9781422281123

F ATHER OF T HREE F AITHS

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The land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers is considered the site of the earliest civilization, Sumer. This area, later called Mesopotamia, is located in present-day Iraq. Great civilizations had already risen and fallen in this region by the time the patriarch Abraham was born here around the year 2000 BCE . And other early civilizations had emerged between 9,000 and 7,500 years ago along the Nile River in Africa, in the Indus Valley in central Asia, and along the Yellow River in China. Successful farming required rain for crops, fertile soil, good weather, and fresh water and grasses for livestock. If an unforeseen event—a river flood, a blight, an unexpected hailstorm—damaged the crops, many people would starve. Therefore appeasing the spirits—now called gods—became even more important. At one time a simple sacrifice might have sufficed. For example, a farmer whose field was threatened by a rising river might throw handfuls An ancient Egyptian temple. Some historians argue that an Egyptian pharaoh named Amenhotep IV (or Akhenaten), not the biblical patriarch Abraham, was the first true monotheist because while Abraham worshiped a single God, it is not clear that he denied the existence of other gods. Amenhotep, who ruled from 1375 to 1358 BCE , insisted that Egyptians worship only Ra, the sun god, and oversaw the destruction of temples to the other Egyptian deities. After his death, however, Egypt reverted to polytheism.