Introduction
The term “Abrahamic Religions” refers to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, which derive their spiritual source from common ancestry. According to Lovat and Crotty (2015), the cultural, geographical, ethnic, and historical backgrounds of these belief systems emanates from the Near East. The three are monotheistic and rely on some discrete sacred texts claimed to be the word of God. Additionally, they all have established mediators such as prophets who help connect the congregants to the deity (Lovat & Crotty, 2015). Lastly, their teachings predict an eschatological end to the current world. However, there are many contentious issues between these faiths, on textual interpretation, the role of Jesus/Issa, founder, holy scripture, and God’s nature. The objective of this paper is to differentiate between the three religions.
Islam
The Muslims believe that Abraham was a friend of God and one of the significant prophets in the early years. Lovat and Crotty (2015) state he was willing to sacrifice his first son Ishmael. The etymological origin for this organization is Salaam, which means peace (Vitkovic, 2018). The other point of contention is that Islam believes Mohammed to be the last and greatest prophet, unlike the other two. According to Vitkovic (2018), this semantic group upholds Qu’ran (written in Arabic) as the sacred book and derives all the sharia (law from it). The Muslims regard the Christians and the Judaists as the people of the book.
Judaism
Among the Judaists, Abraham is considered their ancestral father, who was willing to sacrifice his legitimate son Isaac. They derive their name from Hebraic Yehudim, meaning Judah (Vitkovic, 2018). The prominent prophet was Moses, who was called by God to take the Israelites out of their bondage in Egypt. For the Judaists, the Torah is considered the sacred book which offers the law of Halakaha (Vitkovic, 2018). The perception of the other Abrahamic beliefs is that they expanded Judaism in error.
Christianity
For this religion, Abraham is their father in faith whose intention to sacrifice Isaac and God’s offering a sheep as an alternative was a foreshadow of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Etymologically, Christo is derived from Greek and connate anointed (Vitkovic, 2018). The religious book used is the Bible, which provides cannon regulations. Jesus Christ is the primary mediator and one in the trinity of God (Lovat & Crotty, 2015). They deny the prophethood of Mohammed and perceive the Judaist as having an incomplete revelation.
References
Lovat, T., & Crotty, R. B. (2015). Reconciling Islam, Christianity and Judaism: Islam’s special role in restoring convivencia. Springer
Vitkovic, S. (2018). The similarities and differences between Abrahamic religions. International E-Journal of Advances in Social Sciences, 4(11), 455 – 462.