The Archeologists are
DIGGING Al" UR
and unearthing most interesting relics of the center of ancient moon-worship and the first home of
Abraham, the Friend of God. Here is a fresh insight into the place in world affairs filled by the
former Hebrew patriarch, and a study of the spiritual interpretation of history. (Second in a series)
N THE preceding study was described the
origin of Babylon, the arch-enemy of God
throughout the ages of human history, the
actual, and later symbolic, kingdom of
Satan. In this study we are to discover
the rise of the opposing force in the great
human drama, the origin of the nation of the people
of God. The outstanding facts of history and its
critical moments always center in individual men.
In the beginning of Babylon Nimrod confronts us.
In this case it is Abraham, the father of the faithful,
the man selected by God to be the parent of a nation
enjoying in a special way the favor of Divinity, and
symbolizing in history the kingdom of God, Jeru-
salem, of which the faithful of all time are the
citizens.
We first hear of Abraham at Ur, a Chaldean city
on or near the Persian Gulf. Recent excavations
at Ur and other cities in the vicinity have thrown a
bright light on the Babylonia of Abraham’s time.
Archeology has shown us a teeming population,
and a well-organized society, feudal in character.
Wide World Photos
By KELD J. REYNOLDS
In this society we find clearly differentiated classes,
slaves, artisans, tenant-farmers, landed gentry,
and in the cities the merchant princes, nobles, and
at the top the king. The state was a city gathered
about a temple. The king was the high priest.
Therefore religion was the basis of Babylonian
politics, the bond of civic unity, the ground of
political rights and authority.
Everywhere was wealth and luxury to stagger
the imagination, but all of it in the hands of the upper
classes. Still, social lines were not closely drawn.
A slave could earn wages, buy property, and even
his freedom, and he was barred from no position to
which his ability might entitle him. Women could
hold property as well as men.
An elaborate postal system linked all the centers of
Babylonian culture from the Mediterranean, through
the Fertile Crescent, around the Arabian Desert,
and down to the gulf.
Such was the society of which the family of
Excavations in Mesopotamia to bring to light the palace of the kings of Kish
PAGE TWELVE
THE WATCHMAN MAGAZINE