Get outta here!  The number of shady schemes, shaky deals, wars, ceasefires, and security arrangements that litter the landscape that have been associated with Abraham are man, but Abraham was a pioneer of a different set of ideals. Abraham is not the father of culture. He is the father of Ishmael and Isaac.  God gave him a heart of implicit trust.  He was listening to God, not merely hearing Him, before God called him out of Ur, an assumed centre of excellence in every way like any modern metropolitan area.  Putting Abe’s name on a modern initiative, building, or highway can draw people to pay attention and give them a good feeling of family pride, but success based on the great prince’s name is going to be hard to find.

Abraham had precedent, not law (commands, statutes, and judgments mediated by Moses)

Abraham used to gather stones to form platforms on which he could express himself to Yahweh. He was not subject to the Sinai Covenant or the Palestinian Covenant.  He had his own unique relationship with Yahweh, one based on promises and personal fidelity.  This makes all of Abraham’s descendants, Ishmaelite or Israelite (properly Isaac’s descendants) way off the mark, because they are all bent out of shape trying to dominate their neighbours with superior claims.  Who today is giving up a sheep or a goat to acknowledge the Owner of the universe? Abe fought for no earthly territory, but he ran his household with his women in the place God designed for women; in respectful partnership. He died longing for a city founded and adorned beyond any he had known. Abe left no written legacy.

The mere existence of a fund of knowledge is not enough; unless knowledge is nurtured and nourished by devoted teachers and eager students alike, it will, like a pool of water following the rains, change its hue and slowly disappear.

Haile Selassie I

We shall soon see how very fractured Abraham’s household has become, and in particular how corruptly governments can act in pursuit of their own insular ideals, when all of the memos of understanding between the branches of Abraham’s family, their international trade deals, and their  regional cooperation accords, crumble like broken bulrushes. For our personal sanity we can keep our noses out of meaningless debates, and try to distinguish the facts from the spin and the hype. If the older stories of Abraham are not more reliable than the more recent, then we can enjoy the merry-go-round until it spins us off into the darkness. I choose to see Abraham as definitely not the foundation of anyone’s current agenda.