We may reasonably presume that these Chaldeans, these shepherds, had through many centuries of slow culture acquired the knowledge they possessed, the customs and habits they practiced, the laws they promulgated, and the rules of conduct enacted both for social and political purposes.
And any innovation on the established laws was resisted and punished, pretty much as it is to-day. So when Abraham, or Terah his father before him, started the reformation, it caused a good deal of commotion and alarm. The upholders of the settled state of affairs were shocked. Anger, passion, partisanship, ran their course then, as they do now. These idolators were just as intolerant then as Christians are to-day. It was either submit or leave. Thus Abraham's and Terah's leaving the land of their fathers and settling on a tract of land where they could cultivate their new idea, their new God, was without any special act, without miracle, without supernaturalism, without mystery, perfectly human, perfectly natural.
God, such God as we know of now, like all other things and beings on this terrestrial globe was evolved very, very slowly in the minds of man--crude, ill-shapen, ill-fashioned, grotesque, barbarous, savage, semi-civilized: harmonizing with his existing mental condition and all his surroundings; a product of man's rudeness, of his uncultured nature, his inexperienced special senses, with his nervous system just emerging from an instinctive animal life to a grade or two above its former intelligence--the first step towards real humanity.
God was not always presented to humanity in his present guise. Oh, no; everyone with a moderate degree of intelligence who chooses to examine the records will find that God has undergone vast and important changes--changes in tendencies and character, conforming with the progressive or retrogressive forms of political and social life of the various communities, corresponding with the periods of the time in which they lived.
The idea, in its primary conception, was slowly evolved, without special meaning or signification, dark, mysterious, incomprehensible. We may say, however, that this idea of God was endowed with characteristics best known to men, but of a higher quality than ordinarily then existing; largely reflecting their makers, an embodiment of their own powers and capabilities.