The stone god fell on its face. That was the beginning of everything.
Abraham worked in his father's idol shop. Every day he carved gods out of stone and wood and metal for Terah, his father, who sold them to the people of Ur. Gods of gold. Gods of silver. Gods of brass and iron. Abraham shaped them all with his own hands, and every day the absurdity cut a little deeper.
One morning he entered the temple to perform the daily service and found Merumath, the great stone idol, face-down on the floor at the feet of the iron god Nahon. The stone god had toppled. Abraham tried to lift it back into position, but the thing was massive, hewn from a single boulder. He could not move it alone.
So he went and told his father. Terah came, and together they hauled the idol upright. But as they strained to set Merumath back in his place, the god's head snapped clean off while Abraham was still gripping it. It fell and shattered on the temple floor.
Terah did not miss a beat. "Abraham! Bring me a small axe from the house." Abraham obeyed. His father took the axe, carved a new Merumath from a different stone, and stuck the old head onto the new body. Then he smashed what remained of the original idol to pieces.
A god whose head falls off. A god who needs two men to stand him upright. A god who can be replaced with an axe and a spare stone.
Abraham said nothing. But something shifted inside him that day. If a god cannot even hold its own head on its shoulders, what kind of god is that?