Comparing Judaism, Christianity, And Islam

When one thinks of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it’s frequently assumed they’re all exclusively separate entities that operate in different ways. However, it’s important to recognize these religions share many characteristics. Although each has their own source of religious authority, they all utilize a similar relationship between scripture and tradition, where the definitions of these terms are heavily intertwined. This relationship can be described as a hermeneutical circle, where “fluid literary traditions solidify into unchangeable scripture; scripture in turn generates new forms of fluid literary tradition through interpretation” (JCM, 4). Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have formed, preserved, and interpreted

Since Christianity was formed from Judaism, the Bible is divided into two sacred texts: the Old Testament, which is composed of the Tanahk and deuterocanonical books from the Septuagint, and the New Testament, which is composed of twenty-seven books Christians regard as sacred scriptures. Similar to the Tanahk, the New Testament was not written down originally because it began as an oral tradition. This is because the Christian first generation “…saw no pressing need to assemble its own sacred scriptures, especially because [they] expected Christ to return at any moment” (JCM, 22). However, as this generation began to die, Christians realized they needed written scriptures in order to continue their teaching and expansion. In addition to being written down, these new texts needed to be established as being canon, as strong opposition to the legitimacy and significance of the texts appeared. Several stipulations had to be met in order for Christian writings to be considered canon scriptures, which “…involved judging the authenticity, doctrinal soundness, and communal acceptance of text” (JCM, 24). This meant that writings had to be linked to the original community of Jesus, revealed or inspired directly from God, and accepted by the majority of various communities with an emphasis on those communities with authority. While orthodox and catholic Christians defined the New Testament, it was

The Qur’an is composed of 114 suras, or chapters, divided into Meccan suras, which are generally earlier and shorter, and Medinan suras, which are generally later and longer. Similar to Judaism and Christianity, the Qur’an was not originally written down but was passed on via oral tradition. It was revealed to the prophet Muhammad at Mt. Hira by the archangel Gabriel in Arabic and was taught by Muhammad and his follows in Arabic as well, as Arabic was considered the language of the angels. However, Muhammad later realized he needed to establish a written version of the Qur’an, as it would need to be taught by others once he would die. Unfortunately, despite much planning being done by him and his secretary, Zayd ibn Thabit, Muhammad passed before the written Qur’an could be fully assembled. Despite slight variations in the Qu’ran’s contents initially after Muhammad’s death, his “…third caliph Uthman saw to it that a standard written text was completed by appointing a commission under the leadership of Zayd in the 650s” (JCM, 48). While this edition of the Qur’an is the standard, the muqri’un, or Qur’anic textual scholars, made improvements by adding vowels and increasing the accuracy of conveying the scripture. Unlike in Judaism and Christianity, Islam places the responsibility of preserving the Qur’an on the Qur’an itself, as “Muslims have always held the paged volume to be the proper form of