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A RISING STAR

Can you lead forth the constellations in their season?

Job¹

During the years before Abraham’s birth, the local ruler (who, because of his unspiritual nature, is referred to as Nimrod even though that was almost certainly not his given name) had a dream. The scripture continues, “Thereupon, he summoned the soothsayers, who informed him of the rise of a star in the heaven.”² Although it seems clear that one meaning of this passage is symbolic—a brilliant Prophet will ascend and shine in the firmament of faith, swallowing up the religions of the past—there was also something very special and completely literal happening in the sky above Nimrod’s head. Something that the soothsayers would have been aware of and perhaps worried about: the Age of Taurus was giving way to the Age of Aries.

An astronomical “age” is a period of about two thousand years during which a particular constellation is the dominant one in the sky of the northern hemisphere on the night of the spring equinox. These ages don’t have exact beginnings and endings because the transition between them, when two constellations share the limelight, lasts at least a century. During the age of Taurus, the constellation of the Bull reigned, but in the years prior to Abraham, Aries—the Ram—was moving in to displace it. The fact that this change would have been noticed and discussed by king, priest, and commoner alike can be traced to the influence of three of Abraham’s prophetic ancestors: Adam, Seth, and Enoch.

Although Enoch was born several generations after Adam and Seth, all three of them lived in preliterate societies (roughly 4000 BC) when people were only just beginning to experiment with incising a few symbols on slabs of wet clay. Faced with the challenge of providing an easy-to-access source of inspiration, the three of them are credited with sketching imaginary lines among groups of stars and using the resulting images as giant illustrations for a celestial storybook of moral education. Along with the educational parables, they prophesied ways in which certain astronomical events in the future would be tied to the advent of other divine Messengers.³

It is not possible to reconstruct all of what was taught by this trio of prophets. Nor is anyone sure of the original names of the constellations or of all the ideas and virtues associated with them. Still, it is easy to imagine how enthralling it must have been for their followers to be able to lift their eyes to the sky and find spiritual sustenance in the twinkling tableaus above. These ancient viewers might not have been ready to understand monotheism, but they certainly could grasp the importance of the struggle between good and evil as demonstrated by Leo’s efforts to subdue the untrustworthy serpent, Hydra, beneath his shaggy paw. They could also appreciate the generosity with which Aquarius poured water for the thirsty and anticipate how it might feel to have the worth of their own deeds weighed on the spiritual scales of Libra.

When it came to using the constellations as a clock, religious scholars such as Frances Rolleston have posited that Adam, Seth, and / or Enoch left prophecies about momentous events connected to a time when Taurus the Bull would be replaced by Aries the Ram and, after that, when the Ram would give way to the fishes of Pisces.⁴ They might even have left hints about our own modern age, the Age of Aquarius, a time when the fishes yield to the water-bearer. These prophecies would have given a great boost to the science of astronomy by inspiring sky-watchers to investigate, record, and learn how to predict the movements of both fixed and wandering stars (planets were thought to be stars that moved in unexpected directions).

Centuries of practice in watching the sky for indications of important spiritual events would have given the royal soothsayers of Mesopotamia a reason to link Nimrod’s dream to the way in which Aries was pushing Taurus out of the way. They would have been even more certain of their interpretation if, as is possible, an unusual planetary conjunction had taken place or a comet had floated through the constellation of Aries.

ABRAHAM IS BORN

While Nimrod paced back and forth, pondering the best method of eliminating the Prophet whose advent was predicted by his dream and the rising star, Abraham’s mother, Emtelai, must have been equally worried about what the future held in store.⁵ Knowing how frequently young women died in childbirth, she would have had reason to fear that she might not live to see the face of her child. When she went into labor, one of the household servants would have run to fetch a midwife while another relayed the news to the father-to-be.

The father-to-be, Emtelai’s husband, was Terah (spelled in the Qur’án as Azar). He is thought to have been an educated and influential man who made a living manufacturing and selling idols. Often whitewashed with lime or painted with red and black pigments, the figurines of that era ranged in height from a few inches to a foot or more. Purchasers set them in the doorway of a house or business, placed them near a personal altar, or buried them under the threshold to protect the inhabitants against demons and other evil spirits. The idols were also worshiped in private family chapels, placed in curbside shrines, and entombed with the dead bodies of family members who lay moldering in a vault dug underneath the foundation of the house—a practice that could permeate the dwelling, or even the neighborhood, with a distinctly unpleasant odor.

One hopes that on the day Abraham was born, his mother’s nose was filled with a more pleasant scent than that of rotting flesh. Perhaps barley bread topped with sesame seeds was baking in the kitchen oven, or maybe Emtelai was able to dab fragrant oil on her wrists. The midwife could have helped the labor along by giving Emtelai a medicinal wad of tree bark to chew or spreading ointment on her stomach and massaging it gently.

Terah’s other wives—tradition counts two of them—might have waited nearby, perched on stools with woven reed seats, jingling their dainty ankle bracelets and sipping a lightly alcoholic beer brewed from dates. They could have helped Emtelai sit on a birthing stool and would have stretched out willing hands to hold the newborn, wipe him clean, and wrap him in a blanket woven of linen or wool.⁶

A naming ceremony was typically held a few days after the birth of a child, once it was clear the baby was healthy and likely to survive. Terah called his new son Abram, which means exalted father or father lifted up. In the future, as part of a special covenant, God would elongate Abram’s name to Abraham—which, for the sake of simplicity, is what we will continue to call Him.

Children were important in Mesopotamia, but because it was a patriarchal society, sons were more important than daughters. Sons were the children who would continue the family business, support their parents in old age, bury them respectfully when the time came, and claim the largest share of the inheritance. The only thing better than birthing one son was having several, a feat Emetlai accomplished by producing two brothers for Abraham: Nahor, whose name means light, and then Haran, whose name is thought to refer to the town where either Terah or his father had been born.

The brothers were probably spaced two or three years apart, which was the customary period of time for a mother to continue breastfeeding (a practice that acts as a natural contraceptive). As the boys grew, learning to weave their way through narrow streets, they might have taken time to watch new houses being built. The materials were readily available—clay mixed with straw, molded into bricks, and dried in the hot sun of the early summer months when no rain was expected. The bricks were mortared together with tarry bitumen stiffened by the addition of sandy soil. Wood was used to outline doors and windows, though windows were few and most of the indoor illumination was provided by oil lamps. Roofs were made of palm tree planks covered with reeds and slathered with clay. The homes of the wealthy were built around a central courtyard and featured several bedrooms plus a kitchen with a pantry, a dining area, a place to bathe, and even a toilet suspended above a pit that drained into a central sewer through underground channels.⁷

Abraham, Nahor, and Haran might also have passed many childhood hours doing what all little boys do—driving their parents crazy by emulating the antics of local wrestlers, pounding on small drums, or pleading for yet another turn at a popular board game reminiscent of backgammon. The boys probably received a little schooling, at least enough to learn how to record basic business transactions in cuneiform characters on clay tablets. And, as heirs to the family business, they would have also been expected to emulate their father by helping him with his business of making and selling idols.

The idols of that period were human figures or fantastic animals sculpted from stone, carved from wood, cast in metal, or made of clay. Terah, working in wood and stone, was respected as a masterful craftsman who could turn out several beautiful idols in a single day.⁸ As Abraham assisted His father, learning how to wield a hammer and chisel and finding out how to lure customers into the family’s store, one of the things He discovered is as true now as it was then: handmade gods and goddesses are easily broken.

Jewish tradition describes Abraham’s eye-opening experience of breakage as happening when Terah sent Abraham to sell idols in the streets of the city. The boy loaded the family mule with idols and headed for an inn where a group of Syrian merchants was staying. He hoped they would be interested in buying the idols for resale in Egypt. Just as Abraham reached the inn, a camel belched loudly enough to frighten the mule, which broke away and ran off.

In the resulting tumult, three valuable idols were broken, ruining Abraham’s chance to make a profit and impress His father with His business acumen.

After the mule had been recaptured, Abraham straddled it and began riding home, reflecting as He rode on how totally helpless the idols had been. Ironically, Abraham’s father, Terah, was more powerful than the gods he created. “Is not he the god of his gods,” Abraham asked Himself, “for do they not come into being by reason of his carving and chiseling and contriving?”⁹

Whether the incident of the belching camel and the runaway mule was the catalyst or not, both tradition and scripture indicate that Abraham began asking penetrating questions about spiritual reality while still quite young. He was, according to the Bahá’í writings, a member of the Sabean Faith (see Appendix B), but the answers He found within that faith evidently didn’t satisfy Him. As soon as He began drawing independent conclusions about the nature of reality, He began acting in ways that surprised His comrades, infuriated His father, and ultimately transformed Him into the rising star feared by Nimrod.