Jubilees 12:1

Pseudepigrapha

1 And it came to pass in the sixth week, in the seventh year thereof, [1904 A.M.] that Abram said to Terah his father, saying, 'Father!' 2 And he said, 'Behold, here am I, my son.' And he said, 'What help and profit have we from those idols which thou dost worship, And before which thou dost bow thyself? 3 For there is no spirit in them, For they are dumb forms, and a misleading of the heart. Worship them not: 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.

Judith 5:8

Deuterocanon

6 These people are descended from the Chaldeans. 7 At one time they lived in Mesopotamia, because they did not wish to follow the gods of their ancestors who were in Chaldea. 8 Since they had abandoned the ways of their ancestors, and worshiped the God of heaven, the God they had come to know, their ancestors drove them out from the presence of their gods. So they fled to Mesopotamia, and lived there for a long time. 9 Then their God commanded them to leave the place where they were living and go to the land of Canaan. There they settled, and grew very prosperous in gold and silver and very much livestock.

 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 ..."

Kugel, James L. The Bible as it Was (p. 135) Harvard University Press, 1998

 User Comments

Do you have questions or comments about these texts? Please submit them here.