Abrahamic religion

From RationalWiki
Jump to: navigation, search
One of many articles on

Religion

link=:category:
The main players
Critics
Supporting actors

The Abrahamic religions are religions originating from the traditions of Iron Age proto-Judaism; the major ones are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, though there are others that are either offshoots of the main three (such as Baha'iism, Unitarianism and the Rastafari movement) or early branches that are not directly related to the modern forms of any of the main three (such as the faith of the Samaritans). Judaism and Islam are unambiguously monotheistic though Christianity is sometimes seen as polytheistic due to the three persons in the Trinity. All Abrahamic religion share in common the worship of a single God, variously named El (ancient Semitic name), YHWH/Yahweh (Jewish tradition, sometimes used in Christianity), Jehovah (taboo deformation derived from early Christianity and rabbinical Judaism), Allah (Muslim, from the Arabic form of El), and numerous others. The term "Abrahamic" derives from the status of the Biblical patriarch Abraham as the purported founder of all such related faiths. In modern times, Christianity and Islam are two of the largest and the two most widespread of the five major faiths of the world (the others being Hinduism, Buddhism and "Chinese Traditional"). [1]

The most fundamental document in the Abrahamic faiths is the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Judaism adds the Tanakh (Old Testament); Christianity adds the New Testament (and, depending on the branch, some of the Apocrypha); Islam replaces the entire thing with the Qur'an, which has some connection to the Old and New Testament. Of course if you are a Muslim, then the Christian Bible is based on the Qur'an.

The fundamental prophets of these three branches are, in chronological order, Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed

Some Christians, while denying that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormonism) is Christian, will nevertheless refer to them as the fourth Abrahamic religion.

[edit] Taxonomy of the Abrahamic faiths

The following list is intended to be cladistic in nature, showing the relationship between religious denominations in terms of which tradition spawned which. Significant breaks (i.e. the point where a modified belief is said to be a new religion) are marked with boldface entries.By necessity, this list is highly simplified; see Talk:Abrahamic religion for further details.

  • Proto-Hebrew religion (prehistorical to 1200s BCE) (may have been polytheistic, with YHWH and Asherah as heads of the pantheon; identified from disappearance of pig bones in some Canaanite trash heaps)
  • Ancient Israelite religion (1200s - 900s BCE)
  • First and Second Temple Judaism (950 BCE - the destruction of the Temple in 78 CE.)

[edit] Footnotes

  1. http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html - although "Nonreligious" comes in third, it is not an organized religion in any sense.
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Toolbox
support