"And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there."
Genesis 11:31
1.
And an unfamiliar spirit appeared to Terah in a dream, announced that Emtelai is great with child, and that which is conceived in of an holy ghost.
Behold, an old lady shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Abram, which being interpreted is that he shall be father of a nation.
Now when Nimrod the King heard tell of new nations and holy spirits, he was troubled, and all of Sumer with him.
And when he gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where an Abe of nations should be born.
The priests and scribes were without postulation but one scribe, hailing from far north, who realized perhaps it was Ur of the Chaldees, for the word 'Ur' meant 'first' in his native country.
And when they were departed, behold, the unfamiliar spirit appeareth to Terah in a dream, saying, "Arise, take the young child and his mother and flee to the Shanidar Cave. And be thou there until I bring thee word: for Nimrod will seek the young child to destroy him."
When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed to the cave.
And then Nimrod, when he saw he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Ur of the Chaldees, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.
In the beginning was the Land, and the Gods were with Land, and the Lands were Gods. The same was the beginning with Land. All things were made by Land, and without Land was not anything made that was made. In it was work; and work was the life of men.
But idleness was the life of Terah and Abram in the Shanidar Cave. For lo, there was no land to work, nor were there men nor Gods. There were only caves, and sand, and rock, reeds from which to eat, a small wadi with which to drink and gazelle forthwith to hunt.
It was in this cave that Abraham discovered the ancient bones of a monstrous lizard.
2.
Terah knew not what the lizard was for all he saw of it was a skull, a crown of neither man nor cattle nor dog nor familiar beast - a skull of an elephantine goose, a mountainous bird head of pure bone leaving space for eyes the size of cooking pots and a beak resembling fowl except for its mouth of forty teeth, each the size of his toddling hand.
Every night, Abram and his parents dined as the skull of the avian leviathan gazed upon them - they knew not for good or ill, but his presence was always with them, and never was their presence in the cave revealed.
Long after Abram and his parents returned to lodge in Ur, Abram did remember the skull, and regaled his older brothers with tell of its splendor.
Now Terah was a stonemason and chief constructor of idols for his city, and his older sons Nahor and Haran made idols of their great seven gods: An, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Nana, Utu, and Inanna. When Abram reached manhood, his task was the delivery of the idols upon order completion to receipted address.
And once there was a time when Abram was sent to deliver an idol to the elder, Gishkim, who claimed he sent for an idol not. And said unto Abram "What need have I, a man threescore, to worship an idol made yesterday?"
And thereupon became Abram an atheist.
3.
And Terah did grow exceptional wroth with Abram, for Abram was exceeding quarrelsome with customers.
"What need have ye for idols?" Abram did say "who take praise for thy work and punishes thou for no misdeed? In the sweat of thy face dost thou make bread. What god would curse a ground to make thou eat in sorrow all the days of thy life?"
Verily, the people of Ur threw off their gods, and they did destroy the idols of Terah's hoard, and they did slay Terah's son Haran.
Thereupon Terah did say to his son "What hast thou done to us that thou would sacrifice thy family in thy quest to destroy gods?"
And Abram did leave Ur and return to the cave of his childhood.
Behold, in the Shanidar Cave did Abram see the behemoth bird skull, and he did lift the skull, for he was exceeding strong in relation to childhood, and he did notice the skull was connected to another bone.
Thereupon did Abram fashion a shovel, and he dug underneath the colossal birdskull, and thereon did he discover a lizard skeleton of four legs, sixty cubits in length and ten cubits in height, with neck of fifteen cubits and tale of thirty cubits.
And Abram did name it 'sauropod diplodocus' for its feet were of a lizard and its extremities like beams.
By his discovery Abram did say "verily there is a god who forms all things upon earth and heaven, for only a creator of all could form such a beast of the field and preserve it in earth for all time. In him do I trust, and to his glory do I submit."
4.
Abram did return to Ur, and married Sarai, who was exceeding humorous and beautiful.
Then had Terah encountered an holy spirit who said unto him "Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee."
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran.
For Haran was the name of his son slain for the hoard of idols, Haran and Haran reading the same in many languages, and Terah upon it as a sign from the holy spirit that this was the land, and they did lodge there.
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