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Starting with your main question of what distinguishes Judaism and Islam: Judaism holds the Torah as part of its Biblical canon, also accepting the books of the Prophets and Writings (that’s the b...
Answer
#1: Initial revision
by
DonielF
·
2021-06-23T17:10:52Z (over 3 years ago)
Starting with your main question of what distinguishes Judaism and Islam: Judaism holds the Torah as part of its Biblical canon, also accepting the books of the Prophets and Writings (that’s the books of Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve prophets which Christians often call the “minor prophets”; and Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Esther, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and I and II Chronicles). About 1300 years after the Sinaiatic Revelation, and about 350 years (per traditional Jewish dating) after the events of the chronologically later books of the Jewish Bible — Ezra-Nehemiah and some of the “minor prophets” — came Christianity (according to their dating). Another 600 or so years later came Mohammad. My understanding is that the Christians added on several books to the Bible (the so-called “New Testament” and “Apocrypha”), and that Muslims accept Jesus as a prophet. So I could ask you the same question: What differentiates Christianity from Judaism, since they share holy books, and what differentiates Islam from Christianity, for the same reason? The answer is that each group has an additional amount added on to the prior ones. Christians (in my understanding) believe that God “changed His mind,” however that works, and swore a new covenant with mankind through Jesus. Muslims (in my understanding) believe that the original Sinaiatic covenant was actually over the tenets of the Quran, that humanity had corrupted it over time, and that God (who they call Allah) revealed Himself to Mohammad to set the record straight. Why each religion rejects the claims of the others is beyond the scope of this thread. All three religions have their common ground — all believe in the Abrahamic God, for one — a fact that served in all of our favor for many centuries of peace in the right countries, but we also have major differences. Think of it like a three-way Venn Diagram: the Torah is in that little area of overlap between all three circles, but to focus on that trianguloid is to disregard the remainder of the graph.