Tera-neter, priest of the Nilotic Annu, pre-dynastic inhabitants of the Nile River Valley.
Abraham’s father, Terah, bears this title. Tera/Terah means priest.
Abraham was a Hebrew, the sent-away son of his father Tera. The Hebrew practice of sending away non-ascendant sons drove the Hebrew dispersion into many regions of the ancient world. Other Hebrew sent-away sons include Cain, Nimrod, Jacob, and Joseph, Jacob's firstborn son by his cousin wife. Proper heirs, such as Abraham's older brother Nahor, and Abraham's son Isaac, received the territories of their fathers. Sent-away sons were to establish themselves in territories away from the ascendant sons.
Abraham's power as a ruler extended over his territory. His realm extended on a north-south axis between Hebron and Beersheba and on an east-west axis between Engedi and Gerar (see map below). Abraham's authority and exercise of power was based on loyalty between the Hebrew clans and the mutual support of the separate households of his wives, Sarah and Keturah. Both of the wives' households had warriors, servants, craftsmen, and herdsmen.
Abraham's territory was in the land of Edom (Greek: Idumea, meaning "land of red people"). Jacob separated the households of his wives when we approached Edom, fearing that his brother Esau might attack. Esau was Isaac's proper heir.
In Abraham's time, Edom was under the high king of Egypt. Abraham was of sufficiently high rank that he was recognized by the Egyptian king. Abraham's personal audience with him testifies to Abraham's adherence to a purity code that was consistent with that of the Egyptian high king, who was regarded as a "son" of God on earth.
It is evident from the biblical data that Abraham's Hebrew clan observed an ancient moral code that pertained to ritual purity, dietary laws, water rights, rights of inheritance, endogamous marriage, and animal sacrifice. Abraham's authority pertained to the Hebrew ruler-priest caste into which he was born and was reinforced by his adherence to the moral code of his Hebrew people.
By Abraham's time (c.2000 BC), the Hebrew priests were already widely dispersed in the service of rulers. This is why we find common religious practices among the related R1b peoples. An example is the belief that God can release a people from their debt. In the Hurrian/Horite Song of Debt Release, the High God instructs the ruler to release the people of Ebla from their debt.
Social controls function at many levels. Written law codes governed the kingdoms that arose before and after Abraham's time. These codes reflect the layered fabric of ancient societies. They incorporate folk traditions, regional practices, and controls based on kinship, and the notion of the deification of the ruler.
Among the early Hebrew, the tradition received from their ancestors was not to be changed. It was regarded as immutable and was to be passed unchanged from generation to generation. The moral codes that would have been familiar to Abraham included the Law of Tehut and the negatively worded Code of Ani (c.2500 BC). Both codes reflect the religious context of Abraham's Nilotic ancestors. He also would have been familiar with the Mesopotamian codes which differ little from those of the Nilotic rulers.
Written Codes
Abraham's power as a ruler extended over his territory. His realm extended on a north-south axis between Hebron and Beersheba and on an east-west axis between Engedi and Gerar (see map below). Abraham's authority and exercise of power was based on loyalty between the Hebrew clans and the mutual support of the separate households of his wives, Sarah and Keturah. Both of the wives' households had warriors, servants, craftsmen, and herdsmen.
Abraham's territory was in the land of Edom (Greek: Idumea, meaning "land of red people"). Jacob separated the households of his wives when we approached Edom, fearing that his brother Esau might attack. Esau was Isaac's proper heir.
In Abraham's time, Edom was under the high king of Egypt. Abraham was of sufficiently high rank that he was recognized by the Egyptian king. Abraham's personal audience with him testifies to Abraham's adherence to a purity code that was consistent with that of the Egyptian high king, who was regarded as a "son" of God on earth.
It is evident from the biblical data that Abraham's Hebrew clan observed an ancient moral code that pertained to ritual purity, dietary laws, water rights, rights of inheritance, endogamous marriage, and animal sacrifice. Abraham's authority pertained to the Hebrew ruler-priest caste into which he was born and was reinforced by his adherence to the moral code of his Hebrew people.
By Abraham's time (c.2000 BC), the Hebrew priests were already widely dispersed in the service of rulers. This is why we find common religious practices among the related R1b peoples. An example is the belief that God can release a people from their debt. In the Hurrian/Horite Song of Debt Release, the High God instructs the ruler to release the people of Ebla from their debt.
"If you take a debt release in Ebla, I will exalt your weapons. Your weapons will begin to conquer your enemies. Your plowed land will prosper in glory. But if you do not make a debt release for Ebla, the city of the throne, in the space of seven days, I will come upon you. I will destroy Ebla, the city of the throne. I will make it like a city that never existed. I will break the surrounding wall of Ebla's city like a cup. I will knock flat the surrounding wall of the upper city like a garbage dump..."
Social controls function at many levels. Written law codes governed the kingdoms that arose before and after Abraham's time. These codes reflect the layered fabric of ancient societies. They incorporate folk traditions, regional practices, and controls based on kinship, and the notion of the deification of the ruler.
Among the early Hebrew, the tradition received from their ancestors was not to be changed. It was regarded as immutable and was to be passed unchanged from generation to generation. The moral codes that would have been familiar to Abraham included the Law of Tehut and the negatively worded Code of Ani (c.2500 BC). Both codes reflect the religious context of Abraham's Nilotic ancestors. He also would have been familiar with the Mesopotamian codes which differ little from those of the Nilotic rulers.
Written Codes
At the royal sun cities there were Hebrew ruler-priests with the authority to enforce the moral code on behalf of the king they served.
Moral codes were written on stone and oven-baked clay tablets. They were also inscribed on papyrus. These ancient codes appealed to the highest authority for their validity. They were to be considered the "law" of the Supreme God who appointed rulers on earth by divine overshadowing.
The Code of Hammurabi was engraved on a stele more than 7 feet high. An image of King Hammurabi appears at the top of the stone, standing reverently before the seated Shamash, the god of justice. Shamash is shown dictating the law to his earthly representative.
These royal documents typically had colophons. Colophons are statements at the end of the document that identify the source and purpose of the document. Thus, the Code of Hammurabi closes with the statement, "The righteous laws which Hammurapi, the wise king, has established . . .." Similarly, Leviticus closes with this statement: “These are the commandments which YHWH commanded Moses for the children of Israel . . ." and the colophon of Numbers states: “These are the commandments and the ordinances which YHWH commanded by the hand of Moses unto the children of Israel . . ." (36:13)
Percy J. Wiseman (1888-1948) observed that the colophon coming at the end serves two purposes: it is a title page and a marker to connect one tablet to the next narrative in a sequence. Wiseman’s theory of the composition of Genesis is presented in his book, New Discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis (1936). The book has undergone several editions, and the most recent appeared with the title Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis (Thomas Nelson, 1985), and was edited by Wiseman’s son, Donald J. Wiseman (University of London). There is merit to Wiseman's theory, and I recommend the book. He concludes that Moses is the central figure around whom the Genesis material came together. I agree, in as much as that is what the Deuteronomist Historian (700-300 BC) intended in the final redaction of Genesis.
Following Wiseman’s method of comparing ancient Near Eastern texts, I would expand our sights to include the ancient Hindu or Vedic literature, which also employed colophons and told of the founders of the world in a similar manner. It appears that portions of these texts and the ancient Near Eastern texts share a common Nilotic cultural milieu. The interaction of peoples from the regions shown on this map is evident in artifacts and written communication. Mesopotamian cuneiform was understood in Egypt and Canaan, as testified by the Akkadian Tell el-Amarna letters (c.1400-1353 BC).
One of Wiseman’s most interesting observations is the stylistic change in the sequence after the colophon of Tablet VI which is "the history of Terah" (11:27a). The colophon appears to end the previous section but does not connect to what follows. At this point the Deuteronomist Historian wants to take the narrative in a direction that neglects Terah as a great patriarch of the Hebrew clans of Abraham, Nahor, Lot, and their descendants, the Hebrew of Moab, the Hebrew of Midian, and the Hebrew of Canaan.
Related reading: The Hebrew Hierarchy of Sons; Hebrew Sent-Away Sons; Akkadian Lexicon; Hebrew Ruler-Priests at the Ancient Sun Cities; The Law of Tehut, Ancient Moral Codes; Fundamentalism and Syncretism in Hebrew History; Competition Between the Horites and the Sethites
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