Sumerians Tested, Israelites Tested, and Americans Tested
As for Israelites, we have to find key conditions that made them so outstanding in the human history.
Then we have to find why and how such conditions were made possible for Israelites.
Without such conditions, Israelites today should be living like nomads in the Arab land; Christians in Europe today should be living just like Romans of the era of Caesar and Cleopatra; Muslims should be today impossible; and indigenous people in Americas and Australia today should be enjoying their monopoly of the vast lands.
* * *
The Bible is not a novel. It is not a collection of stupid, fanciful, and superstitious tales godless writers today would concoct for money or old savages happened to dream up 2000 to 2500 years ago through misunderstanding all they saw and experienced.
The Bible should be respected more than reports Caesar of the Roman Empire wrote in the first century B.C. and Shiji (history record) Sima Qian of China's Han Dynasty wrote in the first century B.C.
It is a record of situations of survival or extinction of an entire tribe.
* * *
A) A Sumerian or a Sumerian family had their own individual God through whom they could appeal to the superior or greater God of their tribe, their city, or their civilization.
B) Sumerians worked for their God. Records and legends of their civilization show a comparatively higher moral standard.
C) The last king of the Sumerian Kingdom was called the "Righteous Pastor," though Sumerians despised nomadic herdsmen living around their cities.
a) Israelites adhered to their God, though they admitted that other tribes could have their own God. If Israelites had been cut off from original civilization which had a God superior to Israelites', they had to make their God as the only God in civilization they thought they represented.
b) Israelites lived to satisfy their God. Records and legends of the tribe show a comparatively higher moral standard than observed in any other races including Greeks and Egyptians as well as other Semitic races. They were too different from ancestors of Arabs though Israelites could not join the Babylonian Civilization after the collapse of the last Sumerian Kingdom and its main city Ur.
c) The first great leader of their tribe Abraham, from the beginning after having left Ur with his father, tried hard to settle in a place suitable for building a town, or had no difficulty in mingling into towns or cities of other tribes including Egyptians, though he was regarded just a leader of nomads. In addition, Israelites never admired (other) Semite tribes just like Sumerians never loved nomads.
* * *
Especially I want to point out that in the beginning at the Garden of Eden there lived only one Adam and one Eve, but not two Eves, three Eves, or four Eves.
Abraham had a female slave who acted as his wife. He had to be tested.
Jacob had two wives and two female slaves who each acted as his wife. He had to be tested.
In this way, we could interrupt the following report in Genesis:
Gen 32:24
And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
Gen 32:25
And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
Gen 32:26
And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
Gen 32:27
And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
Gen 32:28
And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
Gen 32:29
And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.
Gen 32:30
And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
Unless Jacob had been tested at least this way, I would not have trusted in the God of Jacob and his family, though their God has turned out eventually to be the God of mankind.
* * *
The Bible should be read with a higher respect to ancient people.
If they had been stupid, their descendants, that is contemporary mankind, cannot win a Nobel Prize, if the God introduced the Prize, in any fields at all.
You should show the highest respect in interpreting every act of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus Christ.
For example, Jesus Christ could not be such a weak and careless person as would be simply taken advantage of by a betrayer, namely Judas, so smartly and decisively beyond help.
You have to find not only a seemingly holy but easy reason but a truly ethical reason at the highest level which could be a good lesson to mankind.
* * *
Abraham was tested.
Jacob was tested.
Moses was tested.
Even Jesus Christ followed suit.
(Some Americans seem to have been really tested significantly on the 9/11 attacks. They are supporting America today. The future of America depends on those ladies and gentlemen significantly tested in these tragedies which however may look illogical to human beings [thus you had better refer to the Bible].
As for me, I cannot recall how I was tested ever (however Japan has been evidently tested), though I think I am now allowed to present EEE Reports even to good girls in America.)
"SLAVES OF GOD"