercised its supremacy over the Euphrates valley, the Moon-God became the head of the local pantheon, so he was designated as “father of the gods”, “creator of all things”, and so on. He was also the “wisdom” personified, imagined as “an expression of the science of astronomy or of the practice of astrology, in which the observation of the moon’s phases is an important factor”.

In fact, in the astronomical knowledge, the people of Mesopotamia surpassed the other ancient civilizations, even the Egyptians. They confined their observations to the Moon, instead of the Sun… They had built observatories, or watch-towers, called Ziggurats… From these towers the priests/astronomers had the possibility to observe the rising and setting of moon, sun, planets and stars on a free horizon. They recorded data and had tables from which they were able to predict the positions of celestial bodies… In this manner, the Babylonian astronomy discovered the main periods of the Moon’s motion and used data analysis to build lunar calendars based on the Metonic cycle. (Sparavigna, Amelia Carolina, A Ziggurat and the Moon. Philica. 2016).

So not only was the science of pyramid building very advanced in Ur, but the pyramid itself was one of the tools used to do the observations! Which is why it was aligned so closely to the cardinal directions – that was vital for its primary function as it must have been vital to the original, primary function of the Pyramids of Egypt!

What’s more, the worship of Sin – a moon God – involved intricate measurements of the moon’s rising, setting, phases, eclipses, and so on – which is how they developed such an advanced astronomical science.

In order to develop a proper calendar, you have to take systematic measurements, night after night, of the stars, moon, and so on. And to do that, you need a flat, level, square surface to sight along to take your measurements.

In the absence of handy mountain peaks (not really a thing in Mesopotamia or Egypt), the best thing to do is to make a massive, flat, surface of stone or brick and use it as a giant sight. The bigger it is… the more accurate the measurement. Which is why it was important that they be as enormous as possible!

In addition, having steps along the pyramid at particular angles, or unnecessary-seeming staircases that point to where important events in the lunar cycle occur, is also handy.

In late Babylonian times it is likely that instead of, or in addition to, their original function as temple towers, the ziggurats were employed as astronomical observatory posts. (Black and Green 1998, 189; Fletcher 1996; Tiede 2011; Nadali and Polcaro 2016; cf. Parrot 1955, 58-64; Shepperson 2012)

Vance Tiede did a fascinating study of Babylonian-area ziggurats, or pyramids, concluding that all of them are aligned with at least one major celestial event – the solstices, the equinoxes, the highest point Venus reaches in the sky, etc. – but most importantly for our purposes, the ziggurat of Ur – Abraham’s home temple – was aligned with the full moon rise at the lunar standstill.

Explaining that is complicated, but suffice it to say that the lunar standstill is to the moon what the solstice is to the sun, hence it’s also called a lunistice. It is a key event in the lunar cycle that happens every 18.6 years and requires precise observation – such as a tall staircase which looks directly at the place in the sky where it will happen!

These observations allow for very accurate prediction of eclipses, which always happen near certain points in this lunar cycle. And since eclipses were considered bad luck in most societies, often seen as foretelling the death of the king, it was very important to predict them, so that measures could be taken to get out in front of the bad luck with extra sacrifices, or by getting a fake king for a day who could get the bad luck instead of the real king, that sort of thing.

Figure 2 From Ziggurats: An Astro-Archaeological Analysis, Vance Tiede

But back to the ziggurat of Ur; its dimensions were built using the Pythagorean theorem of a² + b² = c² (see the green right triangle in the picture at right). This speaks to an advanced (for the time) knowledge of geometry which would have been required to build structures such as the great pyramid.

And here’s something really interesting; ancient structures were nearly always built in round, whole numbers in their own local units; just as we typically aim to make things like buildings or bike tires a whole number of feet or inches or meters across, since it’s an arbitrary size anyway.

And most of the ziggurats around Babel were done in, predictably, round numbers of Babylonian cubits. The thing is, this pyramid in Ur wasn’t built in Babylonian cubits… but in round numbers of Egyptian cubits. Which further strengthens the connection that the Egyptians learned about pyramid building specifically from someone who had come from Ur! Because the Egyptian cubit was the same as the Urite cubit!

We know the ancient Egyptian royal cubit was 7 hands, each hand of 4 fingers width – exactly as the cubit of the Bible, which contrasted it to the Babylonian cubit of 6 hands, and told Ezekiel the true cubit was “one [Babylonian] cubit, plus a handbreadth” (Ezekiel 43:13). So why did the Egyptians have the same cubit as the Bible?

…the reason why Egyptians chose to divide a cubit into 7 parts might be quite hard to trace. It would seem to go back long before the construction of the Great Pyramid, at least to the time of Imhotep. (Math.Washington.edu, Pi And The Great Pyramid)

The earliest attested standard measure is from the Old Kingdom pyramids of Egypt. It was the royal cubit (mahe). The royal cubit was… subdivided into 7 palms of 4 digits each, for a 28-part measure in total. The royal cubit is known from Old Kingdom architecture dating from at least as early as the construction of the Step Pyramid of Djoser around 2,700 BCE (Mark H. Stone, The Cubit: A History and Measurement Commentary).

The association with the step pyramid of Djoser as one of the earliest certain uses of this unit of measurement! And it’s hard to trace the origin of the cubit before then… because it didn’t originate in Egypt but in Ur! And Imhotep was the one who introduced it! “He who came in peace” from Ur!

Further, the ziggurat’s area was one Egyptian setat or acre, as defined in the old kingdom – i.e, Abraham’s era. Which means that the Egyptian cubit and acre must have been learned from someone who brought it to them, not merely from Mesopotamia, but specifically from Ur!

The unexpected discovery of Egyptian setat in Babylonian ziggurat architecture may be ‘evidence of the transmission of mathematics’. (Neugebauer 1957, 1)

The conclusion that can be drawn from the existence of so many parallels of a non-trivial nature between hieratic and cuneiform mathematical texts is that Middle Egyptian and OB [Old Babylonian] mathematics must have influenced each other…. (Friberg 2005, 103; both as cited in Tiede’s paper above)

Or, as Josephus said, Abraham from Ur taught mathematics to the Egyptians! Remember, Josephus couldn’t have guessed that Ur’s measurements were the same as ancient Egyptian measurements; which means the existence of this legend that Abraham was involved just became a lot more credible.

THE OTHER TEMPLE OF SIN

Abraham is looking more and more likely to have been behind this transmission; we’ve proven he had the opportunity to bring science to the Egyptians – we can place him at both places. We’ve proven that there was motive – that Ur had better science than the Egyptians had, and we know that Abraham profited extensively by his time in Egypt – perhaps as a reward for this knowledge (Genesis 13:1-2).

But as early 2000’s police procedural shows taught us, we need motive, opportunity, and means. So did Abraham, personally, have the means? Could we show that he, personally, knew these facts beyond a reasonable doubt? That’s for you to judge.

As we’ve shown, Abraham came from Ur, the first center of Sin’s worship in the ancient world. But what you don’t know is that the only other center of Sin’s worship was Haran – the same city where Abraham’s family went immediately after leaving Ur!

These cities are 600 miles (1,000 km) apart, so this was no casual transference. What’s more, we know that Abraham’s father Terah served other Gods (Joshua 24:2), and since Sin was the patron deity of Ur, his erstwhile hometown, then Terah almost certainly served Sin!

Therefore when Terah left Sin’s temple in Ur he would have carried his images with him, and reestablished that worship in Haran – where, generations later, Abraham’s relatives still worshipped the images (Genesis 31:19, 34).

This is strong evidence that Terah’s family was involved in the worship of Sin enough to bring it with them and reestablish it at their new home. Yet this would be impossible unless a highly educated priest of Sin was among them.

Because remember – Ur’s worship of Sin didn’t just involve prayers and bowing down in front of idols. It involved complex measurements of the heavens – not something your average farmer could have brought with him from Ur to Haran!

And yet this fact, that knowledge of the heavenly bodies was necessary to the ancestral worship of Abraham’s house, could not have been known to Josephus – it being 2,000 years before his time, and Sin was no longer worshipped by that name. Which gives us cause to believe him when he tells us that Abraham was a learned astronomer!

Now Abram…was a person of great sagacity… for he was the first that ventured to publish this notion, That there was but one God, the Creator of the universe; and that, as to other [gods], if they contributed any thing to the happiness of men, that each of them afforded it only according to his appointment, and not by their own power. This his opinion was derived from the irregular phenomena that were visible both at land and sea, as well as those that happen to the sun, and moon, and all the heavenly bodies, thus: “If [said he] these bodies had power of their own, they would certainly take care of their own regular motions; but since they do not preserve such regularity, they make it plain, that in so far as they co-operate to our advantage, they do it not of their own abilities, but as they are subservient to Him that commands them, to whom alone we ought justly to offer our honor and thanksgiving.” (Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, 1.7.1)

Abraham’s conclusion, to sum that up, was that if the stars were gods, they could do whatever they wanted, and flit willy-nilly across the sky like birds. But since they moved in orbits, they were bound by rules. And someone, therefore, had to have given them those rules.

And since every visible heavenly body was subject to rules, paths from which they couldn’t deviate even a little bit, then the true God who gave them those rules must be invisible to us. And it was only that God who acted independently, and only He who deserved our worship.

But Abraham could not have formed these opinions without being intimately involved in the observation of the heavens; without observing the orbits of the moon and planets for himself. Something which required spending extensive time at a large astronomical observatory built to align itself with celestial events!

For only by sighting down various straight lines on the ziggurats and recording which stars appeared where on each day could you observe the regular cycles of the heavens. But being an astronomer in a non-religious sense did not exist in the ancient world. Regular people didn’t learn to read, do math, or chart the skies. Only priests did.

And since Terah worshipped Sin, and was likely a priest of Sin; and since families always raise their children in their religion if they can, and since the office of priest is often hereditary… if Abraham was, indeed, an astronomer…

…it can only mean that Abraham must have been a priest of the temple of Sin in Ur, before he was called by God!

And since priests and royals were pretty much the only educated people in the ancient world, for all practical purposes it means Abraham had Means, Motive, and Opportunity to transfer the knowledge of the Chaldeans to the Egyptians.

That is enough for a conviction in a court; but it still doesn’t prove he actually did it. It isn’t quite a smoking gun. However… I think we can find that too.

THE CALENDAR

There are three ways to make a calendar; a solar calendar, where you start the year at a given point in the solar cycle – let’s say, the spring equinox – and between there and the next you have one year of either 365 of 366 days (since the true year is about 365.25 days long).

This keeps the years consistent, because it’s hot at the same time of year, rains at the same time of year, and so on. But, it doesn’t break up into smaller units well, that can be tracked by people who don’t have cell phones and calendars in their pockets. So months are really handy.

However, months don’t divide up into a solar year very well. In a year, you’ll have twelve complete lunar cycles – months – and then you’ll have about 11 days left over. The moon keeps moving, but they’re not really part of a “month” in the literal sense.

So you could just ignore the solar year, and have a lunar year. This means your year is 12 lunar cycles, then another year is 12 more lunar cycles. This is easy. HOWEVER… it means that over time, your months drift through the solar seasons.

So let’s say you start your first year with a new moon on the spring equinox, just in time for planting. So you call this month “planting month”. Next year, the first day of “planting month” falls 11 days before the equinox; and within 8 years, planting month falls in midwinter, by which time you’re wondering if “planting month” is really the best name for this month…

Now, there’s nothing technically wrong with this, unless you have your months tied to specific seasons like planting, harvest, or celebrating solar events like the winter solstice. Which makes the names you have tied to them make little sense.

We’ve solved this in our modern calendars by having “months” that have no actual connection to the moon at all. They’re 28, 30, or 31 days – and every so often, one is 29 – which lets us have pretend months and yet not have the seasons drift.

But that’s a tricky solution to keep track of for peasants in a pre-industrial society. Without clocks and personal calendars, people just look at the moon to see roughly how much time has passed. So one solution to these problems is a lunisolar calendar, which involves adding an extra month back to the calendar every so often. This is called the Metonic cycle.

It works like this; you pick a point to start the year – let’s say the spring equinox. And let’s pick a year where the new moon is on that same day. This is day 1 of the year, and day 1 month 1. You count twelve months, and your next year starts 11 days before the equinox; that’s a bit off from last year, but it’s not a huge deal.

Count twelve more months of year 2, and the new year would start 22 days before the equinox. Since the goal is to keep the calendar anchored to the equinox, you can actually start the new year closer to the equinox by adding a thirteenth month, called an “intercalary month”.

This month would mean that the next new year would start 8 days after the equinox, after the 13th month, and then another 12 months brings you back around and the fourth new year starts on the new moon that happens three days before the equinox.

In this way, no matter how many years pass, the seasons will never be more than about two weeks out of alignment with any other year, which means the month of “planting” might be off by a few days, but at least half of it will always fall in planting time!

Why is this important in an article about Abraham? Because Babylonians, specifically at Ur, had discovered this calendar by the time of Abraham.

The Babylonian year of 360 days… was primarily based on the moon. They recognized months of 29 and 30 days… The average length of twelve lunar months (354 days) is too short for a solar year, while that of thirteen months (384 days) is too long. In order to harmonize the lunar and solar cycles the Babylonians used twelve months but intercalated a thirteenth one when necessary. This must have been done very early, [before] the third century at Ur (2294-2187)… (Vance Tiede, Ziggurats of Mesopotamia: An Astro-Archaeological Analysis)

And guess what… the oldest of the Egyptian calendars, the sacred calendar, used the exact same method!

The Egyptian lunar calendar, the older of the two systems, consisted of twelve months whose duration differed according to the length of a full lunar cycle (normally 29 or 30 days). Each lunar month began with the new moon—reckoned from the first morning after the waning crescent had become invisible—and was named after the major festival celebrated within it. Since the lunar calendar was 10 or 11 days shorter than the solar year, a 13th month (called Thoth) was intercalated every several years to keep the lunar calendar in rough correspondence with the agricultural seasons and their feasts. New Year’s Day was signaled by the annual heliacal rising of the star Sothis (Sirius), when it could be observed on the eastern horizon just before dawn in midsummer; the timing of this observation would determine whether or not the intercalary month would be employed. (Britannica.com, Egyptian Calendar)

The Egyptians, rather than using a solar event like an equinox, used the first time Sirius can be seen (a regular, yearly celestial event in mid-summer, around the time the Nile floods) as their anchor – which was a better fit to their agricultural cycle, which is very different from Mesopotamia.

Regardless, this proves that the Egyptians used the same method of counting their years as Abraham would have done in Ur! Something which, as a priest, he would certainly have been involved in! And therefore would have been one of the “laws of astronomy” he taught to them, according to Josephus!

Which, as a quick aside, solves a nagging question: Why doesn’t the Bible record anything about how to calculate the year? There are a few hints here and there, but nothing substantial. Really, God just acts like we already know how to count it. The only instructions God gave Moses about calculating the calendar was…

Exodus 12:1-2 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.

The Bible does not directly mention intercalary months, precisely when the month begins, or where to calculate it from. (Sighting a new moon over Jerusalem will often be a day off from a month begun by a new moon sighted over Hawaii. And if that new moon causes an intercalary month to be added, it can make the year off by 30 days.)

So despite what calendar obsessives would tell you, there is no way, using the Bible alone, to conclusively prove how to calculate the calendar. So why wouldn’t God say more about it? Because He didn’t have to!

Moses already KNEW how to calculate the calendar! God assumed he already knew how to count it because he did know – the Egyptians had already taught him!!!

Acts 7:21-22 …Pharaoh’s daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.

Moses was educated in all their wisdom, specifically involving “words”. Which means he knew writing, he knew math, and he would have known all about the calculation of the calendar! Because he was being raised as heir to Pharaoh, and these are things Pharaohs, conduits of the divine, had to know!

Which is why when Moses was being led by God out of Egypt, God didn’t need to teach him how to calculate it! Because the sacred calendar the Egyptians used was the same one God had given to the Egyptians… through Abraham!

Which is why the only thing God ever told Moses about the calendar was “today is the first day of the first month of the year”. Because that one phrase fixed everything that the Egyptians did wrong with the calendar!

Moses called the first day of that month Abib, after the stage that the barley plants are at during that season – which tells us that the anchor of the Bible’s year must be the spring equinox – the only major solar event that happens around the time the barley is harvested. Which is exactly how they calculated the first day of the year at Ur in Abraham’s time!

The first month of the civil calendar during the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods was Šekinku (Akk. Addaru), or the month of barley harvesting, and it aligned with the vernal equinox. (Wikipedia.org, “Babylonian Calendar”)

Notice that! The calendar of Ur and the calendar of Moses both began the year at the same time and for the exact same agricultural reason! Because God was correcting the only thing the Egyptians had broken about the calendar He used Abraham to teach them!

The other thing Egyptians did wrong was they started their months at the first day the moon wasn’t visible, after the last visible crescent; one or at most two days before the Urites did, which is the first observable crescent as the Jews do to this day.

Finally, the last thing they did wrong was to start their days at dawn, instead of dusk. Which is why God said, in effect, “this exact moment – just after dusk, on the evening when the moon was first visible, in the springtime during the barley harvest, this moment begins the year”.

Exodus 12:2 “This month shall be to you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you.

Because with that one phrase, said at that exact moment, God corrected all three errors – the start of the day, the start of the month, and the start of the year. The rest was exactly what Abraham had taught them!

All of which adds to the evidence that Abraham brought the calendar to the Egyptians; who used its principles, but moved the alignment to fit the floods of the Nile, which is why all God had to tell Moses was “hey, you know that calendar I inspired the Egyptians to teach you? Move the first day of the year and it’s right… just like I taught Abraham”.

WISDOM

As I said at the first, it’s tempting to assign to familiar Biblical characters all sorts of great attributes and treat mythology as a sort of fan-fiction for Biblical characters. I mean, the apocryphal books are full of just such flights of fancy.

And so we should be skeptical when Josephus claims Abraham was a brilliant debater and the wisest of men – because Josephus was trying to sell the Greeks on how cool the Jews were, and so telling them that Abraham was everything the Greeks looked for in a philosopher might just be telling them what they wanted to hear.

And yet, we can conclusively prove that Abraham was indeed among the wisest of men; for Abraham is one of the few men – Moses being the other in Exodus 32:9-14 – who is recorded as having debated God and actually changed God’s mind (Genesis 19:29). What greater proof of wisdom is there, than that? (Genesis 18:23-33, particularly verse 25). And it was his destiny to share this wisdom with all nations:

Genesis 26:4-5 And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

So Abraham’s keeping of the laws would cause him and his descendants to be a blessing to all the nations of the Earth. Especially the ones he visited! So with all this background, we are more inclined to believe what Josephus told us of Abraham’s time in Egypt…

Now, after this, when a famine had invaded the land of Canaan, and Abram had discovered that the Egyptians were in a flourishing condition, he was disposed to go down to them, both to partake of the plenty they enjoyed, and to become an auditor of their priests, and to know what they said concerning the gods; designing either to follow them, if they had better notions than he, or to convert them into a better way, if his own notions proved the truest… [then after the truth about Sarah came out, Pharaoh] … gave him leave to enter into conversation with the most learned among the Egyptians; from which conversation his virtue and his reputation became more conspicuous than they had been before. (Josephus, The Antiquities of The Jews, 1.8.1)

Remember, Pharaoh was king. And Abraham was a herdsman. Rich, to be sure, but not a king – at least, not yet. So a herdsman didn’t just pop into the palace of Pharaoh for a visit, nor hang out with priests and debate them without some sort of permission – which Josephus claims Pharaoh gave after the incident with Sarah.

Genesis 12:14-16 It happened that when Abram had come into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. The princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. He dealt well with Abram for her sake. He had sheep, cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

So this tells us that Abraham had direct contact with Pharaoh and the higher-ups in the Egyptian nobility because of Sarah’s deception. But then look at the rewards Abraham received from Pharaoh – I mean, yes, Sarah was beautiful. But this seems like an excessive amount of wealth to pay for a woman, even a beautiful one, especially in a time of famine.

…Especially when Pharoah didn’t even keep her, and had to give her back! And yet Abraham left Egypt “very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold”. Which suggests Abraham may have shared something else with Pharaoh… like wisdom. Which Josephus goes on to say…

For whereas the Egyptians were formerly addicted to different customs, and despised one another’s sacred and accustomed rites, and were very angry one with another on that account, Abram conferred with each of them, and, confuting the reasonings they made use of, every one for their own practices, demonstrated that such reasonings were vain and void of truth: whereupon he was admired by them in those conferences as a very wise man, and one of great sagacity, when he discoursed on any subject he undertook; and this not only in understanding it, but in persuading other men also to assent to him

If this is true, it means that – rather than denouncing the Egyptians as heathens and idolators, he went to them with reason and convinced many of them that their own ideas about God were false. It means that he unified their religion, and consolidated a lot of their customs into one larger religion. Teaching them the truth as best he could… Something that we know happened around the time of Djoser!

THE AFTERLIFE

It’s well known that about the time when Abraham would have visited – the early third dynasty, beginning of the Old Kingdom period of Egypt – Egypt underwent major changes in religion and science.

Up until the third dynasty, the dead were buried in mastabas, short, flat-topped tombs. While the bodies often were buried facing in a particular, ritually significant direction, they were not mummified or embalmed.

Many of the earliest burials were in, or at least with, boats – reflecting the worldwide fear of another flood, with the idea that the flood was a symbol of death, and therefore to survive it one needed a boat as Noah had. Something which, being only a few centuries after the Flood, certainly was alive in the cultural memory. (Shem was still alive, after all, and Noah had only just died.)

They believed in an afterlife, but the preservation of the physical body didn’t seem to play as large a part in it as it did later. All of this changed at the beginning of the third dynasty. Suddenly, everyone who was anyone had to be mummified. So why the sudden change? And why the obsession with the physical body?

Remember, literally every culture had some idea of an afterlife. Yet the vast majority of these did not require a physical body; various cultures burned their dead, turning them into literal spirit – for that is the meaning of air, or smoke – so that they could reunite with the Spirit of God.

Others buried them in tombs, hill-shaped mounds meant to depict the belly of a pregnant woman; Job alludes to this when he says… “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither” (Job 1:21).

The idea being that we would be reborn out of that grave, but not with the same body – with a new one. And these are intuitive ideas about life after death, ones which God intended for us to see and learn from – yet this is not, in fact, what will happen to anyone.

We will, instead, be resurrected with this body – or at least a copy of it. And in all the world, no one but the Egyptians placed such an intense amount of importance on the survival of this body. Why? Because they were the only ones who believed they would need it again.

Because Abraham had told them they would be resurrected, not reborn!

Job 19:25-27 But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth. After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God, Whom I, even I, shall see on my side. My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger. My heart is consumed within me.

Now imagine a superstitious Egyptian trying to wrap his head around these ideas – which may well have been written in Egypt, for Job would have been fairly young when the family went there (Genesis 46:13). To an Egyptian hearing this, he would conclude that if your flesh has disintegrated… you won’t see God.

In Ezekiel 37:1-11, we are told clearly that God will gather the bones and rebuild the bodies from the ground up. But the Egyptians may not have known this… or believed it, even if they were taught it. So to them, mummification became absolutely necessary to guarantee resurrection!

We know that Abraham “saw Jesus’ day, and was glad” (John 8:51-56) – a clear reference to the resurrection. We know that Abraham knew the gospel of the salvation of Christ (Galatians 3, particularly verses 8, 16-18, 29, etc.). Because the being who became Christ, the Lord God, told him! Told him the same thingshe was telling the Pharisees.

And so when Abraham went to debate with the Egyptian priests, he did so armed with much of the same understanding we have – that after death there is a resurrection, and that God will return to judge all nations in a literal, physical sense.

And that is something that the Egyptians very much believed in; that at death, their deeds were judged, as good or evil. If they failed the test, they were devoured by a monster; but if they passed, then they would join one of the “immortal stars” at the north pole (the ones which never set below the horizon; for setting symbolizes death). Isn’t that what we believe, in a way?

Daniel 12:3 Those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the expanse; and those who turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.

Isaiah 14:13 You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north!”

Another idea the Egyptians had is that they would go back to the original mound of creation, their version of the garden of Eden. Which isn’t that different from one symbol we believe in…

Isaiah 51:3 For Yahweh has comforted Zion; he has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Yahweh; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

Since Zion is used a symbol of the resurrected saints, there’s definitely some common imagery here. They also believed they would, at death, be freed from their body to wander around haunting things in the daytime, often in bird form. We don’t believe that, because this is something they probably believed in before Abraham that was blended with their new beliefs.

From about 2000 BCE onward it was believed that every man, not just the deceased kings, became associated with Osiris at death. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Osiris”.)

But probably their primary belief was that after death, if they were judged worthy they would become one with Ra and/or Osiris, both solar deities, and pass through the heavenly circuit with Him on His solar boat. Now… is that really so different than what we believe?

John 17:21 that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.

Psalms 89:36 His [David’s] seed [Jesus] will endure forever, his throne like the sun before me.

Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

These verses, taken literally, mean that Jesus’ throne is like the sun, we will sit with Him in His sun-throne and we will be one with Him. Which is, after all, the whole point of joining the church – the body of Christ, thus in a very real sense being the same person as Him in death (Romans 6:6-11).

So really, the Egyptians weren’t that far from what we believe… albeit mixed with a lot of idolatry and misunderstandings. You can see how what Abraham would have certainly told them about God could have led to these misunderstandings, when mixed with their preconceptions and misunderstandings.

But what would you expect? Christianity today is what God said, mixed with a lot of misunderstandings. Why would Egypt in the time of the patriarchs be any different? They were curious about the God of Abraham, who was so wise; they were curious about the God of Joseph, who clearly had amazing power, more than their other gods.

Genesis 41:38-39 Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of God?” Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Because God has shown you all of this, there is none so discreet and wise as you.”

So they certainly would have asked them about what this God expected from them. And just as certainly, they wouldn’t have understood; and they would have tried to fuse the God of Abraham with the gods they already knew. Just like people have always done to the God of the Bible.

But most importantly to our story today… this finally explains why mummification became such a national obsession. Because the faith in the resurrection was based on the misunderstanding that God actually NEEDED your old body – in as good a condition as possible!

Now we know why pyramids needed to be as secure and immense as possible, so that God could find your body, and no one else would disturb it. (Of course, burying themselves with gold had the opposite effect, guaranteeing grave robbers would indeed disturb it… but when has a religion ever thought things through?)

PORK

Egyptian religion has several curious customs that have led skeptics to believe that Moses’ religion was simply adopted from the Egyptians with the idolatry cut out. And there is evidence for that – only, they’ve got it backwards. Moses didn’t learn it from the Egyptians… the Egyptians learned it from Abraham.

A shocking number of Egyptian religious ideas can be traced to something Abraham would have believed. For example, Herodotus tells us “swine are held by the Egyptians to be unclean beasts. In the first place, if an Egyptian touches a hog in passing, he goes to the river and dips himself in it, clothed as he is” (Histories, 2:47)”. Now that’s odd, isn’t it? Because not eating pigs is a very expensive taboo:

Over a lifetime a pig can convert 35% of the energy in its feed to meat compared with 13% for sheep and a mere 6.5% for cattle. A piglet can gain a pound for every three to five pounds it eats while a calf needs to eat ten pounds to gain one. A cow needs nine months to drop a single calf, and under modem conditions the calf needs another four months to reach four hundred pounds. But less than four months after insemination, a single sow can give birth to eight or more piglets, each of which after six months can weigh over four hundred pounds (Harris 1985:67).

Which is a long way of saying, pigs get fatter, faster, on less food, than any other domesticated animal by a wide margin. Plus, pigs can eat almost anything, as opposed to the relatively picky diets of sheep and cattle. Not to mention that they apparently taste awesome.

Hence, there must be some powerful motivation to persuade a people to avoid eating them. It seems that the Egyptians, over the centuries, did have periods where they ate them but they are never depicted in temples or tombs as food, unlike cows, fish, ducks, and so on. Why not? Because “the [Egyptian] priests were forbidden to eat pork” (Alcock 2006).

According to Grivetti, before 3200 B.C. Egypt consisted of two distinctive geographical-cultural entities: a pork-consuming north or Lower Egypt, and a pork-avoiding south or Upper Egypt. Shortly after 3200 B.C., both regions were united politically when the Southerners invaded and conquered the north. One result of this conquest was the institution of broadly based pork avoidance throughout the Egyptian Nile valley and delta that pre-dates the Jewish pork prohibition by more than two thousand years. (Grivetti, L.E., Food prejudices and Taboos)

While I don’t agree with the dating methods, nor necessarily with their conclusions of how it happened – which are little more than guesses – it doesn’t matter, for there is no argument that this predates Jewish food taboos.

So why would the Egyptians have such an expensive taboo against pork? Very few ancient societies did. Except… you guessed it… Abraham’s hometown!

Pork was eaten in Ur in pre-Dynastic times…. After 2400 B.C., however, pork evidently became taboo and was no longer eaten. (Marvin Harris, Cannibals and Kings)

Why did it become taboo? Because God was teaching Abraham, who influenced the locals? Or because God, before Abraham, created an environment with relatively good customs for Abraham to learn before his eventual conversion? I can’t say at this point… but I can say that this is one more direct link tying Ur, Abraham, and Egypt together.

THE SIGN OF THE PRIEST

But still, there were many thousands of people in Ur who could have taught Egypt math, science, the calendar, and not to eat pork. So while we have a mountain of circumstantial evidence that Abraham was involved, we still don’t have a smoking gun.

For that, we need something that only one man, ONLY Abraham could have taught them. And as it happens… we have it. Because you see, Egyptians practiced one particular custom that they could only have learned from Abraham. Something that the Urites did not do, which only Abraham did…

Circumcision.

The Egyptian priests were required to be circumcised, and many Pharaohs were as well. This proves that it was seen as a religious practice, and not a merely hygienic one. The common people do not seem to have been circumcised as a rule.

Yet circumcision was not practiced in Mesopotamia, nor in Syria, else Eliezar of Damascus wouldn’t have needed circumcised (Genesis 17:23). Nor was it practiced anywhere else in that part of the world until Abraham was told to do it.

It was practiced in Saudi Arabia; and given the fact that Ishmael, the first person Abraham ever circumcised, went to live in Paran, which adjoins Midian, in Arabia, with whom he intermarried… well, that makes sense doesn’t it? They may not have learned it from Abraham directly, but they did learn it from his son.

The Egyptians however are not likely to have upended their religious practices for Ishmael, whom God said would be “a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him” (Genesis 16:12).

This was a sign given specifically to Abraham. Granted, it was given in Genesis 17, probably 20ish years after Abraham’s sojourn in Egypt in Genesis 13, but Abraham would go on to live for another 75 years – it’s plausible, if not probable, that he maintained communication with Egypt and even visited it again.

Therefore, they learned it from Abraham; or, at the latest, from Joseph.

ABRAHAM THE GOD

Which means we finally have conclusive proof; that math, science, unclean meats, the calendar, the resurrection and redemption from sins were learned by the Egyptians from Abraham, and further taught by his descendants, Joseph in particular.

And indirectly, that means that Abraham is responsible for the pyramids, their calendar, the science of mummification and other medical knowledge they possessed, and who knows what else.

And since the Greeks learned geometry and many other sciences from the Greeks – Pythagoras, Plato, and many other famous Greeks visited Egypt to study – it means Abraham is indirectly responsible for Greek wisdom, and therefore therefore, in a very roundabout way, the ancestor of all our modern sciences.

Given his immense impact on their history, it would be odd if the Egyptians, given their worldview, didn’t see Abraham as a god-like figure. And of course, they did. It’s finally time to revisit this quote from earlier:

Imhotep was an ancient Egyptian genius – a brilliant architect, mathematician, physician, astrologer, poet, priest, and Chief Minister to Pharaoh Djoser. Imhotep’s name means “the One Who Comes in Peace.” Although he was born a commoner, Imhotep rose to become King Djoser’s vizier and was in charge of building Djoser’s tomb at Saqqara. (EgyptianMuseum.org, Old Kingdom Architects, Imhotep).

As I said earlier, Imhotep was eventually deified (thousands of years after he lived). Some of those later legends are certainly embellished, to say the least; but even in his life he was immensely respected. And all of those things above are things that we have established Abraham either did, or directly inspired to be done.

The name of Imhotep is associated in Egyptological literature with the first pyramid, the famed stepped tomb of king Netjerkhet, later known as Djoser “the holy one.” Knowledge of both historical figures is shrouded in legend because only a few sources from their time have been found. In the case of Imhotep, contemporary references are limited to two inscriptions mentioning his name and titles in connection with Djoser and his successor Sekhemkhet, both of the 3rd dynasty in the Old Kingdom (2686–2613 BCE). These titles call Imhotep the royal seal bearer and great of seers (priest of the temple of Heliopolis), as well as overseer of sculptors. There is no explicit mention of his role as architect of Djoser’s pyramid complex. Nevertheless, the presence of his name and titles on the base of a statue of this king is evidence of his elevated position in the royal court. The original location of this statue in the funerary complex of the king, plus the titles related to building and sculpture, point to a historic role as designer of Egypt’s first monumental structure in stone.

It’s interesting that Djoser changed his name; if indeed this was a Pharaoh who was converted to Abraham’s religion, it makes sense that he would change his name – as changing religions often causes that.

And if indeed Abraham convinced many priests as well, then “great of seers” would be the title he naturally bore. I mean, we know that was true – for Abraham did have visions from the true God recorded in the Bible on several occasions.

And calling him “overseer of sculptors” makes perfect sense if he was the one who taught them how to build pyramids based on his own ziggurat at Ur. Which, given Abraham’s conversion, was probably not intended by him to be a temple or tomb, but as an observatory to help them observe the motions of the heavens to set the calendar, as he had done in Ur.

There are several other episodes of Imhotep’s life that suggest Abraham; a much later text relates a legend about “his divine father Ptah, his mother Khereduankh, and his sister Renpetneferet, sometimes also referred to as his wife. Imhotep is depicted as a powerful magician in Djoser’s royal court.” (Marina Escolano-Poveda, Imhotep: A Sage between Fiction and Reality)

His sister was sometimes referred to as his wife. That’s hardly unknown in Egypt, but incest in Egypt was greatly frowned upon for non-royals, and Imhotep was known to be a commoner. But we know for a fact that Abraham did have a sister-wife – indeed, it’s how Abraham met Pharaoh in the first place!

And Imhotep’s father was said to be the God Ptah – one of the oldest all-powerful creator Gods, and the oldest all-powerful creator God is indeed Abraham’s “Father” as He is of all the faithful sons of Abraham.

Egyptologists assume, and much later legends, state that Imhotep was an Egyptian – but there are no contemporary facts about his life whatsoever, except the royal titles cited above and his name – a name which implies “coming”, I.E. from somewhere else.

And so I consider it proven that Abraham was Imhotep. Which is why, despite extensive searching, Imhotep’s grave has never been found – which is odd, because considering his status, it should have been lavish and prominent, and near Djoser’s tomb.

But it’s never been found… because Imhotep was buried in the cave of Machpelah, in Canaan, by his sons Isaac and Ishmael (Genesis 25:9).

ABRAHAM OR JOSEPH?

Josephus and the Bible both mention a famine in the days of Abraham, which was the reason he went to Egypt in the first place. What’s interesting is that there is, to this day, a rock carved with a story that says that in the time of Djoser, there was a famine of seven years, and it was after consulting with the priest Imhotep, who then prayed to Khnum who promised to lift the famine.

Figure 3 The Famine Stela at Elephantine

Granting that this was carved 2,000 years later, and a lot of embellishments might have happened between those two events, it once again connects Imhotep to an event in Abraham’s life – specifically, a severe famine which Imhotep is credited with lifting – something God would certainly have done for him.

However, based largely on this stela, many armchair archeologists with a Biblical axe to grind (like me) have concluded that Djoser’s famine was in the time of Joseph, because of the obvious seven-year connection.

And that’s reasonable, but this was time of frequent famine – Abraham went to Egypt because of an extreme famine, and Isaac went to the Philistines a generation later for a separate famine (Genesis 26:1), both different from the one of Joseph. So while I admit the seven-year connection is valid, it’s not conclusive;

On the other hand, the evidence connecting Djoser to Urite measurements and technological advances that Joseph would not have known is overwhelming. Remember, divinely inspired genius or not, Joseph was a mere 17 years old when He went to Egypt.

He could not have taught them the astronomy and measurements and temple-construction techniques of Ur, since he had never been there. Because genius or not, Joseph hadn’t spent the better part of a 75 year life as an astronomer-priest of Ur like Abraham had!

There’s a LOT more to say about Joseph, but I don’t want to get off-topic. Suffice it to say, Joseph could not have taught the customs from a city to which he’d never been in to the Egyptians. Imhotep did, and therefore Imhotep was Abraham.

ABRAHAM’S CONVERSION

It’s worth noting that Terah had idols, as did his great-great-granddaughter Rachel. Jacob, while in Haran, clearly tolerated idols among his men and family (Genesis 35:1-4). Up until this point, Jacob had not committed himself to the God of Abraham, pending the Lord’s fulfillment of the deal Jacob made at the pillar (Genesis 28:16-22).

What’s interesting about Abraham is that, he had realized, ON HIS OWN, that it was foolish to worship the created thing rather than the Creator! Long before he made a covenant with God and was required to get of his idols, he stopped doing it because he thought it was foolish. That’s why he was greater than Jacob.

Because through Abraham’s observations of the heavens in the course of his duties as priest, he came to realize that the moon could not be a God, since it was a slave to laws that Abraham discovered bound it to regular cycles!

And if the moon couldn’t free itself from the cycles of fate, how foolish was it to pray to the moon to free us from the cycles of fate?

Romans 1:20-25 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God… Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

So Abraham had done exactly what Paul had said we should do; learned, by the thing created, what the nature of the Godhead was; and realized that it was foolish to worship the thing that was created instead of the Creator!

A truth which he told his fellow priests of Sin, and when they didn’t listen, his fellow citizens of Ur; who reacted with predictable violence and chased him out of the city, probably killing his brother Haran in the process (see my article, “Haran the Hero”).

For which doctrines, when the Chaldeans, and other people of Mesopotamia, raised a tumult against him, he thought fit to leave that country; and at the command and by the assistance of God, he came and lived in the land of Canaan. And when he was there settled, he built an altar, and performed a sacrifice to God. (Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, 1.7.1)

But his discovery of this truth greatly impressed God; for this man, through love of truth alone, came to believe that all of the gods men worshipped were only servants of the true God and as such deserved no worship!

This was the first man to overcome the deception of the world; the first man to pierce beyond the veil of the angels, just as some few saw beyond the veil of Moses (2 Corinthians 3:12-18), and see the truth God really wanted – that God is a spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit, and in truth (John 4:23-24).

And it was that which impressed God, who appeared to Abraham, led him out of Ur and then out of Haran, where Terah’s idolatry continued; and then to distance him from that environment, God led him towards God’s own country, the small portion of the Earth that the Lord reserved for Himself.

And when he arrived, God appeared to him and promised that land to Abraham; and knowing Abraham’s background as an astronomer, it puts a whole new slant on…

Genesis 15:4-6 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward… . And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

God didn’t need to take him out of the tent to look at the stars; I mean, everyone knows there are a lot of stars! After all, God didn’t take him to a beach to show him how many grains of sand there are – despite using the exact same metaphor in Genesis 22:17. So why make him look at the stars?

Because Abraham was an astronomer, and as such Abraham would have a special appreciation of the size of this job of “numbering the heavens”. I mean, it was his job back in Ur! Knowing this, we can now hear the sarcasm in God’s voice when He says “count them… if you are able!”

This obvious belittling of him and his former job as priest of Sin was God making the point that Abraham’s former style of worship – knowing God by studying the stars – would no longer be necessary with the new covenant God would be making with him.

And, incidentally, also pointed out that Abraham’s own children would judge the world one day. For they would be as those stars, replacing those angels. For God had finally found a man who was capable of commanding his family after him, a man capable of having Seed who would actually bring light to the world.