THE PATRIARCHS
a) Geography of Mesopotamiaa) Geography of Mesopotamia
b) Noah
Around the year 3000 B.C. all the world spoke the same language with identical words. But as mankind began to travel from the east, they found a vast lowland in the country of Babel, and they settled there. Then the men decided to build the
tower of Babel which had its highest peak in the heavens, so as to become like God.God saw this sin, and came down to earth to see the city they had built, which punished humanity, confusing its languages and dispersing God on the face of the earth.
After some time, God saw that mankind’s wickedness was still throughout the earth and he decided to punish them and destroy everything on the face of the earth.
God sent a
universal rainstorm (which lasted 40 days and 40 nights) which destroyed everything he had created. The only survivors were Noah’s family, on the ark which God had asked him to build to repopulate the earth.c) Abraham
Around the year 2000 B.C., there was a fair and God fearing man called Abraham. He owned a great flock, and lived quietly with his wife, Sarah in the Caldean city of Ur.
But one day God asked him to leave his father’s house and to go towards a land He would show him, the land of Israel.
God also gave him a mission, to found a nation where God would manifest himself, and where 2000 years later, the Savior would be born. God and Abraham made an alliance of Faith and both were faithful to it.
d) Isaac, Jacob and the 12 Tribes
Abraham trusted in God and although he was old and his wife was sterile, they had a son who they called Isaac. Miraculously conceived, Isaac fathered Esau and although he was rightfully the first born, he gave up these rights to the younger Jacob and thus received all of God’s blessings.
Jacob, who God called Israel, had 12 sons with Rachel, which would make up the 12 tribes of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulon, Naphtali, Joseph and Benjamin.
One of them, Joseph who was Jacob’s favorite, was sold by his brothers to some merchants from Egypt, which is the land he was taken to and where he would earn the Pharaoh’s favor by interpreting his dreams.
Meanwhile, in Israel, his other eleven brothers had suffered a great famine, and they had no other choice but to go to Egypt to settle.
e) Moses
In Egypt, the situation was getting worse for the children of Israel, and at the same time that they were multiplying their intelligence, they were also multiplying in numbers. This is how the Pharaoh began envying them, and he enslaved them to do hard physical work.
But God hadn’t forgotten his people and he chose Moses to free them.
Moses was an Israelite who had been adopted by the Pharaoh’s daughter. One day he was spoken to by God from a flaming bush and was told to take his people to the Promised Land.
In order to do this, Moses had to perform 10 plagues or miracles (blood in the Nile, gnats, even the death of the first born sons) in front of the Pharaoh so that he would free his people and let them leave.
After 400 years of slavery in Egypt, the Hebrews walked through the desert for 40 years until they arrived at the Promised Land. Afterwards, they made a covenant, which was summarized in the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai.
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