Abraham Meets the Three Men
Engraving
16th century
Collection of the Musée Dauphinois
His birth name was Abram, but he became Abraham (Friend of God) when God told him to leave the city of Ur, in southern Mesopotamia, and head north. He travelled with his wife , Sarah, and his Nephew, Lot, to Haran, near the headwaters of the Euphrates, and then to Palestine (Genesis 12).
Sarah was sterile, and gave her slave, Hagar, to Abraham as a concubine. Ishmael was the result of this union. Then three mysterious messengers appeared to Abraham under a tree on the plains of Memre; Sarah gave birth to a son, Isaac, and sent Hagar and Ishmael into the desert. Abraham was 100 years old at the time (Genesis 18, 1-15).
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These are the thumbnails and texts for this alcove. They can be printed.
Around 1250 B.C., Moses wanted to return the Hebrews to Palestine and hoped to unite them under one God whose name was new to them: YAHWEH, the third person of the verb "to be" or "to exist": He is, He exists. The name encapsulates all that can be known of Him: the fact of his existence. Thus the God of Moses escaped both the polytheism that dominated the Near East at the time and the anthropomorphism which represented the multitude of gods in human form.
The religion of Moses did not come out of nowhere. It saw itself as a continuation of the traditional religion of Abraham and was based on a central tenet: the covenant between God and His Chosen People. But for the first time, Yahweh spoke directly to the Hebrews, imposing his orders and desires, which were transcribed in the tablets of the law. Moses founded a religion based on revealed law. He did not invent the idea of a single God, but he planted the seeds of monotheism which was born after several centuries of reflection.
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