SECRETS FROM THE PANDORA'S BOX - THE GENESIS ACCOUNT

Abram/Abraham/Brahma/Avram/Abu-Ramu/Ibrahim Zeradust (@ 2000 - 1800 BCE). One of the most central figures of Judaism and Islam and also revered to some extent among Christians. Abraham is believed to have lived around 2000 BCE, and died at the age of 175 years according to the Bible as well as Muslim sources. There are no independent sources confirming this abnormally long lifespan. While there is no form of historical or archaeological evidence for his personal existence, there is sufficient evidence that the peoples and regions we learn about existed during this time of history.

Abraham is of great importance to Judaism because he is the Patriarch of the Jews, through the line of his ‘legitimate’ son, Isaac, Father of Jacob who later became “Israel”. Abraham is important to the Muslims because he is a prophet of the same message from God as Mohammed and the Father of ‘Ishmael’, his elder ‘illegitimate’ son for whom God also made a promise.

In essence Abraham is believed to be the Patriarch of the Muslim’s through his son Ishmael. As God promised, Ishmael became the father of 12 princes (Gen 25:12-17), as well as a daughter, Mahalath, who later married Essau, son of Isaac (Gen 28:6-9). Ishmael was the father of the ISHMAELITES, a nomadic peoples that lived in northern Arabia. Modern-day Arabs claim descent from Ishmael. Ishmael died at the age of 137 (Gen 25:12-17).

The following is our interpretation of the life of Abraham; this has not been done arbitrarily or with malice or the intent to deceive. It has been done through critical and comparative scholastic analysis. As well as can be traced historically we believe the following to be the facts about Abraham, our search leads us to India.

The Bharatas

The Mahabharata, meaning “Great India” was written down @ 540 to 300 BCE, but has a much older oral history, it has been attributed to the sage Vyasa. They record “the legends of the Bharatas, one of the Aryan tribal groups.”

To understand the significance of this one must understand that Bharata was not a nation. Bharata was a collection of nations. India is the modern name of the land once called by its indigenous peoples Bharata - not in the context of a nation or country but as a collection of independent semi-cooperative individual nations just as Europe is a collection of nations.

Consider the word Bharata. This word is formed from the Sanskrit root ‘Bhara’, which under the sway of the rule of vowelization, may assume the form ‘Ibhar’, ‘Iber’, ‘Ibhray’, ‘Ibhri’, ‘Ibri’, ‘Ibrini’ etc. Words which all have been equated with the term Hebrew.

Further discussion of the term ‘Hebrew’: Another meaning of the term Savitr (the Sanskrit form of the term Hebrew) is Brahmana. Now let us consider the word ‘Brahmana’. If the suffix ‘mana’ is removed from this word, then it becomes ‘Brah’. Through time and usage this would give us the word, ‘Habra’ which is nearer to the word ‘Hebrew’. Also that, both these words, written without vowel signs, would give ‘BRH’ and ‘HBR’ respectively. The similarity is evident.

It is of interest to note another Sanskrit word, ‘Vipra’ (a synonym of ‘Brahmana’) in the same connection. The word ‘Vipra’ becomes ‘Ipar’ in colloquial Marathi. Now consider the word ‘Ipar’. This word may assume the forms ‘Iber, Ibri, Ibhray, Ibrani’ etc, - other forms of the word Hebrew. This leads to the conclusion that the Hebrews can be identified unhesitatingly with these Indian Brahmins who had migrated from India in the very early dawn of the Vedic period.

A strong point for a common Brahmin-Jewish origin is the fact that both communities have been endogamous priests from the earliest times of their recorded history. It may also be observed in this respect that the Hebrews, as well as their Indian counterparts, Brahmins, consider themselves as the “Chosen People of God”. The Hebrews started their career in history as a “Kingdom of Priests” (Exodus/19/6). Likewise, the Brahmins have also been a “Community of Priests” since the dawn of their history. The cult of Brahm (Hinduism) was carried to the Middle and Near East by several different Indian groups.

About 1900 BCE, after a severe rainfall and earthquake tore Northern India apart, ever changing the courses of the Indus and Saraswathi rivers. The classical geographer Strabo tells us just how nearly complete the abandonment of Northwestern India was. “Aristobolus says that when he was sent upon a certain mission in India, he saw a country of more than a thousand cities, together with villages, that had been deserted because the Indus had abandoned its proper bed.” (Strabo’s Geography, XV.I.19.) The drying up of the Saraswathi around 1900 BCE, led to a major relocation of the population centered around and in the Sindhu and the Saraswathi valleys, causing a migration westward from India. It is soon after this time that the Indic element begins to appear all over West Asia, Egypt, and eventually, even Greece.

An Indian historian, Kuttikhat Purushothama Chon, believes that Abraham was driven out of India. He states that the Aryans, unable to defeat the Asuras (The mercantile caste that once ruled in the Indus Valley or Harappans) spent so many years fighting covertly against the Asuras, such as destroying their huge system of irrigation lakes, causing destructive flooding, that Abraham and his kindred just gave up and marched to West Asia. Therefore, besides being driven out of Northern India by floods, the Aryans also forced Indian merchants, artisans, and educated classes to flee to West Asia.

Edward Pococke writes in India in Greece,

“...in no similar instance have events occurred fraught with consequences of such magnitude, as those flowing from the great religious war which, for a long series of years, raged throughout the length and breadth of India. That contest ended by the expulsion of vast bodies of men; many of them skilled in the arts of early civilization, and still greater numbers, warriors by profession. Driven beyond the Himalayan mountains in the north, and to Ceylon, their last stronghold in the south, swept across the Valley of the Indus on the west, this persecuted people carried with them the germs of the European arts and sciences. The mighty human tide that passed the barrier of the Punjab, rolled on towards its destined channel in Europe and in Asia, to fulfill its beneficent office in the moral fertilization of the world. The distance of the migratory movement was so vast, the disguise of names so complete, and Grecian information so calculated to mislead, that nothing short of a total disregard of theoretic principles, and the resolution of independent research, gave the slightest chance of a successful elucidation.”

If all these refugees were exclusively of Indian heritage, why is it that History doesn’t mention them?

The exodus of refugees out of ancient India did not occur all at once but over a period of one or more thousand years.

Indeed they are mentioned as Kassites, Hittites, Syrians, Assyrians, Hurrians, Arameans, Hyksos, Mittanians, Amalekites, Aethiops (Atha-Yop), Phoenicians, Chaldeans, and many others. But we have been wrongly taught to regard them as ethnicities indigenous to Western Asia.

Our history books also call them “Indo-Europeans,” causing us to wonder where they were really from. Many Christian and Jewish religious scholars (mostly of the ‘Eurocentric’ persuasion) don’t want it to be true that ten to thirty million “Indians” once lived in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and as far west as half-way across modern day Iran and the Eastern borders of modern day Saudi Arabia. They claim it’s a mere “coincidence” that so many place names and tribes there have biblical names. Still other scholars insist that it was the Moslems who christened all those tribes and places.

The truth, however, as history now reflects, is that many of those tribes and places had already received their so-called “Biblical names” centuries or even millennia before Islam was a gleam in Mohammed’s eyes and many centuries before those same names started showing up in the Middle East.

Our history books also call them “Indo-Europeans,” causing us to wonder where they were really from. The people of India came to realize their social identity in terms of societal functions or caste not in terms of races and tribes.

The following is a small sampling of some startling examples:

Since the proto-Semitic Tribes (the Yehudi) left the Dwarka region, the original Sanskrit that they spoke has undergone considerable changes of pronunciation and an admixture of words, so what was Sanskrit 5,742 years ago is now Hebrew.

The Buddhists say that the Abhiraans spoke “Abhira” (Yet another possible derivative form of Bharata). The Yadavas, a seemingly proto-Hebraic peoples still living in India, also claim to have spoken a language called Abhiri or Sabari. Today, Israeli Jews whose roots sink deep into Israeli soil are called “Sabaras.” Judaism and Hindu Shaivism (Worship of Shiva) Share the Same Names for God. 

The similarity of these Indian and Hebrew names certainly traumatized European colonists. Unwilling to admit that the Jews had never sprouted spontaneously in the Arabian desert, but were from the East as the bible itself tells us, they merely erased these matters from their minds or convinced themselves that they were “coincidences,” even though the “coincidences” numbered in the thousands and were peppered over every region in India.

Aramaic, a language as similar to Hebrew as Spanish is to Portuguese, originated in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan were once part of India. Afghanistan seceded from Indian in the 1700s. Pakistan was cut out of India when the two nations were partitioned after World War II. Aramaic also is the source of modern Hebrew’s square alphabet, used in Israel today.

Here’s an example of how the ancient Indians identified people: The leaders were called Khassis (Kassites), Kushi (Kushites), Cossacks (Russian military caste) Caesars (Roman ruling caste), Hattiya (Hittites), Cuthites (a dialectical form of Hittite), Hurrite (another dialectical form of Hittite). The Assyrians (in English), Asirios (in Spanish), Asuras or Ashuras (India), Ashuriya, Asuriya (Sumer and Babylon), Asir (Arabia), Ahura (Persia). Naturally, in areas where this religion prevailed, they were known as “Assyrians”, no matter what the real names of their respective kingdoms were.

In his History of the Jews, the Jewish scholar and theologian Flavius Josephus (37 - 100 C.E.), wrote that the Greek philosopher Aristotle had said: “...These Jews are derived from the Indian philosophers; they are named by the Indians Calani.”

Clearchus of Soli (a pupil of Aristotle) wrote, “The Jews descend from the philosophers of India. The philosophers are called in India Calanians and in Syria Jews. The name of their capital is very difficult to pronounce. It is called ‘Jerusalem.’”

Megasthenes, a Greek historian from Ionia, was sent by the Hellenistic king Seleucus I as an ambassador to the court of King Chandragupta Maurya in India. His report about the culture, history and religion of India was the basis of Western knowledge about India and whose accounts are every day acquiring additional credit from new inquiries, says that the Jews ‘were an Indian tribe or sect called Kalani...’”

The Magi of Persia in some references are said to have called their religion Kesh-î-Ibrahim. They also trace their religious books to Abraham, who was believed to have brought them from heaven.

Arabian historians of the past have also contended that Brahma and Abraham, their ancestor, are the same person. The Persians generally called him Abraham Zeradust. Cyrus considered the religion of the Jews the same as his own Zoroasterianism. “The Hindoos must have come from Abraham, or the Israelites from Brahma...”

Mr. Hyde, in his book Religion of the Ancient Persians, points out how Magianism, as set forth in its sacred books, taught that the human race sprang from a single pair; that it bore testimony to the occurrence of the flood; that it mentions Noah and his sons; that as far as Abraham is concerned, it declares him to have been its own author; and that it makes mention also of Moses. Moreover, it contains predictions respecting the appearance on earth of a Savior, who would ultimately overthrow the kingdom of darkness and make supreme and universal the kingdom of light and of God. It also taught the existence of good and of bad angels, also a resurrection of the dead.

In the sacred book of the ancient Persians and modern Parsees, The Zend Avesta, it is declared that the religion taught in it was received from Abraham; this was believed by leading Arabian writers not only of Persian Magianism but also of Indian Brahmanism.

The claims of Magianism to have been influenced by the revelations made to Abraham are far from being discountenanced by the laws of historical probability. For the war waged so successfully by Abraham in behalf of his kinsman, Lot, against the five kings, among whom was the king of Elam [i.e., Persia], is of itself a sufficient proof that the Father of the Faithful, Abraham, the Hebrew from Ur of the Chaldees, must have been as well known to the eastern kingdoms as Moses was in after times.

It is generally admitted that in the days of Abraham the forefathers of the Persians and Brahmins were one people. That these two cultures are of common descent is urged from the close relationship existing between Sanskrit, the language of the Brahmins, and the Zend or Persian; it is also said that the remarkable identity between the Brahminical and Persian mythologies indicates, unerringly, the original union of the two. It may also be noticed that Hitzig, in his Geschichte dcs Volkes Israel, reasons from the identity of certain practices observed by Abraham and the patriarchs of Israel on the one hand, and by Brahminical Hindus on the other, that a community in common of some kind once existed between these people.

The religion of ancient Persia was derived from that of the ancient Indians, or Aryans. The language of the earliest Zoroastrian writings is close to that of the Indian Vedas, and much of the mythology is recognizably the same. Two groups of gods were worshiped, the ahuras and the daevas.

The Greeks asserted that the Jews were Indians whom the Syrians called Judea, the Sanskrit synonym of which is Yadava or Yaudheya, and the Indians called them Kalanis, meaning orthodox followers of the scriptures.

Abraham

Abraham is understood by some as, “A Brahma” - meaning a Brahmin.

He is understood by others as an “ex-Brahmin”, being a prophet, sect, or a tribe which because of their conflict with orthodox Brahmins became refuges in the west.

This can be clearly proven if one investigates the root meanings of both words. Abraham is said to be one of the oldest Semitic prophets. His name is supposed to be derived from the two Semitic words ‘Ab’ meaning ‘Father’ and ‘Raam/Raham’ meaning ‘of the exalted.’ In the book of Genesis, Abraham simply means ‘Multitude.’

The root of Brahma is ‘Brah’ which means - ‘to grow or multiply in number.’ In addition Lord Brahma, the Creator God of Hinduism is said to be the ‘Father of all Men and Exalted of all the Gods’, for it is from him that all beings were generated. Thus again we come to the meaning ‘Exalted Father.’ This is another clear indicator that Abraham is linked the Hindu deity Brahma.

The Name Abram/Abraham is clearly derived from the Sanskrit word Brahma. The fact that Abram’s family migrated to Haran from Ur has often been taken by scholars to mean that Ur was Abram’s birthplace, but that is not stated anywhere in the Bible.

On the contrary, the command to Abram to go to Canaan and leave for good his past abodes lists three separate places: his father’s house (which was then in Haran); his land (the citystate of Ur); and his birthplace (which the Bible does not identify).

The etymological evidence, as illustrated above clearly link the words Ibri, Brahmin, Abraham and Hebrew pointing toward India as Abram’s true birthplace or at the very least the land of his fathers.

The name of Brahma was highly respected in India, and his influence spread throughout Persia as far as the lands bathed by the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. The Persians adopted Brahma and made him their own. Later they would say that the God arrived from Bactria, a mountainous region situated midway on the road to India.

Bactria (a region of ancient Afghanistan) was the locality of a proto-Semitic nation called Juhuda or Jaguda, also called Ur-Jaguda. Ur meant “place or town”. Therefore, the Bible was correct in stating that Abraham came from “Ur of the Chaldeans.” “Chaldean,” more correctly Kaul-Deva (Holy Kauls), was not the name of a specific ethnicity but the title of an ancient Hindu Brahmanical priestly caste who lived in what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Indian state of Kashmir.

Whether Abram’s family was Chaldean (from the Sumerians) or a Kaul-Deva (from Brahmanical priestly caste). His culture and his people worshipped many gods. This was his heritage. The Chaldeans inherited their “Pantheon of Gods” from Sumeria, who inherited them directly from India. The Kaul- Devas, of course brought theirs directly from what was then India, but in either case his family worshipped the same “Gods”.

Voltaire was of the opinion that Abraham descended from some of the numerous Brahman priests who left India to spread their teachings throughout the world; and in support of his thesis he presented the following elements: the similarity of names and the fact that the city of Ur, land of the patriarchs, was near the border of Persia, the road to India, where that Brahman had been born.

Equating the Hindu Brahma and Saraswathi with the Biblical Abraham and Sarai is easily attainable. It must be mentioned in this respect that while Saraswathi is said to be the daughter of Brahma in accordance with the Indian tradition, her Biblical counterpart, Sarai, has been described as the sister of Abraham.

There are many striking similarities between the Hindu god Brahma and his daughter/consort/wife Saraswathi, as compared with the Jewish Abraham and his sister/wife Sarai that seem more than mere coincidences.

Abraham and Sarah (Sarai) can easily refer to the Indian version of Brahma and Saraswathi. This indicates that this is an abridgement of some of the versions in the Indian Puranas, which is an easy jump to make logically as many Indian epics existed long before the Bible was written.

The Bible says that Abraham and Sarai went to the Middle East to escape a terrible flood that had taken place in their original homeland. The Biblical timeframe roughly corresponds to the drying up of the Saraswathi River, which triggered mass migrations of Indians westward.

Joshua 24:2&3 - Joshua said unto all the people, “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor, and they served other Gods. And I took your father Abraham from the otherside of the flood and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed.”

The Persians also claim Ibrahim (Abraham), for their founder, as well as the Jews. Thus we see that according to all ancient history the Persians, the Jews, and the Arabians are descendants of Abraham.

In ancient India, the Aryan cult was called “Brahm-Aryan.” The Aryans worshiped multiple gods. Abraham turned away from polytheism. By so doing, he could have become “A-Brahm” (No longer a Brahman). The Aryans called the Asuras “Ah-Brahm”. Therefore, we can logically assume that the fathers of the Indus civilization were probably proto-Semitics.

Melchizadek –Sage and King of Jerusalem

Melchizedek was a king of Jerusalem who possessed secret mystical and magical powers. He was also Abraham’s teacher. Melik-Sadaksina was a great Indian prince, magician, and spiritual giant - the son of a Kassite king. In Kashmiri and Sanskrit, Sadak = “a person with magical, supernatural powers.” A certain Zadok (Sadak?) was also a supernaturally endowed priest who anointed Solomon. Why does the Kassite (of royal caste) Melik-Sadaksina, a mythical Indian personage, suddenly appear in Jerusalem as the friend and mentor of Abraham?

According to Akshoy Kumar Mazumdar in The Hindu History, Brahm was the spiritual leader of the Aryans. As an Aryan (Not of Yah), he naturally believed in idols. The Bible says that he even manufactured them. Upon seeing how increasing idol worship and religious guesswork were contributing to the further downfall of his people, Brahm backed away from Aryanism and re-embraced the ancient Indian (Yah) philosophy (Cult of the Material Universe) even though it, too, was foundering in manmade evils. He decided that mankind could save himself only by dealing with what was real - not the imagined. This is paralleled in a story about Abraham in the Koran when he turned away from his father’s business of manufacturing idols.

Shocked at the barbarism and blind selfishness of the people, the wise men and educated people among the proto-Semitics isolated themselves from the masses. Dr. Mazumdar wrote, “The moral fall was rapid. The seers and sages lived apart from the masses. They seldom married and were mostly given to religious contemplation. The masses, without proper light and leader, soon became vicious in the extreme. Rape, adultery, theft, etc., became quite common. Human nature ran wild. Brahma (Abraham) decided to reform and regenerate the people. He made the chief sages and seers to marry and mix with the people. Most refused to marry, but 30 agreed.” Brahm married his half sister Saraswathi. These sages became known as Prajapatis (progenitors).

There is no doubt that the Yadavas founded ancient Israel. The real name of the Jews, Yahuda, seems to suggest this.

The Jews spell the name of the city of ‘Yerushalayim,’ of which the Sanskrit synonym is Yadu Ishalayam, which means the temple of the Lord of the Yadus (the descendents of Lord Krishna’s clan). Interestingly enough, the Indian tribe of Ioud (Yadu), was either expelled from or left the Maturea of the kingdom of Oude in India and, settled in Goshen, in Egypt, giving it the name of the place which they had left in India, Maturea.

Ayodhya or Yaudheya would be the Indian equivalent of the word Judea. It is true that the Jerusalemites were known as Yehudiya or Judeans (Warriors of Yah), a fact making the Hebrews Indian origins incontrovertible.

Jerusalem was a Hittite (Indian hereditary leadership caste) city at the time of Abraham’s death. In Genesis 23:4, Abraham asked the Jerusalem Hittites to sell him a burial plot. The Hittites answered, “...thou art a prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee.”

If the Hittites revered Abraham as a prince he must have been a highly regarded member of India’s hereditary ruling, warrior or priestly caste. The Bible never did say that Abraham wasn’t a Hittite. It just said, “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you.” (Genesis 23:4.) As the Hittites said, they recognized Abraham as being even above them.

The Hittites were not a unique ethnicity neither were the Amorites or Amarru. Marruta was the Indian caste name of commoners. The word “Amorite” (Marut) was the first caste name of the Indian Vaishyas: craftsmen, farmers, cattlemen, traders, etc.

In Ancient Geography of Ayodhya, G. D. Pande writes, “Maruts represented the Visah. The Maruts are described as forming troops or masses. Rudra, the father of the Maruts, is the lord of cattle.” In The Civilized Demons, Malita J. Shendge states, “...the Maruts are the people.”

We should therefore not be surprised to find the Khatti (Hittites) and Maruts (Amorites) functioning as the protectors and helpmates or assistants of Jerusalem.

In India, the Hittites were also known as Cedis or Chedis (pronounced Hatti or Khetti). Indian historians classify them as one of the oldest castes of the Yadavas. “The Cedis formed one of the most ancient tribes among the Ksatriyas (the aristocratic class made up of Hittites and Kassites) in early Vedic times. As early as the period of the Rgveda the Cedi kings had acquired great reknown... they are one of the leading powers in northern India in the great epic.” Ram or Rama also belonged to the Yadava clan. If our Abraham, Brahm, and Ram are the one and the same person, Abraham went to Jerusalem to be with his own people!

Ram’s congregations segregated themselves in their own communities, called Ayodhya, which in Sanskrit means “The Unconquerable”. The Sanskrit word for “fighter” is Yuddha or Yudh. Abraham and his group belonged to the Ayodhya (Yehudiya, Judea) congregation who remained aloof from non-believers and Amalekites (Aryans).

It is extremely naive to assume that for the birth of a nation, and for kingship over all the lands from the border of Egypt and beyond to the border of Mesopotamia (and beyond?), Abram’s God would have chosen a simple shepherd or picked someone at random.

With the above statement in mind a critical review of Abram’s lineage will show that he was most probably a descendent of a line of Royalty or at the very least of a Priestly Caste.

His Lineage and Birth Place from a Sumerian perspective.

It is also possible that Abram was born in the city of Nippur and lived in Ur with his father. Nippur and Ur were two of the original twelve “City-States” of Sumer. The twelve main deities of the Sumerian Pantheon of Gods (which coincidentally have corresponding Hindu prototypes) ruled these “City-States” of Sumer one God or Goddess per one City-State.

Ur was also the city of Ur-Nammu and his Law Code. Ur-Nammu is credited as being the first Sumerian “Law Encoder” @ 2100 BCE (several hundred years prior to Hammurabi’s codes which are better known to most people).

His was a family that not only could claim descent from Shem but which kept family records tracing its lineage through generations of first born sons: Arpakhshad and Shelach and Eber; Peleg, Re’u and Serug; Nahor and Terah and Abraham.

The following account, taken from the Hindu Matsya Purana (Fish Chronicle), describes some of the people who, after a severe flood, left India for other parts of the world:

To Satyavarman, that sovereign of the whole earth, were born three sons: the eldest Shem; then Sham; and thirdly, Jyapeti by name.

They were all men of good morals, excellent in virtue and virtuous deeds, skilled in the use of weapons to strike with, or to be thrown; brave men, eager for victory in battle.

But Satyavarman, being continually delighted with devout meditation, and seeing his sons fit for dominion, laid upon them the burdens of government.

Whilst he remained honoring and satisfying the gods, and priests, and kine, one day, by the act of destiny, the king, having drunk mead became senseless and lay asleep naked. Then, was he seen by Sham, and by him were his two brothers called:

To whom he said, “What now has befallen? In what state is this our sire?” By these two he was hidden with clothes, and called to his senses again and again.

Having recovered his intellect, and perfectly knowing what had passed, he cursed Sham, saying, “Thou shalt be the servant of servants.”

And since thou wast a laugher in their presence, from laughter thou shalt acquire a name. Then he gave Sham the wide domain on the south of the snowy mountains.

And to Jyapeti he gave all on the north of the snowy mountains; but he, by the power of religious contemplation, attained supreme bliss.

If you have read the Jewish or Christian bible, you can probably guess that Satyavarman, Shem, Sham, and Jyapeti were Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japhet.

From another Hindu story we get:

“The progeny of Adamis and Hevas soon became so wicked that they were no longer able to coexist peacefully. Brahma therefore decided to punish his creatures “Vishnu” ordered Vaivasvata to build a ship for himself and his family. When the ship was ready, and Vaivasvata and his family were inside with the seeds of every plant and a pair of every species of animal, the big rains began and the rivers began to overflow.”

(They even “borrowed” the 40 days and 40 nights from the Hindu stories)

The fourth name in the list of Abraham’s progenitors - Eber, has always held great interest to biblical scholars. Many believe that from Eber has stemmed the biblical term Ibri (Hebrew of Brahma) by which Abraham and his family identified themselves possibly as toponyms (names personifying places), Eber could easily translate to Ibri which as established above could easily translate to Brahma or Abraham and as a toponym could also have meant Nippur.

A look at the Sumerian roots of the name provides a simple answer.

Eber stems from the root word meaning “to cross,” The answer then is to be found in the Sumerian language of Abraham and his ancestors. The term Ibri (“Hebrew”) could clearly stem from Eber, the father of Peleg.

The biblical suffix “i” when applied to a person, meant “a native of”. For example Gileadi means a native of Gilead. Ibri means then, a native of the place of “Crossing”; and that was the Sumerian name for Nippur: NI.IB.RU - the Crossing Place, the place where the pre-Diluvial grids crisscrossed each other, the original Navel of the Earth.

Dropping the “n” in transposing from Sumerian to Akkadian/Hebrew was a frequent occurrence. In stating that Abraham was an Ibri, the Bible simply means that Abraham was a Ni-ib-ri, a son of Nippurian origin!

Votive inscriptions found at Nippur have confirmed that the kings of Ur cherished the title “Pious Shepherd of Nippur” -PA.TE.SI.NI.IB.RU in Sumerian.

The fact that Abram’s family migrated to Haran from Ur has often been taken by scholars to mean that Ur was Abram’s birthplace, but that is not stated anywhere in the Bible.

The command to Abram to go to Canaan and leave for good his past abodes lists three separate entities: his father’s house (which was then in Haran); his land (the city-state of Ur); and his birthplace (which the Bible does not identify).

The etymological evidence that Ibri could mean a native of Nippur could solve the problem of Abram’s true birthplace.

Nippur was never a royal capital, but it was a consecrated city, in fact it was Sumer’s “religious center”. It was also the place where the knowledge of astronomy was entrusted to the high priests and thus the place where the calendar - the relationship between the Sun, and Moon in their orbits - was originated. It has been long established that our present-day calendars derive from the original Nippurian calendar. All the evidence shows that the Nippurian calendar began @ 4000 BCE, in the age of Taurus.

In this we find another confirmation connecting the Hebrews with Nippur: The Jewish calendar still continues to count the years from an enigmatic beginning in 3760 BCE. It has previously been assumed that this count is from the beginning of the world, but the actual statement by Jewish sages was that this is the number of years that had passed “since counting (of years) began” - meaning, since the introduction of the calendar in Nippur.

Terah Father of Abram

Following this line of reasoning Abram’s father, Terah, is also of great interest. Seeking clues only in the Semitic environment, biblical scholars regard the name, as those of Haran and Nahor, as mere toponyms holding that there were also cities by such names in central and northern Mesopotamia, Haran being one example as that is the city Terah moved his family to.

Assyriologists searching the Akkadian terminology, it being the first Semitic language, could only find that Tirhu (Terah) meant “an artifact or vessel for magical purposes”.

Turning to the language of Sumer, we find that the cuneiform sign for Tirhu (Terah) stemmed directly from that of an object called in Sumerian DUG.NAMTAR - literally, a “Fate Speaker or One Who Pronounces Oracles”.

In the family of Abram then, we find a priestly family of royal blood, a family headed by a Nippurian High Priest who was the only one allowed into the temple’s innermost chamber, there to receive his God’s words and convey it to king and people.

Terah, then, was seemingly an Oracular Priest, one assigned to approach the “Stone that Whispers” in order to hear the deity’s words and communicate them to the lay hierarchy. A similar function was assumed in later times by the Israelite High Priest, who alone was allowed to enter the ‘Holy of Holies’ (the inner temple precincts), approach the Dvir (Speaker), and “hear the voice [of the Lord] speak unto him from off the overlay which is upon the Ark of the Covenant, from between the two Cherubim.”

Some of the names borne by the royal and/or priestly elite of Nippur resemble Abraham’s Sumerian name - AB.RAM. AB meaning “Father” or “Progenitor.” A governor of Nippur during Shulgi’s reign (Successor to Ur-Nammu 2093-2046 BCE) for example, bore the name AB.BA.MU. Abram/Abraham and his Family Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran had a son named Lot. Haran died before his father.

In 2096 BCE Terah moved his family, from Ur to Haran (a mirror city of Ur also worshipping the same deities.) In 2048 BCE Abram was instructed by his god to move again. Abram married Sarai (her name meaning ‘Princess’) his half-sister. Terah took his son Abram, his daughter Sarai, and his grandson Lot (Haran’s son) and left Ur of the Chaldees to go to the land of Canaan. Instead they stopped at the village of Haran and settled there. Terah lived for 205 years and died while still at Haran.

It is of significance to note that the Bible places Abram before his brother Haran but in all likelihood Haran was the eldest. After Haran’s pre-mature death Abraham would come first on the “Family chart” as was the practice of the day when denoting lineal descent of Sumerian families.

This assumption is given further credence in the Bible just by mentioning the fact that Haran died and mentioning his other children - specifically Milcah (her name meaning ‘Queenly’) and Iscah (his name meaning ‘he that anoints’ – another priestly title) and then later Lot (his name meaning ‘Veiled’). That Nahor the younger brother of Abram also married the very same Milcah (his niece, daughter of his brother Haran and sister to Lot) is mentioned as well.

The rest of the Bible’s genealogy only mentions the significant players, specifically the fathers of who begot who, how old they were when they had an heir and how old they were when they died, i.e., “When Nahor had lived twenty-nine years, he became the father of Terah; and Nahor lived after the birth of Terah a hundred and nineteen years, and had other sons and daughters.”

The inclusion of Lot when Terah left Ur is also significant to lineal descent. If Haran was Terah’s first son and Lot was in turn Haran’s eldest son then Lot’s claim to the “Family Birth-right” would have been stronger than Abram’s.

This by-play of Lot’s rightful claim seemingly comes to a head later in Genesis 13, 7 when there was strife between the herdsmen of Lot and the Herdsmen of Abram. Abram as a result went to Lot and asked that there be no strife between them and asked Lot to separate himself.

In Genesis 19 verses 30 through 38 Lot’s legitimacy to his “Birthright” further suffers after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. His daughters plied him with wine and took turns ‘laying’ with him on two separate nights. In spite of this incestuous union their children Moab and Ben-Ammi also were blessed by their ‘God’ and became the fathers of the nations of the Moabites and Ammonites.

Many quotes in the Bible further de-fame the Moabites and Ammonites. In one instance they formed an alliance with the Amelekites against the nation of Israel. Strange that the Israeli peoples should so contend with their cousins instead of allying with them.

The question is why do the writers of Genesis take such pains to discredit Lot and his legitimacy?

Apparently he still held some special favor in the eyes of the God he was loyal to, for his God also made nations of his sons. Why was there any interest in Lot at all other than as a companion to Abram when leaving Ur and Haran? Why was his fate described in so much detail? Why allow the sons of his incestuous unions with his daughters to become the “Fathers of Nations”?

Seemingly the biblical writers felt a special need to legitimize Abram’s claim to the “Birth-right” while discrediting Lot. Did Lot also have a covenant with their God to be the “Father of Nations”? Or was the mention of Lot’s sons/grandsons a way for the authors to assuage their complicity in removing Lot as the legitimate heir?

Maybe the people who wrote the story down well after the facts were unaware of the “Rules of Succession” established by the Sumerian Gods. The customs and Laws by which the Hebrew Patriarchs lived were apparently the same laws by which Kings and Noblemen of ancient Sumer were bound, therefore it stands to reason that since the “Rules of Succession” and the laws were handed down from the gods the same rules of succession and rights of the children should be followed as they were followed by the “Gods”.

In example of this:

Abram who was deprived of a son by the barrenness of his wife Sarai and so had a son Ishmael by his wife’s maidservant Hagar. Ishmael, however, was excluded from the patriarchal succession when Sarai bore Isaac to Abram. Simply put, Abram needed an heir by his half-sister to claim the birthright for his son! Ishmael wouldn’t do at all.

Further cementing Abram’s claim for his descendants Isaac married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel who was the son of Nahor and Milcah (his uncle and his cousin). Two of Jacob’s (Israel - Issac and Rebekah’s son) wives were Leah and Rachel daughters of Laban, son of Bethuel who was the son of Nahor and Milcah.

A note of similarity rings here with the sibling rivalry of the Sumerian Gods Enki and Enlil. Though Enki was first born, Enlil was heir apparent as he was born of their father Anu’s official Spouse, Antu. Another parallel is that both Abram and later Isaac made no bones about proclaiming their respective wives were also their sisters (though technically Isaac’s wife Rebekah was his cousin on several different levels). This is significant in that it has puzzled many scholars due to the biblical prohibition against sexual relations with relatives. Explained however, in the light of Abram’s lineage, as a possible Sumerian it makes perfect sense when one understands the passing of the Sumerian “Birthrights.”

The Sumerian/Babylonian records of their gods indicate that Enki tried several times with his half sister Ninhursag (also a daughter of Anu but by a different mother than Enki or Enlil’s) to conceive a son who would have more of a blood claim on the throne than did Enlil. When he failed to produce a male heir he coupled with the daughter of this incestuous union and again produced another daughter. Enlil and his wife Ninlil’s son Nana/Sin was not Enlil’s heir, but Enlil’s son Ninurta whom he had with his half-sister Ninharsag (the same sister that Enki tried and failed to obtain a son through) was Enlil’s heir. This method ensured a “purer seed” would inherit the “Birthright”.

Also with what has been established of the Elohim/Annunaki sciences - incest practiced to an extent would be beneficial to the purity of a bloodline. Mitochondrial DNA is the key. Having a child with your half-sister from the same father would be all right as the MtDNA is passed only through the female line and there is no chance of genetic defect.

The early Hebrew rules of succession were nothing more than a mirror image of the rules of succession for the Elohim/Annunaki.

This practice of marrying and providing an heir through ones sister carried on into Egyptian dynastic times and even into the aristocracy of Europe in relatively modern times.

In the story of Abram the Bible relates incidents concerning water wells, which shows that Abram was careful to avoid conflict with local residents as he journeyed through Canaan. When Abram became involved in the ‘War of the Kings’, he refused to share in the booty. This is not the behavior of a marauding barbarian but rather of a person of high standards of conduct. Coming to Egypt, Abraham and Sarah were taken to the Pharaoh’s court; in Canaan, Abraham made treaties with the local rulers. Ancient traditions also depict Abram as greatly versed in astronomy – which was a realm strictly controlled by the Priestly Elite or training given to royalty.

Taking the above information into account the picture of Abram that emerges is the image of a person of high standing who was skilled in the arts of negotiation and diplomacy, a person who subscribed to the patriarchal rules of succession as prescribed for the Sumerian aristocracy and their Gods.

Taken in this light Abram emerges not as the son of immigrant aliens but as the scion of a family directly involved in affairs of state of every nation in which he visited!

During the Exodus, at Mount Sinai the God proclaimed that his covenant with the descendants of Abraham meant that; “ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests.” It was a statement that reflected the status of Abram’s own descent – That of a Royal Priesthood. Genesis 17: 1-6, provides us with the time and manner in which Abram was transformed from a Sumerian nobleman to a west Semitic potentate, under a covenant between he and his God. Amid a ritual of circumcision, his Sumerian name AB.RAM meaning, “Father of the Exalted”, was changed to the Akkadian/Semitic Abraham meaning “Father of a Multitude of Nations” and that of his wife Sarai meaning “Princess” was adapted to the Semitic Sarah. It was only when he was ninety-nine years old that the newly named Abraham became a ‘Semite’. The tales of Abraham’s interaction with the “God” that singled him out to become a people are written in the early chapters of the book of Genesis. Only later during the time of Moses does the entity name himself as Yahweh.

According to Genesis, Abraham saw the face of his god; Moses did not. In the time of Moses, approximately 1500 BCE, the descendants of Abraham were living in Egypt and had fallen back into the practice of worshiping many gods; the same gods that had comprised the Indian, Sumerian and Egyptian pantheon, as well the early Chaldean. The entity that led the Hebrew people from Egypt claimed to be one and the same as the god of Abraham. He claimed that he had come to fulfill his promise to Abraham by making his descendents a people, and give them the land wherein their father Abraham had lived and died. He forbade them to recognize any other god but himself, by force convincing them during forty years of wandering in the wilderness that he was the One and only God.

Did Abram/Abraham Exist?

Factually speaking there is no definitive scholastically accepted documentation supporting the existence of Abram. There is no extra-biblical mention of him in any “accepted” ancient records found to date. There is speculation on certain texts that they might be talking about Abram/Abraham.

As closely as can be determined: The discovery of Babylonian tablets at the end of the eighteenth century naming Khedorla’omer, Ariokh, and Tidhal was found and translated in a tale similar to the biblical one. These tablets describe a war in which a king of Elam, Kudur-laghamar, led an alliance of rulers that included one named Eri-aku and another named Tud-ghula - names that easily could have been translated as Khedorla’omer, Ariokh, and Tidhal in Hebrew.

The scholars at the time agreed with interpretation of the cuneiform names: “Kudur-Laghamar”, meaning “king of the land of Elam”; scholars agreed that it was a perfect Elamite royal name, the prefix Kudur – meaning ‘Servant’ having been a component in the names of several Elamite kings, and Laghamar being the Elamite epithet-name for a certain deity.

“Ariokh”, spelled Eri-e-a-ku in the Babylonian cuneiform script, stood for the original Sumerian ERI.AKU, meaning “Servant of the god Aku,” Aku being another name of Nannar-Sin. It is known from a number of inscriptions that Elamite rulers of Larsa bore the name “Servant of Sin,” and there was therefore little difficulty in agreeing that the biblical Eliasar, the royal city of the king Ariokh, was in fact Larsa.

“Tud-ghula”, was the equivalent of the biblical “Tidhal, king of Go’im”; and they agreed that by Go’im the Book of Genesis referred to the “nation-hordes” whom the cuneiform tablets listed as allies of Khedorla’omer.

Although neither Abram nor any derivative of his name is mentioned in the Babylonian tablets if taken at face value it may be the only extra-biblical documentation that can connect Abram with a specific non- Hebrew event. Added to the long established fact that the Hebrews were great ‘borrowers’ this may be taken as verifying not only the existence of Abram, but also of an international historical event in which he was involved.

The question remains though, which is the period into which these events fit?

Genesis tells of an ancient war between an alliance of four kingdoms of the East against five kings in Canaan. Genesis 14; And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shin’ar, Ariokh king of Ellasar, Khedorla’omer king of Elam, and Tidhal king of Go’im – That these made war with Bera King of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shem-eber king of Zebi’im, and with the king of Bela, which is Zoar.

The reading of biblical chronology puts Abram in the middle of the most momentous event of that time, not merely as an observer but as an active participant. The century of Abram was thus the century that witnessed the rise and fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur.

Historical records have established that Shulgi in the twenty-eighth year of his reign (2068 BCE) gave his daughter in marriage to an Elamite chieftain and granted him the city of Larsa as a dowry; in return the Elamites put a “foreign legion” of Elamite troops at Shulgi’s disposal. These troops were used by Shulgi to subdue the western provinces, including Canaan.

In the last years of Shulgi’s reign, when Ur was still an imperial capital under his immediate successor Amar-Sin, we find the only historical time slot into which all the biblical and Mesopotamian records can possibly fit.

The fact is that despite many studies about Abram/Abraham, all we know about him, is what we find in the Bible:

Terah took his son Abram, his daughter Sarai, and his grandson Lot (Haran’s son) and left Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. But they stopped instead at the village of Haran and settled there.

The Bible gives no explanation for leaving Ur, and there is also no time reference mentioned, but if the departure is related to the events described above then time frame can be reasonably reconstructed. When Abram proceeded later on from Haran to Canaan he was seventy-five. The bible indicates a long stay at Haran and depicts Abram on his arrival as a young man with a new bride.

If as we have concluded Abram was born in 2123 BCE, he was a child of ten when Ur-Nammu ascended the throne in Ur, the city of Nannar-Sin. Abram was a young man of twenty-seven when Ur-Nammu was slain on a distant battlefield. As he was the anointed and appointed King of his “god” Nannar-Sin, his death had a traumatic effect on the people of Mesopotamia and was a major blow to the people’s faith in Nannar’s omnipotence.

If, as we have pointed out above, Terah was a Sumerian High Priest or even a personage of royalty it would make perfect sense for him and his family to be on the move as the faith of the people in Nannar- Sin’s power was destroyed. The year of Ur-Nammu’s fall was 2096 BCE and this is when, as a consequence of Ur-Nammu’s fall and Nannar-Sin’s defeat, that Terah and his family left Ur for a faraway destination, stopping off at Haran, that city being considered the Ur away from Ur and a location at which Nannar-Sin still reigned supreme.

The following is offered as something of corroboration:

Another Sumerian text records a battle between a grandson of Anu and an enemy; the tale is known as The Myth of Zu. Its hero is Ninurta, Enlil’s son and heir by his half-sister Ninhursag/Sud.

The story tells that in Nippur, there, atop a raised platform was the DIR.GA room, the most restricted ‘holy of holies’ where the ‘Tablets of Destinies’ - were installed. Into this sacred chamber a god named Zu gained access, seized the vital tablets and thereby held in his hands the fate of the Anunnaki on Earth and of Nibiru itself.

The tale of Zu can be sorted out by combining portions of Old Babylonian and Assyrian versions of the Sumerian text, a good deal of the tale has been restored. Unfortunately the damaged portions of the tablets still held the secret of Zu’s true identity, as well as an explanation of how an “Enemy” gained access to the Dirga.

In Sumerian the name Zu meant “He Who Knows,” one expert in certain knowledge. The enemy of this tale is referred to as AN.ZU - “He Who Knows the Heavens”.

From our understanding of the “legend” we have concluded that Nannar’s other name, Sin, which is derived from SU.EN, that is another way of pronouncing ZU.EN... Nannar-Sin as SU.EN was none other than EN.ZU (“Lord ZU”). It was Nannar-Sin, we conclude, who tried to seize control. Both Sumerian texts, as well as archeological evidence, indicate that Sin and his spouse fled to Haran – the same city to which Terah and family fled to when the trouble started in Ur!

Terah and his family followed a “God”! Adding further legitimacy to our claim that Terah and then Abraham were of a Royal Priestly Caste!

Based upon various sources it is safe to speculate that when the disgraced/discredited Nannar-Sin fell out of favor with his father Enlil and fled to Haran he formed an alliance with Enki, Enlil’s older brother and rival. Nannar-Sin though Enlil’s oldest son, like Enki was passed over as his father’s heir in favor of his younger brother Ninurta due to the fact that Ninurta was the offspring of Enlil and his half-sister, as Enlil was also the child of half siblings.

Enki and Nannar-Sin had much in common as they were in-laws as well as uncle/nephew. Enki’s younger son Dumuzi was married to Nannar-Sin’s daughter Inanna/Ishtar. Dumuzi was killed by Marduk earning him the eternal hatred of Inanna/Ishtar and that of her family. Enki was more forgiving and pleaded for Marduks exile instead of death. His wish was granted and Marduk was exiled from Babylon and Mesopotamia.

An alliance with Enki makes sense since as we have discovered, Enki was also known as Yahweh the God of Abraham. Why else would “Yahweh’s general” defend the lands of a ‘god’ not his own?

Marduk, though Enki’s son was still a wild card, having previously been disgraced and exiled he was pulling for power from behind the scenes through his son Nabu from his base in Hattiland and personally as Amen/Ra in Upper Egypt. It was he pressuring the Princes of Upper Egypt to move against the Pharaoh of Lower Egypt in an attempt to gain possession of the border at Sinai.

Enki always being concerned with the welfare of man formed an alliance with Nannar-Sin to quash Marduks latest attempt at a coupe. His concern was less for who would rule Mesopotamia than for saving lives. His ulterior motive was probably that his Brother Enlil would not be as lenient if he were to bend his will and powers against those of Marduk and he would have no regard for lives lost in the process.

If our chronology is correct, and we have every reason to believe that it is, Abram’s family stayed on at Haran all through the following years of Ur’s decline and throughout Shulgi’s reign. And God said unto Abram: “Get thee out of thy country and out of thy birthplace and from thy father’s house, unto the land which I will show thee”. . . And Abram departed as God had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.

Once again, no reason is given for this crucial move, however, the chronological clues, are most revealing.

By our calculations when Abraham was seventy-five years old the year was 2048 BCE - the very year of Shulgi’s downfall! Because Abram’s family directly continued the line of Shem, scholars have always considered Abram as a Semite (possibly derived from ‘Shem-ite’ or ‘Sumer-ite’ or even ‘Shem-erian’). The Semites were distinct (in scholars’ minds) from the non-Semitic Sumerians and the later Indo-Europeans.

In the original biblical sense, all the peoples of greater Mesopotamia were descended of Shem, “Semite” and “Sumerian” alike. There is everything to support the image of a family rooted in Sumer from its earliest beginnings, hastily uprooted from his country and birthplace and told to go to an unfamiliar land.

Abram’s family was Chaldean. This was his heritage. His culture and his people worshipped many gods. The Chaldeans inherited their “Pantheon of Gods” from Sumeria who in their turn inherited their pantheon from India.

The corresponding time between two biblical events with the time of two major Sumerian events must serve as obvious indication of a direct connection between them all.

Abrams Mission

It seems that all during Shulgi’s reign in Ur, the family of Terah stayed at Haran. Then, on Shulgi’s demise, the divine order came to proceed to Canaan. Terah who was already quite old stayed in Haran. The one chosen for the mission was Abram - himself a mature man of seventy-five. The year was 2048 BCE; it marked the beginning of twenty-four fateful years - eighteen years encompassing the war-filled reigns of the two immediate successors of Shulgi - Amar-Sin and Shu-Sin and six years of Ibbi-Sin, the last sovereign king of Ur.

It is undoubtedly more than mere coincidence that Shulgi’s death was the signal not only for a move by Abram, but also for a re-alignment among the Near Eastern gods. It was exactly when Abram, accompanied (as we learn later) by an elite military corps, left Haran – the gateway to the Hittite lands - that the exiled and wandering Marduk appeared in “Hatti land.” Moreover, the remarkable coincidence is that Marduk stayed there through the same twenty-four year period, the years that culminated with the great Disaster.

The evidence for Marduk’s movements is a tablet found in the library of Ashurbanipal, in which Marduk tells of his wanderings and eventual return to Babylon.

We learn from the balance of the text that Marduk from his new place in exile (Asia Minor) sent emissaries and supplies (via Haran) to his followers in Babylon, and trading agents into Mari, thereby making inroads into both gateways - the one beholden to Nannar-Sin and the other to Nannar-Sin’s daughter Inanna/Ishtar.

As if signaled by the death of Shulgi and the Defeat of Nannar-Sin, the whole ancient world came astir. The House of Nannar had already been discredited and defeated by his brother Ninurta on behalf of himself and his father Enlil. The battle was not however without out a cost and though Nannar-Sin’s power base may have suffered losses, Enlil and Ninurta’s was also diminished.

It was at this time that the House of Marduk saw its final prevailing hour approaching. While Marduk himself was still excluded from Mesopotamia, his first-born son, Nabu, was making converts to his father’s cause. His efforts encompassed all the lands, including Greater Canaan.

It was against this background of fast developments that Abram was ordered to go to Canaan. Though silent concerning why, the Old Testament is clear regarding his destination: Moving expeditiously to Canaan, Abram and his wife, his nephew Lot, and their entourage continued swiftly southward. There was a stopover at Shechem, where the Lord spoke to Abram. Then he removed from there to the Mount, and encamped east of Beth-El (God’s House); in the vicinity of Mount Moriah (“Mount of Directing”), upon whose Sacred Rock the Ark of the Covenant was placed when Solomon built the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. From there “Abram journeyed farther, still going toward the Negev.” The Negev - the dry region where Canaan and the Sinai Peninsula merge - was clearly Abram’s destination.

What was Abram to do in the Negev who’s very name (“The Dryness”) bespoke its aridity? What was there that required the patriarch’s hurried, journey from Haran and impelled his presence through the miles upon miles of barren land?

The mission of Abram was a military one: specifically to protect the Sinai, the land of his God or that of his God’s allies. Abram obviously had military allies in that region. His Hittite friends, who were also residents of Canaan, were known for their military experience, which sheds light on the question of where Abram acquired the military proficiency that he employed so successfully during the ‘War of the Kings’.

Abram also led an entourage that included an elite corps of several hundred fighting men. The biblical term for them - Naar - has been variously translated as “retainer” or simply “young man”.

Studies have shown that in Hurrian the word denoted riders or cavalrymen. In fact, recent studies of Mesopotamian texts dealing with military movements list among the charioteers and cavalrymen, LU.NAR (“Nar-men”) who served as fast riders. We find an identical term in the Bible (I Samuel 30:17): after King David attacked an Amalekite camp, the only ones to escape were “four hundred Ish-Naar” - literally, “Nar-men” or LU.NAR - “who were riding the camels.”

The image of Abram that emerges is that of an innovative military commander of royal descent.

This view accords well with ancient recollections of Abram. Josephus, (first century AD) wrote of him: “Abram reigned at Damascus, where he was a foreigner, having come with an army out of the land above Babylon” from which, “after a long time, the Lord got him up and removed from that country together with his men and he went to the land then called the land of Canaan but now the land of Judea.”

According to the biblical tale, a place called El-Paran was the real target of the invaders, but they never reached it.

Coming down Transjordan and circling the Dead Sea, the invaders passed by Mount Se’ir and advanced “toward El-Paran, which is upon the Wilderness.” But they were forced to swing back by Ein-Mishpat, which is Kadesh. El-Paran (“God’s Gloried Place?”) was never reached; somehow the invaders were beaten back at Ein-Mishpat, also known as Kadesh or Kadesh-Barnea.

It was only then, as they turned back toward Canaan that “Thereupon the king of Sodom and the king of Gomorrah and the king of Admah and the king of Zebi’im and the king of Bela, which is Zoar, marched forth and engaged them in battle in the vale of Siddim.”

The battle with these Canaanite kings was thus a late phase of the war and not its first purpose. Almost a century ago, in a thorough study of Kadesh-Barnea, it was concluded that the true target of the invaders was El-Paran, which was correctly identified as the fortified oasis of Nakhl in Sinai’s central plain.

Why had they gone there, and who was it that blocked their way at Kadesh-Barnea, forcing the invaders to turn back?

The only answer that can make sense is that the significance of the destination was to launch an invasion and Abraham was the one who blocked the advance at Kadesh-Barnea.

From earlier times Kadesh-Barnea was the closest place where men could approach in that particular region without special permission. Shulgi had gone there to pray and make offerings to the “God Who Judges”, and nearly a thousand years before him the Sumerian king Gilgamesh stopped there to obtain the special permission.

The hints in the Old Testament become a detailed tale in the Khedorlaomer Texts, which make clear that the war was intended to prevent the return of Marduk and thwart the efforts of Nabu to gain access to Sinai.

These texts not only name the very same kings who are mentioned in the Bible but even repeat the biblical detail of the switch of allegiance “in the thirteenth year”!

As we return to the Kedorlaomer Texts to obtain the details for the biblical frame, we should bear in mind that they were written by a Babylonian historian who favored Marduk’s desire to make Babylon “the heavenward navel in the four regions.” It was to thwart this that the gods opposing Marduk ordered Khedorlaomer to seize and defile Babylon.

The despoiling of Babylon was only the beginning. After the “bad deeds” were done there, Utu/Shamash (son of Nannar-Sin and twin of Inanna/Ishtar) sought action against Nabu (son of Marduk).... the gods assembled.... Ishtar decreed an oracle, and the army put together by the kings of the East arrived in Transjordan.... When the invaders....” thereafter, Dur-Mah-Ilani was to be captured and the Canaanite cities (including Gaza and Beer-Sheba in the Negev) were to be punished. But at Dur-Mah-Ilani, according to the Babylonian text, “the son of the priest, whom the gods in their true counsel had anointed,” stood in the invader’s way and “the despoiling prevented.”

Though not specifically mentioned by name, the Babylonian text did indeed refer to Abraham, the son of Terah the priest, and spelled out his role in turning back the invaders.

This is strengthened by the fact that the Mesopotamian and biblical texts relate the same event in the same locality with the same outcome.

Further strengthening this position is the date formulas for the reign of Amar-Sin called his seventh year. The crucial year being 2041 BCE, the year of the military expedition - also MU NE IB.RU.UM BA.HUL meaning – “Year the Shepherding-abode of IB.RU.UM was attacked.”

Can this reference, in the exact crucial year, be other than to Abraham and his shepherding abode? Having carried out his mission, Abraham returned to his base near Hebron. Encouraged by his feat, the Canaanite kings marched his forces to intercept the retreating army from the East. But the invaders beat them and seized all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah as well as one prize hostage: They took with them Lot, the nephew of Abraham, who was residing at Sodom.

On hearing the news, Abraham called up his best cavalrymen and pursued the retreating invaders. Catching up with them near Damascus, he succeeded in releasing Lot and retrieving all the booty. Upon his return he was greeted as a victor in the Valley of Shalem (Jerusalem):

”And Malkizedek, the king of Shalem, brought forth bread and wine , for he was priest unto the God Most High”.

And he blessed him, saying: “Blessed be Abram unto the God Most High, Possessor of Heaven and Earth; And blessed be the God Most High who hath delivered thy foes unto thine hand.”

Soon the Canaanite kings also arrived to thank Abraham, and offered him all the seized possessions as a reward. But Abraham, saying that his local allies could share in that, refused to take “even a shoelace” for himself or his warriors.

The invasion of the Sinai was thwarted, but the danger to it was not removed; and the efforts of Marduk to gain the supremacy intensified ever more. Fifteen years later Sodom and Gomorrah went up in flames when Ninurta and Nergal unleashed the weapons of awesome brilliance.

Abraham in Egypt

After his stay in the Negev Abram crossed the Sinai Peninsula and came to Egypt. Being something more than ordinary nomads, Abram and Sarai were at once taken to the royal palace. The time was @ 2047 BCE, when the ruling Pharaoh(s) of Lower Egypt (northern part), who were not followers of Amen (“The Hiding God” Ra/Marduk) were facing a strong challenge from the princes of Thebes in the south, where Amen/Marduk was deemed supreme.

We can only guess what matters of state - alliances, joint defenses, divine commands - were discussed between the Pharaoh and the Ibri, the Nippurian general. The Bible is silent on this as well as on the length of stay although the non-canonical Book of Jubilees states that the sojourn lasted five years. When the time came for Abram to return to the Negev he was accompanied by a large retinue of the Pharaoh’s men. The Bible describes great kings of Israel who are said to have ruled between the Nile and the Euphrates. However, the archaeology of traditional Israel does not support this claim.

In Egypt there is the archaeology of pharaohs who boasted of an empire stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. However, a detailed narrative record of their family history and culture has not been found.

It could very well be that the archaeology of Egypt and the cultural memory of the Bible are two facets of the same royal history, which should logically complement one another.

In other words, it is entirely possible that the pharaohs also reigned as kings in Israel, but under Hebrew names. It was the common practice of kings to adopt regional identities in order to be better accepted by the local peoples. This has been found to be the case from Babylonian Kings, to Egyptian and vice-versa.

Some scholars believe that Abraham was the final prince of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon. In Abraham's day, the patriarchal empire was at the height of its imperial dominance. These Babylonian kings held titles in Egypt, Mesopotamia and India. For example, the Kassite name of Abraham's grandfather was Kakrime ("strong seizer"). Terah, the father of Abraham, was known by the Kassite name Burnaburiash I.

This "Indo-European" title was shortened to Jo-ash in the Bible. “Kassite” as you may recall from above is a derivative form of the Sanskrit word “Khassis” which is the name of the ruling caste. Through Narmer (Nimrod) the rival lines of inheritance from Ham and Shem were recombined.

From that time forward the Middle East was lorded over by a single royal family who considered themselves to be equally Semitic and Hamitic. The Bible literally traces the history of the dynasty which ruled for a thousand years over the dual regions of Egypt and Mesopotamia and possibly beyond.

In Genesis 23:6, Abraham is called “a mighty prince among them.” Although Abraham may not have assumed the title of pharaoh, he was considered a king, both in Mesopotamia and in Egypt. In Genesis 14, Abraham is given the pseudonym of Shem-eber king of Zeboiim (Memphis). Shemeber is translated as “Illustrious.” However, it is also a compound name comprised of Shem (Sabium) and Eber (Hammurabi). These two ancestors were not only kings, but also masters of the sciences, law and philosophy. Abraham was placed in their company, not only with respect to wisdom, but also in kingship. Zeboiim, that is Memphis, was the ancient seat of kingship and wisdom in Egypt.

So, it now becomes apparent how a young prince named Abram, heir to the throne of this vast empire, could have spent a great deal of time in India, learned eastern philosophy and meditation, and could have been a native of India (named A-Brahm).

Abraham has been identified by some scholars as the strangely prominent and wide-ranging Egyptian nobleman Thutmose. This “mighty prince” is traditionally referred to in literature by the Egyptian form of his name, Djehuty or Djehutymes, in order to avoid confusion with the pharaohs named Thutmose.

The Egyptian Djehutymes and Greek form Thutmose have the meaning, “Child of Thoth” or “Thoth is Born/Reborn.” Thoth was an Egyptian God, son of the great ‘Olden God’ Ptah, who it has been determined was the Egyptian identity of the Sunerian God Enki, Thoth then correlates to Ningishzidda, another son of Enki and brother to the Babylonian God Marduk. Since as we have concluded above that Enki is also the Hebrew God Yahweh, it also makes sense that Abraham would be aligned with this god as well.

During his long career, the "mighty prince" Djehuty held the wide-ranging titles of King in Damascus and Nefrusy, Overseer of Priests in Middle Egypt, Viceroy of Nubia (Ethiopia), General of the Armies of Egypt, Commissioner ('overseer of a part of the northern foreign territory'), Scribe, and Director of the Treasury.

The priestly nature of Djehuty, his international orientation, great wealth and propensity for "reckoning" were certainly the basis for the Biblical characterization of Abraham.

Mormonism, a “Christian” religion offers many details of the life of Abraham not found elsewhere in the Bible. Some scholars have flatly stated that the source material used by the Mormons is taken directly from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Abraham in Ethiopia

Abram, according to some traditions also traveled south to Ethiopia/Sheba to obtain more troops sometime during the Five Year period he was said to have been staying in Egypt. Abraham went on to the hill country, settling on the highest peak near Hebron, from where he could see in all directions; and the Lord said unto him: “Go, cross the country in the length and breadth of it, for unto thee shall I give it.”

Evidence of this can be found in the Qemant and Falasha traditions. The Qemant are described as the remnants of Ancient Pagan Canaanites and the Falasha as “The Black Jews of Ethiopia.”

The Qemant folkloric tradition contains a narrative detailing the trip that brought both the Falasha and their own “Canaanite” ancestors to the land of Cush; the following is a short summary of an interview with Muluna Marsha, the Wambar, or High Priest of the Qemant. “The founder of the Qemant religion was called Anayer. He came here to Ethiopia so long ago. He came after seven years of famine, from his own country, which was far away. As he traveled on the journey, he met the founder of the Falasha religion, also traveling on the same journey”

Was the country of their birth the same? “Yes, it was the land of Canaan”

Similar themes can be uncovered in the bible regarding the “founder” of Judaism, the Hebrew patriarch Abraham: Genesis 12:9,10 Then Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south...there was famine in the land. Genesis 13:1 And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south. And; brother of Eschol and Aner all of whom were allied with Abram. Here we have Abram traveling to the “the south,” allied with a “Canaanite” (the Amorites being sons of Canaan) called Aner - a name which bears a striking similarity to the name Anayer of the Qemant lore - and living near a terebinth or sacred grove; Genesis 21:33 And Abram planted a grove in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the LORD It should be noted that the Qemant also venerate sacred groves, which they call degegna.

Continuing in this line of thought there is also a genealogy of the sons of Abraham by his second wife Keturah that includes... Genesis 25:3 Jokshan the father of Sheba...

If we take all of these cryptic similarities together, we can safely come to the conclusion that the “children of the Ethiopians” are indeed as the children of Israel, children of Abram even, and that Abram through his long forgotten wanderings founded a “cultural exchange” if you will, that lasted long after his death. Amos 9:7 Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto Me, O children of Israel, saith the Lord. The word, “Falasha,” means “stranger” or “immigrant” in Ge’ez, the classical ecclesiastical tongue of Ethiopia. In the Falasha tradition it is said that they can trace their ancestry both through Abraham and through Menelik, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

The Influence on the Muslims

In India, a tributary of the river Saraswathi is Ghaggar. Another tributary of the same river is Hakra. According to Jewish traditions, Hagar was Sarai’s maidservant; the Moslems say she was an Egyptian princess. Notice the similarities of Ghaggar, Hakra and Hagar.

The Bible also states that Ishmael, son of Hagar, and his descendants lived in India. Genesis 25:17-18 “...Ishmael breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his kin... They dwelt from Havilah (India), by Shur, which is close to Egypt, all the way to Asshur.”

Another interesting fact is that the names of Isaac and Ishmael also seemingly derive from Sanskrit: (Hebrew) Ishaak = (Sanskrit) Ishakhu = “Friend of Shiva.” (Hebrew) Ishmael = (Sanskrit) Ish- Mahal = “Great Shiva.”

Genesis 25 mentions some descendants of Abraham’s concubine Ketura (Note: The Moslems claim that Ketura is another name of Hagar.): Jokshan; Sheba; Dedan; Epher. Some descendants of Noah were Joktan, Sheba, Dedan, and Ophir. These varying versions have caused a suspicion that the writers of the Bible were trying to unite several different branches of Judaism.

There was no part of the ancient world, that wasn’t influenced by Abram’s religious views. For example, Christians and Jews have been led to believe that Mohammed copied his teachings from Jewish sources. While partially true this is not all.

The truth is that in Mohammed’s time, Abraham’s theology was the foundation stone of all religious sects.

All Mohammed did was to purge them of idol worship as he believed Abraham once did, his goal was to return his people to the “Primordial Religion”, the religion he believed Abraham belonged to, Hinduism! The Koran clearly states that Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but a “God-seeker” (3, 60). He has the status of being one of the earlier messengers of God, together with Adam, Moses, Jesus and others. According to Muslim theology, the message of Abraham was the very same as Mohammad’s, before it become corrupted by the Jews.

Central in the Koran is the conflict between Abraham and his father Azar. Azar was an Idolater, and Abraham turned away from him, when he could not make his father follow the message of God (19, 42-49).

One of the shrines in the Kaaba (the holiest place of worship in the Islamic Faith) was also dedicated to the Hindu Creator God, Brahma, which is why the illiterate prophet of Islam claimed it was dedicated to Abraham. The word “Abraham” is none other than a mispronunciation of the word Brahma.

The Temple of Mecca was founded by a colony of Brahmins from India. It was a sacred place before the time of Mohammed and they were permitted to make pilgrimages to it for several centuries after his time.

It’s great celebrity as a sacred place before the time of the prophet cannot be doubted. The city of Mecca is said by the Brahmins, on the authority of their old books, to have been built by a colony from India; and its inhabitants from the earliest era have had a tradition that it was built by Ishmael, the son of Agar. This town, in the Indus language, would be called Ishmaelistan.

Before Mohammed’s time, The Hinduism of the Arab peoples was called Tsaba. Tsaba or Saba – a Sanskrit word, meaning “Assembly of the Gods”. Tsaba was also called Isha-ayalam (Shiva’s Temple). The term Moslem or Moshe-ayalam (Shiva’s Temple) is just another name of Sabaism. The word has now shrunk to Islam. Mohammed himself, being a member of the Quaryaish family, was at first a Tsabaist. The Tsabaists did regarded Abraham as an avatar or divinely ordained teacher called Avather Brahmo (Judge of the Underworld).