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WHO WAS ABRAHAM?
An article by Gene D. Matlock
In his History of the Jews, the Jewish scholar and theologian Flavius
Josephus
(37 - 100 A.D.), wrote that the Greek philosopher Aristotle had said: "...These
Jews are derived from the Indian philosophers; they are named by the Indians
Calani." (Book I:22.)
Clearchus of Soli wrote, "The Jews descend from the philosophers of
India. The philosophers are called in India Calanians and in Syria Jews.
The name of their capital is very difficult to pronounce. It is called
'Jerusalem.'"
"Megasthenes, who was sent to India by Seleucus
Nicator, about three
hundred years before Christ, and whose accounts from new inquiries are every day
acquiring additional credit, says that the Jews 'were an Indian tribe or sect
called Kalani...'" (Anacalypsis, by Godfrey Higgins, Vol. I; p. 400.)
Martin Haug, Ph.D., wrote in The Sacred Language, Writings, and Religions
of the Parsis, "The Magi are said to have called their religion
Kesh-�-Ibrahim.They traced their religious books to Abraham, who was believed
to have brought them from heaven." (p. 16.)
There are certain striking similarities between the Hindu god
Brahma
and his consort Saraisvati, and the Jewish Abraham and Sarai,
that are more than mere coincidences. Although in all of India there is only one
temple dedicated to Brahma, this cult is the third largest Hindu sect.
In his book Mois�s y los Extraterrestres, Mexican author Tom�s
Doreste states,
Voltaire was of the opinion that Abraham descended from
some of the numerous Brahman priests who left India to spread their
teachings throughout the world; and in support of his thesis he presented
the following elements: the similarity of names and the fact that the city
of Ur, land of the patriarchs, was near the border of Persia, the road to
India, where that Brahman had been born.
The name of Brahma was highly respected in India, and his
influence spread throughout Persia as far as the lands bathed by the rivers
Euphrates and Tigris. The Persians adopted Brahma and made him their own.
Later they would say that the God arrived from Bactria, a mountainous region
situated midway on the road to India. (pp. 46-47.)
Bactria (a region of ancient Afghanistan) was the locality
of a prototypical Jewish nation called Juhuda or Jaguda, also called Ur-Jaguda.
Ur meant "place or town." Therefore, the bible was correct in
stating that Abraham came from "Ur of the Chaldeans."
"Chaldean," more correctly Kaul-Deva (Holy Kauls), was not the
name of a specific ethnicity but the title of an ancient Hindu Brahmanical
priestly caste who lived in what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the
Indian state of Kashmir.
"The tribe of Ioud or the Brahmin Abraham, was
expelled from or left the Maturea of the kingdom of Oude in India and,
settling in Goshen, or the house of the Sun or Heliopolis in Egypt, gave it
the name of the place which they had left in India, Maturea." (Anacalypsis;
Vol. I, p. 405.)
"He was of the religion or sect of Persia, and of
Melchizedek."(Vol. I, p. 364.)
"The Persians also claim Ibrahim, i.e. Abraham, for
their founder, as well as the Jews. Thus we see that according to all
ancient history the Persians, the Jews, and the Arabians are descendants of
Abraham.(p.85) ...We are told that Terah, the father of Abraham, originally
came from an Eastern country called Ur, of the Chaldees or Culdees, to dwell
in a district called Mesopotamia. Some time after he had dwelt there,
Abraham, or Abram, or Brahma, and his wife Sara or Sarai, or Sara-iswati,
left their father's family and came into Canaan. The identity of Abraham and
Sara with Brahma and Saraiswati was first pointed out by the Jesuit
missionaries."(Vol. I; p. 387.)
 In Hindu mythology,
Sarai-Svati is Brahm's sister. The bible gives two stories of Abraham. In this
first version, Abraham told Pharaoh that he was lying when he introduced Sarai
as his sister. In the second version, he also told the king of Gerar that Sarai
was really his sister. However, when the king scolded him for lying, Abraham
said that Sarai was in reality both his wife and his sister! "...and yet
indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter
of my mother; and she became my wife." (Genesis 20:12.)
But the anomalies don't end here. In India, a tributary of the river
Saraisvati is Ghaggar. Another tributary of the same river is Hakra. According
to Jewish traditions, Hagar was Sarai's maidservant; the Moslems say she was an
Egyptian princess. Notice the similarities of Ghaggar, Hakra and Hagar.
The bible also states that Ishmael, son of Hagar, and his descendants lived
in India. "...Ishmael breathed his last and died, and was gathered to
his kin... They dwelt from Havilah (India), by Shur, which is close to Egypt,
all the way to Asshur." (Genesis 25:17-18.) It is an interesting fact
that the names of Isaac and Ishmael are derive from Sanskrit: (Hebrew) Ishaak
= (Sanskrit) Ishakhu = "Friend of Shiva." (Hebrew) Ishmael
= (Sanskrit) Ish-Mahal = "Great Shiva."
A third mini-version of the Abraham story turns him into another
"Noah." We know that a flood drove Abraham out of India. "...Thus
saith the Lord God of Israel, your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood
in old time, Even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor; and
they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of
the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan." (Joshua
24:2-3.)
Genesis 25 mentions some descendants of his concubine Ketura (Note: The
Moslems claim that Ketura is another name of Hagar.): Jokshan; Sheba; Dedan;
Epher. Some descendants of Noah were Joktan, Sheba, Dedan, and Ophir. These
varying versions have caused me to suspect that the writers of the bible were
trying to unite several different branches of Judaism.
About 1900 BC, the cult of Brahm was carried to the Middle and Near East by
several different Indian groups after a severe rainfall and earthquake tore
Northern India apart, even changing the courses of the Indus and Saraisvati
rivers. The classical geographer Strabo tells us just how nearly complete the
abandonment of Northwestern India was. "Aristobolus says that when he
was sent upon a certain mission in India, he saw a country of more than a
thousand cities, together with villages, that had been deserted because the
Indus had abandoned its proper bed." (Strabo's Geography, XV.I.19.)
"The drying up of the Sarasvati around 1900 BCE, which led to a major
relocation of the population centered around in the Sindhu and the Sarasvati
valleys, could have been the event that caused a migration westward from India.
It is soon after this time that the Indic element begins to appear all over West
Asia, Egypt, and Greece." (Indic Ideas in the Graeco-Roman World,
by Subhash Kak, taken from IndiaStar online literary magazine; p.14)
Indian historian Kuttikhat Purushothama Chon believes that Abraham was driven
out of India. He states that the Aryans, unable to defeat the Asuras (The
mercantile caste that once ruled in the Indus Valley or Harappans) spent so many
years fighting covertly against the Asuras, such as destroying their huge system
of irrigation lakes, causing destructive flooding, that Abraham and his kindred
just gave up and marched to West Asia. (See Remedy the Frauds in Hinduism.)
Therefore, besides being driven out of Northern India by floods, the Aryans also
forced Indian merchants, artisans, and educated classes to flee to West Asia.
Edward Pococke writes in India in Greece,
"...in no similar instance have events occurred fraught with
consequences of such magnitude, as those flowing from the great religious
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