Joshua 24 does not allege that Abraham was an idolater. It does state quite categorically that Terah was an idolater but if God wanted us to know that Abraham was an idolater, I think that somewhere in the hundreds of references about Abraham in the Bible it would have stated so. Was he a sinner. Yes. That is a fact. Was he an idolater? We don't know from scripture. I don't think we should smear Abraham with that sin unless it has been made clear in the scripture.
Indeed. Thank you for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
NKJV: Josh 24: 1 Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God. 2 And Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: 'Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods. 3 Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the River, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants and gave him Isaac.
The NKJV appears to be clear that Terah was an idolater. It is probably true that of his 3 sons, Abraham, Nahor, and Haran. Odds are that Nahor was an idolater, since his son Laban had household gods that Rachel stole. That's assuming the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.
Interestingly, the only record of Haran is his son, Lot. While Lot turned a blind eye to some bad stuff, there's no indication that he was an idolater. He wanted to go with Abraham when Abe went out at God's command.
The Josh passage says plural "fathers" were idolaters, and it offers up Terah as a guilty party. One father, however, is not the plural, "fathers." "Your fathers...dwelt...and served other gods."
Those who dwelt beyond the River were definitely: Terah, Abe, & Nahor. They all did.
Those who "served other gods" were definitely Terah and probably Nahor based on Laban's gods.
One can find no evidence in Abe's life that he had any focus other than the Lord. His was devotion only to the Lord, even to the almost sacrifice of Isaac.
Perhaps it was a "by association" issue that was being addressed. As a boy, Abraham was brought up in idolater Terah's household, so one would have expected him to have been indoctrinated in that practice.
As we refer to many as "cultural Christians" because they come from Christian homes in a Christian culture, perhaps we can acknowledge that Abraham was a "cultural idolater" because he came from an idolatrous home in an idolatrous culture. It could have been something he NEVER bought, and that could have been by design of the Lord who eventually calle Abraham out of that culture.
Thank you P-Marlow for your generosity of spirit in this discussion.-
I think the point I was making is in danger of being lost. Abraham was a sinner- that is why he needed to be justified. I am not trying to impute any particular sin to Him, I think I have valid grounds to believe that He, being one of the Fathers Joshua referred to,”Your fathers...”- was an idolater.
I see why you can infer that he wasn’t guilty of that particular sin. This is one of those things that inferences can go either way- True the scripture doesn’t say “Abram bowed down to Marduk”, not does the scripture say “Abraham’s father and brothers worshipped Idols but he always knew better than to do that”-
I think Joshua is telling us that Israel’s Fathers worshipped idols, and yes I did state that Abraham was an idolater. In the Romans 1 sense every sinner is an idolater, so I dont see what the point would be of trying to exonerate Abraham of sin before he believed in God.
I am not going to say that this is authoritative, because it isn’t but there are many evangelical theologians who also say on the same basis, that Abraham was an idolater- AW Pink comes to mind, but there are others.
This is one of those issues where equally sincere Christians can disagree about what they think they see in Joshua 24 and it dosn’t really matter much. The point is that the conversion of Abraham is a prototype of the conversion of us all- thank you- and God bless you-