Abraham and the Idol Shop Abraham and the Idol Shop Abraham and the Idol Shop appears in Genesis Rabbah chapter 38 and is a biblical commentary on the early life of Abraham. The commentary explains what happened to Abraham when he was a young boy working in his father's idol shop. The story has been used as a way to discuss monotheism and faith in general. Abraham is the first patriarch and is seen as the father of the four Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baha'i faith. The later life of Abraham is told in the book of Genesis Chapters 11-25. The missing
Bible and Orient Museum close bonds of the Bible with its ancient Near Eastern surroundings. Keel observed that without knowledge of these symbols, many biblical comparisons, symbols and visions cannot be properly understood and thereby demonstrated the general importance of ancient Near Eastern cultural history for biblical science. By interpreting biblical texts in their historical context, a fundamentalist-literal understanding of the Bible can be avoided. Furthermore, this approach shows the relations between Islam and Judaism, between Christianity and Judaism, between Judaism and ancient Near Eastern Paganism, and thereby relativizes the claim to absolute truth by the monotheist religions. Subsequently, Keel and his colleagues successfully