When God appeared to Abraham could Abraham have mistaken God for another god such as the moon god?

Answer 1

A:This question can be answered at a number of levels.

At the simplest level, The Bible appears to tell us that Abraham knew he was talking to the God of Israel. This is supported by nonbiblical midrashim written in the Common Era, adding considerably to the Abraham legend.

At a more scholarly level, we see that Genesis chapter 18 talks about three men ('elohim) who appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre. The modern interpretation is that the men were angels, but the word 'elohim meant 'gods', although the Bible sometimes uses this plural word in a singular context to mean God. So, Abraham was talking to three gods, one of whom he addressed as "the Lord". At this point, we need to know that the consensus of biblical scholars is that the early Israelites worshipped a number of gods, with monotheism coming around the time of the Babylonian Exile. At one point in history, God (Yahweh) was indeed the moon god!

At an even deeper level, there is considerable evidence that the stories of the Patriarchs evolved from earlier Hebrew myths in which they were themselves incarnations of the moon god. We see the same kind of evolution with the ancient Greek gods, with beliefs evolving so that those who had been human heroes evolved into gods over time, but gods evolving into heroes in other cases.

All the possibilities, especially the last two, are non-exclusive.