Judaism, Christianity and Islam

This research will compare and contrast what it means to have faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The research will set forth the historical and cultural context out of which these three monotheistic faiths emerged and will discuss both converg ences and divergences in the belief systems of each religion.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all arose out of the same geographical region, comprising the eastern Mediterranean area and reaching eastward into Asia Minor. Chronologically the first of the three religions, Judaism appears to have been distinguished chiefly by its monotheistic aspect. The monotheistic innovation may not have begun with Judaism. The Amarna period of Egypt, marked by the pharaoh Akhenaten's (also Ikhnaton and Akhenaton, reign 1353-1336 B.C.) establishment of a version of monotheism as sun worship, has been interpreted as a precursor of Jewish monotheism. One of the most famous theories comes from Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism, which "speculated that Moses was actually an Egyptian who passed single-deity worship derived from Akhenaton to the Jews. (Was there not, he asked, an echo of Aton in Adonai?)" (Van Biema 85).

whatever the source of Jewish monotheism, the big picture is that Judaism was the first religion in history to make monotheism a doctrinal foundation with universalist application and to reinforce the doctrine with governing texts of faith. The evidence of Genesis is of a sometimes problematic but ultimately permanent movement a

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ogues, and tended to isolate themselves from the prevailing Greek society. The Hellenists, led by Stephen and Philip, directed their mission to "Hellenists"--Jews who spoke Greek at home, used that language in the synagogue, and related themselves to Hellenistic culture. The last, the Apostles, under Barnabas and Paul, worked with synagogues in what is now Turkey and Greece, ministering especially to "god fearers"--Greek men and women attracted to Judaism but who were not proselytes (Eberts 305-6). Christian faith doctrines moved gradually toward consensus, chiefly because of Paul, who communicated with many individual Christian communities. Initially an opponent of Christians as Jewish heretics, Paul--Saul that was--became the authoritative voice of first-century Christianity. Campbell characterizes Paul's insistence on passing away from the old Jewish Law on one hand and on doctrinal conformity on the other as typical of "the stamp of his Levantine regard for the monolithic consensus" (379), citing the famous passage of universalist assertion: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The core element of Christian faith is of course

Category: Philosophy - J