Abraham, the Iraqi

Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash

“OJ Simpson, not a Jew…”

If you are under the age of 35, you might not know that line came from Adam Sandler’s stand up comedy holiday classic, ‘The Hanukkah Song’ or more correctly spelled, ‘The Chanukah Song.’

Sandler’s festive Saturday Night Live anthem reveals several other surprises too, like,

“Paul Newman’s half Jewish, Goldie Hawn’s half, too.

Put them together, what a fine lookin’ Jew”

In 2008, Sandler educated me that Paul Newman and Goldie Hawn were half-Jewish; some things I did not know. But, what I find more shocking than Goldie Hawn or Paul Newman being half-Jewish is our collective assumptions about who is and who is not Jewish. The biggest shocker of all, for many, is that Abraham, said to be the father of the Jewish and Islamic faith, was not a Jew.

I lived decades thinking — assuming — Abraham was a Jew, along with Noah, Adam, Eve, Seth, Methusalah, Enoch, Isaac and others. The reason I believed that is that I read about them in my Bible, the first half of which, colloquially called The Old Testament, was supposed to be written by Jews about Jews. We even call it the “Judeo-Christian Bible.” The Bible, especially the old parts, is about Jews, right?

Wrong. The Bible and The Old Testament clearly explain that Abraham was from the city of Ur, of a region called Sumer that encompassed the land that became Assyria and Babylonia, and later Iran and Iraq.

Somehow, despite the Bible clearly stating that, I believed something different. It was as if my assumptions put scales over my eyes, even though the Bible said something totally different than what I believed, and even though I thought I believed the Bible. Beliefs are powerful things. They can make those who see blind.

Today, Ur is named Tell el-Muqayyar in Dhi Qar Governorate, in southern Iraq. It isn’t until Abraham’s grandson is older than most people die today that there is even a mention of “Israel” in the Bible.

“Is-ra-el” is the name change, given to Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, after he wrestled against a mysterious figure who is either a lord, the Lord, or angel of the Lord — it’s not quite clear. Whoever he wrestled against; his opponent won and left Jacob with a limp. After that, Jacob’s name changed to Israel and he starts a new chapter in the multi-thousand year story that eventually leads to the moniker, “Jew.”

Is-ra-el has several meanings, some more favorable than others. The favorable ones are things like “he who will rule with God,” but there are others that seem more in line with the story of Jacob wrestling against god, God, or an angel of God. The more direct meaning is “he who struggles with God” as in “he who wrestles against God.” You could even go so far as to say, “he who wrestles against El;” El being the name for the God Most High of the Canaanite cosmology. El is found throughout the Bible as in “El-Shaddai” and “El-ohim” and the names M-el-chizedek and Samu-el.

It’s not until hundreds of years later that a word close to “Jew” or “Jewish” or “Hebrew” existed. That word was likely “Judah,” as in the tribe of Judah, one of the 12 tribes of Israel; the tribe by which we get the word Judeo-Christian or Judaism. But again, Judah was just one of the 12 tribes. There were other regions named after tribes, like where Jesus was from, in Nazareth, in the region of Zebulon, as in the tribe of Zebulon, another one of the 12 tribes.

Abraham died at 175 and Isaac (Abraham’s son) died at 180 and Jacob (Isaac’s son) died at 147. It was hundreds of years between when Abraham immigrated from Sumer (Iraqi) to Canaan (later called Israel in the Old Testament, then Palestine by the Romans, and then Israel again by the United States and United Nations) before any sort of name we relate with Jewishness was used in the land that we call Israel.

Abraham was an Iraqi, not an Israeli. The Bible does not tell much of Abraham’s origin story, but books extraneous to the Bible, like the Book of Jasher claim that Abraham was the son of a socially important and wealthy chieftain in Sumer. Abraham was said to be like a prince.

Abraham questioned his father’s religion until their philosophical disagreement erupted into a familial split, and Abraham consequently hit the road. Like many young men, Abraham could no longer stand to live in his father’s house.

It is said that Abraham’s father worshiped Sumerian (ancient Iraqi) gods using life-sized idols carved of wood that represented the gods. He’d pray to them, sacrifice to them, and even said that they talked back to him — a point that Abraham specifically did not believe. Now, realize that while all this drama was unfolding, Abraham lived in Iraq, not Israel, and Iraq was the geocentric origin of the entire Bible story, where the Garden of Eden was said to be. In fact, the Garden of Eden would have been miles away from where Abraham grew up. Abraham could have conceivably hiked to the Garden of Eden.

Similar to a classic 1980’s teen coming of age movie, it is said that Abraham did not believe as his father believed, that the wooden figures could bless, save, deliver, make it rain, grow crops, talk, or heal, and his disbelief strained their relationship until the relationship broke. Even today, many teens leave their parents’ faith behind. Happens all the time.

One day, Abraham cut the heads off all of his dad’s wooden idols, says the extra-biblical Book of Jasher, and as you might imagine that caused a breach in their relationship and Abraham hit the road. As a young man, he went West, as many of us do, to Canaan; a land fraught with adventure and a promise of a new start, not too dissimilar from Doc Holiday in Tombstone, the movie.

Whether the Book of Jasher’s retelling of Abraham’s origin story is true or not, I like it, and I think many of us can relate to it. Abraham going from Iraq to be the new kid of Canaan is like Kevin Bacon going to a new high school in the 1980’s blockbuster, Footloose.

Abraham was a fish out of water in Canaan, his new home, and the word “Hebrew” or “Jew” or “Israeli” were never a part of Abraham’s story — he never heard or uttered those words. He lived, and he died in Canaan, and the word Jew was never uttered by him or anyone of his time.

He had lots of perilous adventures, and some religious adventures, in Canaan, and he had several children who went on to be very important in the religious annals. He lived a great life, and it was said in the Book of Jasher that he lived his final days at a crossroad in northern Canaan (what we call Israel today or possibly Syria), and like Saladin, leader of the muslims in the First Crusades and Sultan of Egypt and Syria who was said to live in a commoners house and people would come from all over the world to visit him; people would also come from all over their known world to talk with Abraham, the Iraqi.

True or not, I like the idea of an old Abraham — too old to raid, and too old to adventure — reposed, welcoming visitors, and sharing tea and wisdom.

During Abraham’s time, there was no Israel or Palestine, only Canaan.

If your mind is not already broken by the truth that Abraham was not a Jew but an Iraqi, you may be further shocked to know that Noah was also not a Jew, nor was Adam. Adam was made and lived between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which again, run through modern day Iraq. Noah was likely born in modern day Iraq and after the flood spent the remaining 600 years of his life in the northern Iranian mountains, known as the Caucasus Mountains, an area later known as Assyria, and renowned for rulers like King Cyrus the Great, King Darius and Xerxes.

The Bible says Noah’s ark rested in the “mountains of Ararat,” which are in northern Iran, though of course many explorers have looked for his boat on Mount Ararat of modern day Turkey. There have been no boats found on Mount Ararat in Turkey, but there has been petrified wood found at 13,600 ft in the mountains of Ararat in northern Iran. Today, you may find this region named on maps as the Ugarit mountains.

If you are wondering why I would point this out — that Abraham, Noah, Enoch, Lamech, Methusalah, Seth, Abel, Eve and Adam were all Iraqis — it is because, for me, it re-triangulated the location and the context of my understanding of what is said to be the Judeo-Christian Bible.

It might be better named the Sumerian-Canaanite-Israeli-Christian Bible.

The distance between modern day Israel to modern day Iraq is approximately the distance between New Mexico and Alabama, during a time without cars, pavement, planes or trains. Imagine the differences in topography, plant life, and culture between these two US states and how that may have related to Abraham.

Southern Sumeria was swampy, like Louisiana and southern Alabama. Ancient Israel was desert-like with sporadic vegetation, similar to New Mexico. For a man who made his living off the land, that must have been a difficult change.

Now, imagine the distance and time it would take to walk or ride a four legged creature between those two states. That is how much of a fish out of water Abraham was in Canaan. He battled in Canaan, in large part, because he was not a native. Assuming the ancient world was similar to the common era, then the lands of Canaan were spoken for, by the old families. If Abraham was going to settle, with his wealth, servants, flocks, and family, he was going to have to carve out an existence. He’d have to elbow his way in, and that is always messy business.

The tale of Abraham is a pioneer tale, and a tale of a man leaving the world he knew — Iraq — for a world he did not know — Israel — to make a life, in his own way, not his father’s way. And the world he came to — modern day Israel and Syria — was not a Jewish state. It was not a Sumerian state either. It was a Canaanite state, but to him it was a fresh, new frontier.