The Apocalypse of Abraham begins with the biblical tradition that Abraham

grew up in Mesopotamia with his father Terah. Terah was a maker of idols,

and Abraham is said to have taken some on the road to sell. Some were

destroyed by accident, leading Abraham to contemplate their reality and

wonder if they really are gods. After all, his father had to make them, and

they couldn’t even save themselves from falling off Abraham’s donkey! Later,

a god even burns in the fire as Abraham prepares food for his father.

Somewhat humorously, Terah doesn’t see the obvious and instead decides

that the god “prepared my food” when the idol burned in the fire. Abraham

laughs at this thinking, and you see his emerging disbelief in the various

idols.

A real gem in this book, however, is Abraham’s speech to his father. Abraham

says that Terah’s “gods” aren’t even as venerable as gold gods, which are

made of something valuable like silver or gold. But none of them are gods;

fire is more powerful than all of them because it destroys even silver and

gold, but fire isn’t a god. Water is more powerful than fire, but it isn’t a god.

By extension, the sun is more powerful than all this, but it disappears at

night, so it’s hardly a god either.

You can see an interesting philosophical idea emerging in Abraham’s speech

as he arrives at the notion that there must be something even higher and

greater that is creator of all. God finally appears to Abraham and says, “You

are searching for the God of gods, the creator . . . I am he!” (Apocalypse of

Abraham 8:3–4).

After Abraham’s speech, the Apocalypse of Abraham borrows from the bibli-

cal accounts of Genesis and portrays the famous animal splitting sacrifice

(Genesis 15) as a rite instructed by an angel of God to prepare Abraham for a

series of revelations. While Abraham waits, he’s briefly tempted by Azazel,

the evil angel, but another good angel drives Azazel away and prepares

Abraham for his visions.