Abraham's story has always held many mysteries to me. How could he, hearing the voice of God, recognize it as God's voice and do as he was told? Being so puzzled made me read many documents and this is how I piece the story together, much coming from archeological discoveries. So Ur in Chaldea was the king's town. He had a huge palace there and there were many temples, the biggest one was to the Moon-God. The Moon-God's name was "Sin". Does that ring a bell? They had built pyramids for temples, pyramids like the south-american ones and the offered sacrifices on top of the pyramids. So, what if Abram was of royal lineage, one of the high priests of the Moon-God, thus used for sacrifices, even to sacrifice the eldest sons? It makes archeological sense and biblical sense too. But has Abram then, while living in Ur, sacrificed human beings to the Moon-God? If he was a priest or a prophet, observing the rituals of his god, this may be possible. But because of his service to a god he may have been open to a call from God, which he could recognize as a different God and yet worship. And it explains, why God would ask Abram to leave all behind. All the other gods, the sacrifices, the royalty. And when, much later, God asked Abraham to offer his only son, Abraham would know about the custom of gods asking for the blood of a male child. He would bow to God. Only to learn, that this God is like no other God. After Abraham obeyed, he gave a ram for sacrifice, showing thus that he wanted no human blood on his altar, except the blood of Jesus. This is so full of sense and further thoughts on how God came to reveal himself, pointing already towards the sacrifice of his son as the only sacrifice able to free us from sin.
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