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Terah acknowledged the truth of these words, but stated that if he didn’t go along with the idolatrous practices of the people, “they will kill me … Be quiet, my son, so that they do not kill you.” ^[11] In another version of the story told in the Apocalypse of Abraham, perhaps referring to another occasion, Abraham recounts that when he told Terah that his idols were a sham, “he became angry with me, because I had spoken harsh words against his gods.” ^[12]

According to the Qu’ran, Abraham pled with Terah to “not worship Satan … lest a chastisement from the Most Gracious befall thee,” at which Terah angrily retorted, “Dost thou dislike my gods, O Abraham? Indeed, if thou desist not, I shall most certainly cause thee to be stoned to death! Now begone from me for good!” To which Abraham replied, “Peace be upon thee! I shall ask my Sustainer to forgive thee; for, behold, He has always been kind unto me.” ^[13]

The irony of such threats to young Abraham is that he had already proven himself extremely valuable to his society. Jubilees tells that during planting, before the seed could be plowed under, it would be eaten by the ravens, who thus “reduced [the people] to poverty.” Abraham accompanied the planters and continually ran at the ravens before they could land, shouting and ordering them to return whence they came. He persisted tirelessly, and was so successful that “his reputation grew large throughout the entire land of the Chaldeans” as the following harvest produced plenty. The next year, he invented a device to be used during plowing that would insert the seed into the ground and cover it up.

Abraham’s invention was widely used, solving the problem of the birds and bringing fame to the youthful Abraham. ^[14]

Hence it was no small matter when he began, despite the warnings of his father, to publicly oppose idolatry. The courageous lad “protested in public and in private against the errors of the time,” ^[15] raising his voice both loud and long as he insisted that the idols “are not gods that can [offer] deliverance.” ^[16] “He alone, of those everywhere suffering from the error of idols, recognized the true God and preached the Creator of all things.” ^[17]

His listeners countered:

(The words are remarkably similar to those later used by Abraham’s descendant King Benjamin; see Mosiah 4:19, 21.)

Hence “Abraham offered a new vision of man’s purpose and destiny. Not wallowing in pleasure or the arrogance of power, but clinging to God, to find Him and to please Him – these were man’s primary purpose.” ^[20]   But, as Abraham lamented, his listeners “utterly refused to hearken to my voice” (Abr. 1:5).

Object Lesson

An ancient and widespread legend tells of bold action taken by the young Abraham. The story is not found in the Bible, but it is the most oft-repeated Abrahamic narrative in the Qur’an, ^[21] is found in numerous ancient Jewish sources, ^[22] and was repeated by Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff. ^[23]

As recounted by Jewish sources, it began when the young Abraham found himself alone in a room full of idols. But one important source, the Maaseh Avraham Avinu, specifies that this was not just any occasion and not just any room full of idols. The event was a major religious festival called by King Nimrod himself and was centered at Nimrod’s pagan temple. Abraham had been urged to attend by his father but declined to go and was instructed to stay behind to guard the idols. “And the king’s idols were also there,” says the Maaseh.^[24]

When Abraham was all alone, he acted boldly and decisively. Some sources report that “the Spirit of God came upon [him].”^[25] As recounted by the Maaseh Avraham Avinu, “He took an axe in his hand, and as he saw the idols of the king sitting, he said, The Eternal, He is God,'” and he “pushed them off their thrones to the ground, and he smote them mightily. With the large ones he began, and with the small ones he finished. He lopped off this one’s hands, he cut off this one’s head and blinded this one’s eyes, and he broke that one’s legs” until “all of them were broken.” Then, placing “the axe in the hand of the largest idol,” Abraham left.[26]

When his father and the king returned and discovered the wreckage, they were wroth. “The king commanded that Abraham be brought before him. And they brought him. The king and his ministers said to him, Why did you shatter our gods?’ He said to them, I didn’t break them, no. Rather, the large one of them smashed them. Don’t you see that the axe is in his hand? And if you won’t believe it, ask him and he will tell.’ And as [the king] heard his words, he became angry to the point of killing him.[27]

“Abram Found Guilty of Destroying Idols.” Had there been a newspaper at the time, it might have carried this shocking headline, as one chronicle imaginatively reconstructs[28] Abraham’s actions posed a challenge to the whole society steeped in idolatry. “The whole world stood on one side and [Abraham] on the other,” ^[29] said the rabbis. Or in Nibley’s words, “it was Abraham against the whole society,” ^[30] even the King himself.  And “with all the world going in one direction, he steadily pursues his course in the opposite direction.” ^[31]

But if Abraham was against the whole world, if was only because he was truly for the whole world, for “even when they preach repentance and thunder words of warning, the prophets bring nothing but good news … [and] glad tidings of great joy.” ^[32]

In a world that had strayed as far away from Zion as possible, one pure lad was courageously seeking to reestablish it, and setting a pattern for his posterity. “It is the mark of a descendant of Abraham that he is able to swim against the tide, to stand up … for what he believes and, even though he be in the minority, not be corrupted by the pressures of the environment.” ^[33]

Abraham’s action “points to the fact that it is not enough to merely serve as an example of goodness. Sometimes it is necessary to fight actively to eradicate evil.”[34]