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Jubilees and Judith describe Abraham rejecting his father's polytheism and choosing to worship God as creator. This tradition, not found in the Hebrew Bible, presents Abraham’s departure from Chaldea as an explanation for his sudden change to monotheism.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Judith 5:8
Deuterocanon
6 These people are descended from the Chaldeans. 7 They sojourned before this in Mesopotamia, because they didn’t want to follow the gods of their fathers, which were in the land of the Chaldeans. 8 They departed from the way of their parents, and worshiped the God of heaven, the God whom they knew. Their parents cast them out from the face of their gods, and they fled into Mesopotamia and sojourned there many days. 9 Then their God commanded them to depart from the place where they sojourned, and to go into the land of Canaan. They lived there, and prospered with gold and silver, and with exceedingly much cattle.
Jubilees 12:1
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
1 And it came to pass in the sixth week, in the seventh year of it, [1904] that Abram said to Terah his father, saying, 'Father!' 2 And he said, 'Behold, here I am, my son.' And he said, 'What help and profit have we from those idols which you worship, And before which you bow yourself? 3 For there is no spirit in them, For they are dumb forms, and a misleading of the heart. Do not worship them: 4 Worship the God of heaven, Who causes the rain and the dew to descend on the earth And does everything upon the earth, And has created everything by His word, And all life is from before His face.
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Notes and References
"... It is interesting that this passage presents an answer to our second question as well, namely, why, along with promising Abraham all sorts of blessings, God had told him to leave his homeland? The text in Judith suggests that this is in fact related to Abraham's belief in the one true God: Abraham and his family had to leave Chaldea "because they would not follow the gods of their fathers who were in Chaldea ... hence they [the Chaldeans] drove them out from the presence of their gods." This same idea—that Abraham rejected the worship of many gods and their idols and believed only in the one true God—is found in other ancient sources as well ..."
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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