A friend and I were talking about some group that followed the Judaeo/Christian God before Abraham. Doesn't a priest come to minister to him? Aren't there sacrifices? It sounds as though a formal religion existed. It is intriguing b/c there is hardly any mention of it. What happened to it? Of course, I'm assuming Abraham was a historical person. Does anyone know the modern scholarship on this? And what variant the WTBTS teaches? Also, why don't we use Judaeo/Christian/Moslem God? I need to look this up in the Encyclopedia Judaica. Thanks.
PreAbrahamic God Followers
by Band on the Run 4 Replies latest jw friends
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tec
And Melchizedek king of Shalem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand." And he gave him a tenth of all. (Genesis 14:18-20)
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The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, "Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." (Psalm 110:4)
If you google Melchizedek, you'll get a bunch of sites devoted to who he was, and what it means.
Tammy
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peacefulpete
The Melchizedek character is an extremely interesting bid of very old material sewn into the Abraham legends. Take a look at this thread:
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peacefulpete
OK the link doesn't work and the comments are too long to repost here, so just do a search of words : Mels place.
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Band on the Run
I read the wikipedia article. It seems to make a distinction about YHWH being different from the other gods not so compelling. Abraham seems to be almost a fluke. Basically, we follow the scripture of this group almost by historical accident. It makes a lot of sense in anthropolical terms. My study indicates that Paul did not write Hebrews so I'm not thrilled with Hebrews as a source.
All these many years I just assumed that time in a modern sense began with Abraham. There is so much emphasis on his story. Not much on his pre-story. Personally, I find a man willing to sacrifice his own son despicable. He sounds like the ideal JW.
I hope I have access to an academic library soon so I can reference journal articles. I want something more reliable than wikipedia but I'm also not writing my doctoral dissertation on this subject.
Thanks for th info.