Texts in Conversation
Isaiah 45 compares people questioning their creator to clay arguing with a potter. The Apocalypse of Abraham reshapes this comparison into a criticism of idols, insisting that the gods Terah makes should worship him rather than expect his worship.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 45:9
Hebrew Bible
9 One who argues with his Creator is in grave danger, one who is like a mere shard among the other shards on the ground! The clay should not say to the potter, “What in the world are you doing? Your work lacks skill!” 10 Danger awaits one who says to his father, “What in the world are you fathering?” and to his mother, “What in the world are you bringing forth?” 11 This is what the Lord says, the Holy One of Israel, the one who formed him, concerning things to come: “How dare you question me about my children! How dare you tell me what to do with the work of my own hands! 12 I made the earth; I created the people who live on it. It was me—my hands stretched out the sky. I give orders to all the heavenly lights.
Apocalypse of Abraham 3:3
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
2 ["What evil deed is this that my father is doing? 3 Is he not, rather, the god of his gods, since they come into existence through his chisels and lathes, and his wisdom, 4 and is it not rather fitting that they should worship my father, since they are his work? What is this delusion of my father in his works?] 5 Behold, Merumath fell and could not rise in his own temple, nor could I, by myself, move him until my father came, and the two of us moved him; 6 and as we were thus too weak, his head fell from him, and he (i.e. my father) set it upon another stone of another god, which he had made without head.
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Notes and References
“... Abraham reasons that since Terah, as the maker of the idols,
is as a god to them, the idols ought to honor him (3.3–4). ...”
Jones, Kenneth R.
Jewish Reactions to the Destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70: Apocalypses and Related Pseudepigrapha
(p. 247) Brill, 2011
* 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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