[Avodah] Noah and Avraham

[Prof. Levine]

The Rambam writes at the beginning of his discussion of Avodah Zarah  1:2

"After Abraham was weaned, while still an infant, his mind began to 
reflect. By day and by night he was thinking and wondering: "How is 
it possible that this [celestial] sphere should continuously be 
guiding the world and have no one to guide it and cause it to turn 
round; for it cannot be that it turns round of itself." He had no 
teacher, no one to instruct him in aught. He was submerged in Ur of 
the Chaldees, among silly idolaters. His father and mother and the 
entire population worshiped idols, and he worshiped with them. But 
his mind was busily working and reflecting until he had attained the 
way of truth, apprehended the correct line of thought, and knew that 
there is one God, that He guides the celestial sphere and created 
everything, and that among all that exist, there is no god besides 
Him. He realized that men everywhere were in error, and that what had 
occasioned their error was that they worshiped the stars and the 
images, so that the truth perished from their minds. Abraham was 
forty years old when he recognized his Creator."

The Abarbanel  says that Avraham knew Noah. (Their lives overlapped 
for 58 years.) Someone told me that the Doros Rishonim says that 
Avraham fled from Ur and spent many years in the house of Noah. The 
Me'Am Lo'az says that Noah and Shem convinced Terach that Avraham was 
right about Avodah Zarah being meaningless.  He also says that 
according to some Avraham "went to an academy that Noah and Shem had 
established, and spent 39 years there, learning the divine mysteries."

My question is, "How does all of this fit together?" Is the Rambam 
referring to Avraham's youth when he says that he had no teacher? 
Because, according to the Abarbanel and the Me'Am Lo'Az, he 
apparently did have teachers after he met Noah and while he attended 
the "academy."

Yitzchok Levine 
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