Between Jerusalem and Benares: Comparative Studies in Judaism and Hinduism

4 Abraham and the Upanishads

4 Abraham and the Upanishads David Husser Abraham, "the father of a multitude of nations" (Gen. 17.4), is seen by the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as their founder. This is not only because of the universalistic elements included in the faith of the Patriarch, but also because Abraham was the first to recognize God. Unfortunately, the Hebrew Bible itself does not indicate how Abraham discovered God and became the hero of the monotheistic faith. The recognition of the Creator by Abraham, the first believer, is depicted in the following parable told by R. Isaac (second half of the third century C.E.): This may be compared to a man who was travelling from place to place when he saw a building lighted. "Is it possible that the building lacks a person to look after it?" he wondered. The owner of the castle looked out and said to him, "1 am the owner of the building." Similarly, because Abraham our father said, "Is it conceivable that the world is without a guide?" the Holy One, blessed be He, looked out and said to him, "1 am the Guide, the Sovereign of the Universe."l However, today another legend dealing with the same subject is much more famous. When the sun sank, and the stars carne forth, he [Abraham] said, "These are the gods!" But the dawn carne, and the stars 33 34 Da vid Flusser could be seen no longer, and then he said, "I will not pay worship to these, for they are no gods." Thereupon the sun came forth, and he spoke, "This is my god, him will I extol." But again the sun set, and he said, "He is no god," and beholding the moon, he called her his god to whom he would pay Divine homage. Then the moon was obscured, and he cried out: "This, too, is no god! There is One who sets them all in motion."2 There is a basic difference between this legend and Rabbi Isaac's parable . According to the parable, Abraham took the first experimental step and then God looked out and told him that He was the governor of the world. The legend, on the other hand, describes how Abraham came to the conclusion, by means of a process of gradual deduction, that the true and only God is the "One who sets them all in motion."3 The goal of Abraham's search had already been reached before he received the revelation of the One personal God. It is possible to assume that Rabbi Isaac was inspired by the legend, but this assumption cannot be based upon Rabbi Isaac's parable itself, because it is autonomous. One significant fact should be better known: while our Jewish legend about Abraham evidently already existed in the second century B.C.E., it was largely ignored by the mainstream of rabbinic Judaism, and only much later did it become relevant for the explanation of monotheism. The legend appears neither in the Talmud nor in the classical collections of midrashim, with the one exception of Genesis Rabbah 33.11, where it appears in a secondary formulation.4 Evidently, it did not form an authentic part of the original midrash but was added by the final redactor." As we have already stated, the story appears only in later narrative rabbinic literature.6 However, as we have asserted, our legend already existed in the second century B.C.E. It is alluded to in the Book of Jubilees 11.16-18, and Josephus as well was evidently acquainted with the legend (Ant. I, 155-56). Finally, the legend appears in the Apocalypse of Abraham (chapter 7)/ from the end of the first or the beginning of the second century C.E. Thus, our story is an outstanding example of a tendency in the history of Jewish literature, in which eminent narrative themes present in Jewish pseudepigraphic and Hellenistic literature are sometimes more or less absent in classical rabbinic sources, and then reappear in later narrative Jewish literature and in the Aramaic translations of the Bible. Often, it is precisely those stories which were incorporated into Christian and Muslim works which have also become popular Abraham and the Upanishads 35 among the Jews today. In fact, this particular legend about Abraham occurs in the Koran as well (3 Sura: 74-79). According to the mainstream of rabbinic tradition, God...