Judaism, Christianity, and Islam make up what are called the Abrahamic religions. For the last couple of thousand years, there has often been clashing among the Abrahamic religions. As a result, many people think that they are very distinct, but there are actually many disseminated principles between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These shared beliefs, customs, and traditions include the importance of prayer, celebrations, charity and cleanliness, and pilgrimage. Most importantly, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are called the Abrahamic religions because of their origins.
All Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe that God made a covenant, or treaty, with Abraham. This covenant made sure that believers would keep faith in God and worship Him and that this exercise of worship would continue for generations. In return, God would protect the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of Abraham. This covenant became the heredity and confidence of the children of Abraham to continue.
However, it is very important we throw some light into Judaism as the oldest of the three Abrahamic Religions.
Hence, Judaism is a religion that believes in one God and his prophets, with outstanding respect for Moses as the prophet to whom God gave the law. Jewish law is epitomized in the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch) and the Talmud (collected commentary on the Torah completed in the fifth-century C.E.).
Judaism is more apprehensive with actions than dogma. In other words, the ceremony of rules regulating human behaviour has been of more suspicion than debates over beliefs in the Jewish tradition. According to Orthodox Judaism, Jewish law, or halakhah, includes 613 commandments given by God in the Torah, as well as rules and practices embroidered by scholars and custom.
Jewish law covers matters such as prayer and ritual, diet, rules regulating personal dignity (marriage, divorce, birth, death, inheritance, etc.), and observance of holidays (like Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; and Passover, the feast celebrating the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt).
It is very unbelievable to know that Judaism's views of Christianity and Islam are very intolerable when it has to do with acceptance. Jews do not believe in the prophets after the Jewish prophets, including Jesus and Muhammad.
Therefore, they do not consent to the idea that Jesus was the Messiah and the son of God, nor do they believe in the teachings of Islam which makes it more interesting.
Basic background information about Christianity:
Christianity developed out of the monotheistic tradition of Judaism; Jesus, its founder, was a member of the Jewish community in Roman Palestine. Its holy scriptures are the Old Testament (the Jewish Torah with additions), and the New Testament written by the followers of Jesus after his death and containing the life story of Jesus and other early Christian writings.
As an offshoot of Judaism in the first century C.E. Until the emperor, Constantine converted to Christianity in 324 C.E., early Christian churches were often persecuted. It was then that the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire, and its capital relocated from Rome to Constantinople (formerly Byzantium and now Istanbul).
Christian missionaries proselytize all over the world, and there are large populations of Christians on every continent on Earth, although the forms of Christianity practised varies. It will interest you to know that nowadays after the post-crusades era, Christianity is one of the most tolerable and non-violent Religion to identify with among the Abrahamic Religion. They don't return evil for evil rather, return good for evil done to you. It is a Religion of love for God and humanity.
Christians believe that God is revealed through three dimensions: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is deemed the son of God, born to the Virgin Mary and come to Earth to offer redemption for mankind's sins. After Jesus was crucified and executed by the Romans, he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. This incident is celebrated at Easter, while the birth of Jesus is celebrated at Christmas.
Christians believe in an afterlife where those who have lived a good life will dwell in heaven with God, and those who have lived a remorseless life of sin will be punished in hell.
Christianity's views of Judaism and Islam is quite tolerable though it does not recognise nor accept Islam.
Although Christianity formulated out of Judaic texts, Christians do not follow Jewish law. Rather, they believe that the ritualistic Jewish law was abolished in favour of a universal gospel for all of humanity and the Christian teaching, "Love thy neighbour as thyself."
Relationships between Jewish and Christian communities have often been difficult, particularly in Christian Europe. There, Jewish communities were often subject to bigotry and violence at the hands of some Christians who don't exactly keep to the teachings of Christ as he said, "prefer ye one to another" and "live peaceful with all men."
Christianity has also had a complicated relationship with Islam. Christians do not accept Muhammad as a prophet. While many Christians in the Middle East converted to Islam during and after the seventh century, the Church hierarchy in Rome and Constantinople considered Islam to be both a political and theological threat. The Crusades were an ineffective attempt to invalidate the Islamic conquest of the eastern Mediterranean and the holy places of all three monotheistic religions. Though, that was not the teaching of Christ which centres more on selflessness but was borne out of selfish ambitions of men.
The Abrahamic Religion is incomplete without Islam. Islam arose in the early seventh century C.E. in the settled desert community of Mecca (in present-day Saudi Arabia). It developed from both the Judeo-Christian tradition and the cultural significances of the nomadic Bedouin tribes of Arabia. It broadened into areas controlled by the Byzantine Empire (largely Greek-speaking and Orthodox Christian, but with a various population) and the Sassanian Empire (officially Zoroastrian and Persian-speaking, but also diverse).
By the mid-eighth century, Islam had spread west into North Africa and Europe, and east into Central Asia. Over the centuries, Islam proceeded to grow in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. As Islam improved, the new Islamic societies modified and synthesized many of the customs they encountered. As a result, Muslims in different areas of the world established for themselves a wide collection of cultural traditions. Muslims believe in a Day of Judgment when righteous souls will go to heaven and wrongdoers will go to hell just as Christianity authenticated.
Islam's views of Judaism and Christianity seem to acknowledge the other Abrahamic Religions to be the same but believes they are the complete Religion among the three. Hence, Islam sees Judaism and Christianity as earlier editions of Islam, revelations given within the same tradition by Allah but misguided over time by their followers. Muslims see Islam as the final, complete, and correct revelation in the monotheistic tradition of the three faiths.
The Islamic tradition recognizes many of the Jewish and Christian prophets, including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus (although he is not considered to be the son of God). Many non-Muslims mistakenly believe that Muhammad is the equivalent of Jesus in the Islamic tradition; in fact, it is the Qu'ran that stands in the same central position in Islam as Jesus does in Christianity, not Muhammad. Muhammad himself is not divine as Jesus, but a prophet chosen by God to deliver his message and an example of piety to emulate.
Jews and Christians are precisely protected in the Qu'ran as Peoples of the Book, reinforcing their spiritual relationship to Islam by virtue of having been given revelations from God. The Islamic legal tradition has upheld the rights of Jews and Christians to retain their beliefs and practices within their communities in Islamic lands, and this policy of tolerance has generally been defended.
Belief in the need to worship God is common among these three religions. The most basic structure of worship is prayer. Each tradition stipulates distinct words and regulations for prayer, which takes place at ordained times of the day. Public prayer in houses of worship is common to all three faiths: for Jews on Saturday, for Christians on Sunday, and for Muslims on Friday, and during celebrations throughout the year.
Fasting — going without food or certain kinds of foods — for a duration of time is a civil form of worship in the Abrahamic religions. Fasts are often associated with holy days in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Each of the Abrahamic religions has days of fasting, in which people deny themselves the basic necessities of life for a time of recollection and feast days of thankfulness.
Yet, I am saddled with some questions that demand intelligent answers. Hence, if truly these three religions come from one source and are most related than any other religion, why all these frictions and war for supremacy over one another? Why can't they join forces together and make the world a better place instead of tearing one another and jeopardizing peace and harmony in some part of the world? The war among them is it the way God made it or, is it orchestrated by dubious men to perpetuate their selfish evil legacy among the people of God by altering God's revelation as was handed down to these great prophets and divine being in likes of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad? We can live as one in peace, love and harmony if only we can adjust our selfish dogma and pursue the original purpose God of Abraham designed for us his children.
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