Biblestudy: Abraham (Part One)

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Given 09-Jan-90; 59 minutes

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Misguided biblical scholars claim Abraham was a primitive, backward donkey caravaneer or perhaps a mythical or composite figure. Abraham came from a highly advanced civilization located in Mesopotamia, highly advanced in science, knowing calculus and chemistry, having indoor running water under pressure. Abraham, a direct descendant of Eber, Shem, and Noah, was drafted by God to leave his land at 75 years of age, vested with the patriarchal responsibility to teach and command his family the wisdom of God, providing a genealogical line from which Christ emerges.


transcript:

I chose to speak about Abraham because he is the father of the faithful, someone whose life we need to know about. I am going to go into some things that, to me, are interesting but not all of them are provable. I am going to give them to you because to the best of my knowledge, neither are they disprovable either. They sort of stand in an area, with the help of the Bible, we are going to be able to see that at least the main substance of it is true. Whether every fact is absolutely correct, I could not vouch for that.

Let’s begin this study of Abraham in II Peter 3. The context in the previous verses show that Peter is admonishing these people regarding the return of Jesus Christ and the last days, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.”

II Peter 3:5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water.

Most modern historians reject the authority of the Bible. This does not mean that they are unaware of it or do not use it, I mean they do not recognize it as the authority that we do in the church of God. One of the ways they approach it is, rather than checking the accuracy of their histories and writings against it, they turn things around and check the Bible’s accuracy against other writings. I do not feel that we should approach the Bible that way.

The apostle Paul speaks in a series of scriptures the approach of peoples who lived centuries before he did.

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

The word “suppress” certainly gives an indication of a willful and deliberate hiding of knowledge. Suppress means to hold back, or hold down. It is as though they are keeping from the general public information that if it was made available, might make a very definite difference in people’s lives.

Romans 1:19-20 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

Mankind has a perverse inclination to reject the authority of God’s Word. There are those who find the Bible interesting, a source of inspiration, intriguing, and will do a great deal of research in it, and about it. Maybe indeed spend their lives as some archaeologists do, searching in its pages trying to find evidence for whatever dig they are involved in that might have some biblical connection to it. Yet when it comes to being an authority in their lives, for the conduct of their personal life, it is rejected.

No Christian should do this. We are to tremble before it. There have been many, many men who have raised objections against the Bible, and it seems as though in many cases, before their objections are answered, these people die. They have at the very least missed out on an opportunity, maybe in some way, serve the living God.

Now if one has an approach to the Bible that it is an authority, it is the ultimate authority especially in terms of the conduct of our lives, for spiritual, moral, and ethical guidance, setting the purpose for our lives, then it is going to give us a foundation for life and open vistas for understanding for us that would otherwise be unavailable.

Now Abraham, I feel, is a case in point. I can recall reading one time where Dr. William Albright, one of the more famous archeologists, scholars of our time, wrote that he felt that Abraham was nothing more than a donkey caravaneer. I feel this is a real put down of Abraham, and I think a put down of the Bible as well because the Bible does not show Abraham as being a donkey caravaneer. Did he live a nomadic existence? Yes. But being a donkey caravaneer, I just cannot picture from what I see in the Bible about Abraham of him being such a thing. To others, he is a compounding figure. To others, he is just a kind of mythological hero, with the emphasis being on the myth.

But I think what I see of Abraham is this: he was not backward, he was not ignorant, he was not primitive. Maybe if we consider our world today as being technologically advanced, we might consider Abraham and the culture from which he came to be primitive, but I personally do not. Just because he lived in a tent and had a nomadic existence, I do not think that he was primitive. He did not have automobiles or television sets, he did not have a telephone jangling his nerves every ten minutes. But the man, undoubtedly, was highly intelligent, he was a skilled (as far as I am able to see), mathematician. He was an effective leader, a ruler of maybe a fairly large group of people, and he was a man that God ultimately called His friend. Now that is someone I think is worth getting to know!

Whenever God called Abraham, He was not calling a back woodsy, mythological, composite figure. He was calling a man already fairly skilled in many sciences. There is a section in Werner Keller’s book The Bible as History, in which he devotes some time and attention to the culture of Mesopotamia and Shinar. He claims from archaeological digs that had been made there, that they have discovered that the people in Abraham’s day were already capable of doing calculus. That is pretty advanced. Now, we do not necessarily know if Abraham could do calculus, but certainly there were people there in his time that had advanced very far.

He also mentions that from dwelling places that have been unearthed, they can see that there was running water in the houses, under pressure. In addition to that, it appears that they had developed paints whose pigments, from the time of Abraham, let us say in the 18th and 19th centuries BC, around 4,000 or so years, that at the time they dug those things up the colors of the paints were still clearly visible. That appears they had a clear understanding of chemistry, at the very least. What they emulsified the colors in, I do not know, but whatever it was, it was able to retain the color on that which they painted it.

So these things indicate that when Abraham was called out, he was coming out of culture that was pretty highly developed. This would indicate that when Abraham was called, he was an articulate man, one who was well educated, and a man who had the potential to be a very great personality and leader for carrying out his purpose.

Now let us go back to the book of Genesis.

Genesis 11:26 Now Terah lived seventy years, and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Genesis 11:32 So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.

The indication from verse 26, if one took it just the way it was said, it looks as though Abram, Nahor, and Haran were triplets, all born in the same year when Terah was seventy years. However that is not the case. Abram is listed first, although he was not the eldest of the three. Haran was the oldest and Nahor was the youngest, putting Abram in the middle.

Genesis 12:4 So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

Abram was 75 years old when he was called. If Terah died at the age of two-hundred and five years, and if he died just prior to (and that is what the context seems to imply), Abram’s leaving his land, then Terah was one hundred and thirty years old when Abram was born. We can deduce then that Haran was born when Terah was seventy and that Nahor was born at some unspecified time after Abraham.

If we go all the way back to verse 10 of chapter 11 we can pick up Abraham’s genealogy.

Genesis 11:10-24 This is the genealogy of Shem: Shem was one hundred years old, and begot Arphaxad two years after the flood. After he begot Arphaxad, Shem lived five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and begot Salah. After he begot Salah, Arphaxad lived four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters. Salah lived thirty years, and begot Eber. After he begot Eber, Salah lived four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters. Eber lived thirty-four years, and begot Peleg. After he begot Peleg, Eber lived four hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters. Peleg lived thirty years, and begot Reu. After he begot Reu, Peleg lived two hundred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters. Reu lived thirty-two years, and begot Serug. After he begot Serug, Reu lived two hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. Serug lived thirty years, and begot Nahor. 23 After he begot Nahor, Serug lived two hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and begot Terah. After he begot Terah, Nahor lived one hundred and nineteen years, and begot sons and daughters.

We find that Abraham was a descendant of Shem, who was the son of Noah. I think all of us understand that. If we look down in verse 15 we find in a couple of generations after Shem that Salah begot Eber. We find therefore that Abraham’s genealogy is in the line of Noah through Shem through Eber. So this was the line through which God was preserving His truth, and indeed I think we can say that they, this line of men, represented His government on earth since the time of the Flood. We also find then that Jesus Christ, if we want to go to Luke the 3rd chapter, you will see all of these men’s names there, and you will see that Jesus came from the same line—Noah, Shem, Eber, Abraham, Judah, David, and on to Jesus Christ.

Now again, we have many of the schoolers of this world saying that these people were like Abraham, mythological. Some will go so far as to say they never existed. There are others that will allow that maybe they lived, but there is no proof that they lived and nobody has ever dug up information regarding them.

However, there has been information dug up regarding these men in excavations at Mari. Mari is in northern Mesopotamia on the headwaters of the Euphrates River. At Mari there was quite a bit of evidence that was dug up that turned up the names of very many of these people, either in terms of their names themselves, or cities that were named after these people.

To this day, there is a city in modern Iraq named Harran. There are also tablets found that indicates the names Terah, Serug, Reu, and Peleg as well.

Genesis 11 is laying the foundation for Genesis 12. There are three important topics that are covered in Genesis 11. Beginning in verse 1 through verse 9, is the building of the Tower of Babel and the confusing of tongues, resulting in the spread of mankind over the whole earth. Then beginning in verse 10, we have the generations of Shem, which shows the line which God chose to preserve His truth. Then beginning in verse 26 or 27, somewhere right around there, the call of Abraham, which laid the foundation for the continuing preservation of God’s truth and established the line through which the Savior would come.

Now when Abraham was born (just to give you a little bit of insight into the time element), Noah had been dead only a few years. Shem was still alive, and so was Eber. It is from Eber that the name Hebrew was derived. Also in that period, since the Flood, Cush had lived and died, Nimrod and Semiramis had lived and died, and Horace, who was Semiramis’ illegitimate son, had either just died or was about to die at the time Abraham was born. All those people were conducting their wide range of activities against God. This is a very neglected and critical period of man’s history.

The part that Abraham played, I think, has very largely been downplayed, but on the other hand, he may have been responsible for perhaps altering the history of the world to a considerable extinct. Being the father of the faithful and the one through whom the Hebrew line came and through him the kings of Israel, I think we can safely say that he altered man’s history. I think that without understanding the role that Abraham played here, man has a gap in their understanding of the ancient world, and indeed the modern world as well.

Genesis 11:28 And Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

It is from Ur of the Chaldeans that Abraham left and went into Canaan. I was looking through a very highly recommended Bible atlas. In its format, it begins with Genesis 1, 2, and 3, and speculates as to where the Garden of Eden was located and where those rivers might have been, and then very quickly it jumps to Genesis 12 and the call of Abram, and locates Ur of the Chaldeans. This very famous atlas placed Ur of the Chaldeans in Shinar, near the mouth of the Euphrates River just before it empties into the ocean. Well that cannot be. If we are going to take the Bible as accurate, turn with me back to Stephen’s address in the book of Acts.

Acts 7:2-3 And he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’

So this puts Abrahams homeland in Mesopotamia. Are you familiar with that area of the world? It is that portion of the world that is now occupied by the modern nation of Iraq and part of Iran. The Tigris and Euphrates River valleys flow down the center of that area, with the Tigris being on the eastern side and the Euphrates being on the west side, and eventually they combine and empty out into the Indian Ocean. Now that area, at the time of Abraham, was divided in the northern and western part of that very large valley that was Mesopotamia. In the south was Shinar.

Now there were two Ur’s. One of the things that apparently misleads the people who look into these things is that it is called here in the Bible, Ur of the Chaldeans. According to their reckoning, the Chaldeans did not come into the land, into Mesopotamia, until around 1100 or 1200 BC. For reckoning that to Abraham, well that is far too late, because the context is telling us here that Abraham lived hundreds of years before then. Well, I have to confess to you that I do not know exactly why it calls it Ur of the Chaldeans if indeed the Chaldeans did come into the area that late. My initial thought is that the scholars are wrong, that the Chaldeans did not come into the area that late. The Chaldeans actually had the genesis for their birth in that area, but they never rose to any kind of prominence until they were more visible on the scene of history much later.

Now let us go look at something that is very interesting in the book of Joshua.

Joshua 24:2-3 And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the River, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants and gave him Isaac.

For our purposes here, the key phrase is “dwelt on the other side of the river.” The river is the Euphrates River. The other side, from a Hebrew standpoint, would be the far side from the position in Jerusalem. In relation to the Euphrates River, Jerusalem would be on this side of the river. Now this Ur he is talking about here in verse 2 which was the homeland for Terah, Nahor, and Abraham was on the other side of the river. The Ur which was in Shinar is located on this side of the river, on the west side of the Euphrates River. The Ur that is in Mesopotamia, the Ur of the Chaldeans, is on the other side, the east side of the Euphrates River. So that tends to show very strongly which one of the cities that Abraham came from. He came from the one that was in the north, the one that is called in Genesis 11:28 as being Ur of the Chaldeans, the one that was in Mesopotamia.

Now the word Chaldean is a Greek word. The Hebrew word is Chasidim which indicates people of Chasidim.

Genesis 11:11 After he begot Arphaxad, Shem lived five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.

This Arphaxad, the best way that I can describe it, is an English corruption of Urfa-Chesed in Hebrew, or Urfa-Chaldean. So Ur is merely a shortened form of Urfa. Urfa then is the father of the Chaldeans and Abraham is descended from Arphaxad, through Eber, Urfa’s grandson. So we have a genealogy that went somewhat like this (I am going to leave some of the people out): Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, Eber, Peleg, Terah, Abraham. There were many others, but it gives us enough to understand the line.

Genesis 14:13 Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, for he dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and brother of Aner; and they were allies with Abram.

The word “Hebrew” means migrant. So it is Abraham the migrant. There the word has two meanings, indeed he is a Hebrew—he is from Eber—and also he was a migrant who came from beyond the land of Canaan and was migrating around within it.

I hope that I have established to you that Abraham was from northern Mesopotamia, the northern Ur of the Chaldeans. He is a direct descendant from Noah through Arphaxad to Eber to Terah down to him.

Now when was Abraham born? His birth year can be established from the Exodus from Egypt. The Exodus from Egypt can be established beginning with a well-established date, and then working toward it by adding the reigns of kings, the length of time of offices of judges and rulers and so forth, we arrive at the date of 1443 BC.

Genesis 17:1-8 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

Let us take a look at the events of the Exodus taking place.

Exodus 12:40 Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.

If you look in your Bible you will find that the word “was” is in italics, meaning it was inserted because the verb is not present in the Hebrew there. A better understanding of the verse would demand the word, completed. So, a correct wording would be, “The sojourn of the children of Israel, who lived in Egypt, completed four hundred and thirty years.” It does not mean they sojourned in Egypt four hundred and thirty years, but rather the sojourn of the children of Israel completed four hundred and thirty years.

Exodus 12:41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years—on that very same day—it came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

The very same day as what? It was four hundred and thirty years from the day that God proposed and made the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17. I will add one more scripture to this, where Paul is speaking about this covenant.

Galatians 3:15-17 Brethren, I speak in the manner of men: Though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it. Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect.

Here we have that same number again. Now the law also was given four hundred and thirty years after the covenant. It was in exactly the same year of the leaving of the children of Israel from Egypt, as a matter of fact, it was just about three months later that the law was given. Now again we find that in four hundred and thirty years the connection of the making of the covenant.

Now, beginning with the year 1443, you add to that 430 and then you add 99 to that and you come up with a date, 1972 BC, as the date of Abraham’s birth.

At the time of Abraham’s birth, populations were still quite small, there apparently very few national boundaries, at least as far as we know them today. Most of the time when you crossed a river you were not going into someone else’s nation. The people were very largely nomadic shepherds and these people followed their patriarch. However, that does not mean that there were no learned people. Those people lived a long, long time. Abraham died at 175. Isaac died at 180. Jacob lived for 147 years and complained to Pharaoh that his days were few. Well they were a lot compared to you and me. But he lived a long time as well.

Now during that period of long life, they had a lot of time to learn a thing or two. They had time to observe. They had time for many generations to grow up during their lifetimes and observe the relationships between these people and understand human nature, to understand many of the things that we do not have time for any more. Even though those people did not have the kind of technological culture that we have, I feel that they understood things that we do not learn in our lifetimes except by having it crammed into us and maybe by the calling of God.

Those people knew the basic structure of the solar system. They could predict eclipses. Maps have been found in Mesopotamia that shows very clearly that they knew that the world was round, they knew that the earth rotated on an axis and revolved around the sun. They had very fine calendars that must have taken a couple of hundred years of observation of the natural phenomena to understand how they work to arrive at something as accurate as they did. They were capable of learning, and they understood a great deal.

Their system of government, at least in the families we are concerned about right here, Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, Eber, Terah, Abraham, was patriarchal. I feel that God has always had His government on earth in some form. I am sure that it has been adapted from time to time but always was from the top down, with variations. Today God’s government operates through His church, through an apostle, through the ministry that is under him. In Moses’ day, there was Moses and it was passed on to Joshua, and from them arose the judges. Then we find from the system at the time of Samuel, the kings, beginning with Saul and then David. And always it was theocratic, always from the top down, but always with some variations as well.

Now right after the Flood, the system was patriarchal, which means high father, or chief father. Generally the patriarch was the oldest and wisest of the clan. The authority was centered in him. So authority and responsibility was held within the family and this kind of system works very well. It especially works very well when the populations were small, and I would almost have to say that God’s church works on a form that is somewhat consistent with this. I find back in the book of Ephesians at least an implication of it where Paul said,

Ephesians 3:14-15 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.

We always defer to our Father. He is the Head of the Family. From Him the authority flows to the oldest brother, the firstborn. And then on down through the apostle to the evangelists and so on.

Now, can you imagine the wisdom that can be accumulated in the amount of time that those people lived? I am amazed and humbled that the older I get, the more I realize I do not know. And the older I get, the more I wish that I could cram into my head to be able to make some good use, somehow or another, at the very least in teaching. I know, here I am, 57 years old, and if things go on and I die before Christ returns, I will probably die (because all the Ritenbaugh men die fairly young because of a history of heart problems) somewhere between 70 and 75. That is just a hop, skip, and a jump compared to Abraham’s 175. And it is nothing at all compared to Noah’s 950 years that he lived!

It is interesting here in Genesis 18, God gives a rousing affirmation of Abraham. I would be so happy if God could say something like this about me. He said,

Genesis 18:17-19 And the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”

That verse encompasses much of the responsibility of a patriarch. In him was vested the authority to keep things moving in the right direction. In him also was vested the authority or the responsibility of educating his family. The “I have known him in order that he command his children” means pass on to them the education, the understanding, the wisdom, that God had passed on to Abraham through the experiences that He took Abraham through. So administration of the family and the education of the family was the patriarch’s major responsibility. Abraham is the father of the faithful.

Genesis 11:28 And Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

Genesis 12:1-4 Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

Now subtract 75 from 1972 and you come up with 1897 BC. So now we have a date for Abram’s leaving.

We are going to leave that for just a second because we have to now examine what was going on in Abraham’s life prior to this. Well, the Bible does not say what was taking place between his birth and age 75, but there are a couple of resources that at least give us some insight. One of them is The Austrian Chronicle, Josephus has a few things to say, Diodorus of Sicily, another ancient historian, adds a few things that will be helpful to us, and we will be quoting a few things from them.

First of all, let us go back to someone we mentioned a little bit earlier. You remember Horus? Horus was Semiramis’ illegitimate son. He is the one she claims she became impregnated with after Nimrod had died. Now Horus was quite a character, along with Semiramis. She eventually married him, and they apparently did not get along to well because Horus either had her put to death or perhaps he killed her himself. I do not know. But Jewish and Arabian history, or tradition, said that Horus and his progeny persecuted Abram and were Satan’s instruments for world domination. Apparently it was Satan’s purpose that through Horus and his progeny that he was going to stamp out the knowledge of God.

Well Horus died, but the persecution continued under those who followed, because the Assyrians were aggressively expanding their territory and information for this comes from The Austrian Chronicle. Now The Austrian Chronicle is a German work, it was finished around 1404 AD. It is a history of the Danube Valley, and its story begins with a man of princely birth with a Hebrew name, Abram. I do not know whether the authors knew who they were dealing with (to the best of my understanding there is no indication in the book that they knew that they were dealing with Abram of the Bible), but the dates and events that are contained within it, line up very favorably with Abraham and his life, so it appears they are speaking of the Abraham of the Bible.

Now the Chronicle states that this Abram was born in Mesopotamia in a place called Aligem, which is a Latin word in a province or area ruled by Count Sattan. The Chronicle says that this Abram took a wife by the name of Suzanna, which is another Hebrew name. Now this Suzanna is not named in the Bible, however there is an indication in Genesis 25 that Abraham had at least one other besides Sarah and Hagar.

Genesis 25:6 And Abraham gave gifts to the sons of the concubines which Abraham had; and while he was still living he sent them eastward, away from Isaac his son, to the country of the east.

The only concubine that is mentioned in scripture is Hagar. Sarah is designated as his wife in Scripture. The fact that it is plural indicates that there were at least one other besides Hagar who was a concubine. It is entirely possible then that the other concubine was this Suzanna.

This particular affair that is being spoken of here occurred sometime in the years before 1971 or 1970 BC, when Isaac was weaned. Now you might wonder if the Chronicle mentioned Sarah. The answer to that is no. Even as the Bible does not mention Suzanna, the Chronicle does not mention Sarah. It does not mention Hagar, it does not mention Ishmael, nor does it mention Isaac either. You have to understand that the Chronicle was only interested in the history of the Danube Valley and specifically concerned only with Austria.

Now Diodorus of Sicily says that this Suzanna was Horus’ half-sister. So if this Suzanna is Horus’ half-sister, would indicate they had the same father but different mothers. We know who Horus’ mother was, it was Semiramis. But Suzanna’s mother is unnamed. Because of this, we have to then say that the Austrian Chronicle is implying very strongly that Suzanna was royalty. She came from the Assyrian royal family. The fact that Abraham married royalty tells you something about his station in life as well. It hardly looks as though Suzanna would marry some guy from the other side of the tracks. Just because maybe he happened to be a handsome hunk, I am sure that the family of Suzanna wanted somebody more appropriate than somebody who might have just looked good.

Now Abraham had more going for him than that. He too was of a royal line, only that royal line was, as far as we are able to perceive, even more prestigious than the line in Assyria. So in that sense of the word, Abraham was the one who was marrying down, because his line goes back to Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, Eber, Terah, and then on to Abraham.

So we find that Abraham is marrying someone also of royalty which certainly indicates that Abraham himself would be royalty, although the Bible does not claim that royalty for him.

Just prior to 1902 BC, Abraham had a son by Suzanna named Achaim, another Hebrew name. What are Hebrew names doing in an Austrian Chronicle? What are Hebrew names doing in a book that gives the history of the Danube Valley? Well, these people were Hebrews, that is why. Abraham, Suzanna, and then there is Achaim. Now it is from Achaim, beginning about 50 years later that the royal line of Austria continued.

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