[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Here's a very quick and dirty explanation of the three major Western monotheistic religions...

You're not necessarily wrong, but I thought that your "very quick and dirty explanation" provided a good illustration of what I am getting at.

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Judaism came first. Their holy book, the Torah, consists of the first five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) of what Christians know as the Old Testament of the Bible. They believe in a monotheistic God (referred to as "Yahweh" in Hebrew), and important figures in Jewish mythology are characters you probably recognize from Bible stories like Jacob, Isiah, Moses, etc.

So, you are right that Judaism is the parent "religion" of the three monotheistic faiths, but your presentation of it is precisely what one would expect from a modernised Western perspective of "religion" in the first place. One of the fundamental flaws in your depiction is of Judaism as a textualised cultural entity with virtually no mention of the real heart of Judaism in temple ritual and performance. It is easy to miss because this is effectively a religion that is now extinct, but a careful reading of ALL Jewish literature presupposes the centrality of the Jerusalem temple cult.

Second, the Jewish commitment to "monotheism" is also much more nuanced than simple ascent to the exclusivity of "Yahweh." Judaism emerged from Canaanite cultural ritual with heavy influences from Mesopotamian, Babylonian and Greco-Roman ideas and practises. Even until the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 67 c.e.—which effectively ended formative "Judaism"—it is not entirely clear to what extent Jews considered themselves "monotheistic."

Third, (and this emerges somewhat from my second point), the Jewish idea of a "holy book" and its precise contents were NOT settled. These are later textualised ideas about what formative Jews meant when they made references to their own "scriptures" (which on its own merely means "ancient writings"), and furthermore about what role these even played in the culture. Scripture was undeniably important, but there are many points at which it appears to have had more of a divinatory function than a doctrinal one.

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Christianity came second. Christians are essentially Jews who believe that Jesus Christ (himself a Jew) is the son of God and that he died on the cross for the salvation of mankind. Jesus is considered an important prophet in Judaism, but they do not believe he is the messiah. The Christian holy book, the Bible, includes the five books of the Torah in addition to the New Testament which mostly deals with the life and teachings of Jesus. The God of both the Jewish and Christian faiths is one and the same.

First, it is important to note that from a scholarly perspective what we now consider "Judaism" and "Christianity" are parallel developments from the SAME ancient, formative Judaism I described above, but they are both contemporaries, and quite different from formative Judaism in many respects. I would suggest that Christianity is probably the first "religion" from a modernised Western perspective, in that it is the first to set high importance on cognitive ascent over ritualised performance, and it is also the first to extract belief as a self-identifying feature from other elements of "ethnicity." Modern "rabbinic" Judaism could be considered a response to Christianity. The disappearance of temple ritual as well as the intent to counter emerging Christianity helps to explain why Judaism itself became progressively more conceptual, although it has also striven to retain some semblance of cultural and performative distinction.

Second, Jesus IS NOT considered anyone of any importance from within modern Judaism.

Third, while I would agree that the "god" at the heart of both Christian and Jewish faiths is essentially the same, it is also important to note that Christianity—while formatively Jewish—very quickly became a Roman religion, and in essence, Roman perspective about the gods permeated Christian beliefs, but also affected their own conceptualisations of early rabbinic Judaism. Why is this important? Because a good deal of what we know about rabbinic Judaism is dependent upon Christian source material.

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Islam came third. The prophet Mohammad is the most influential and important figure to Muslims, but the God of Islam (referred to as "Allah" in Arabic) is also the exact same being as the god worshiped by Christians and Jews. The holy book of Islam, the Quran, also includes many of the same characters from the Torah and the Bible such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Solomon, Jesus, etc.

I know hardly anything about Islam, so I cannot really comment, but I will make the following small points. First, "allah" is not a name, it is just the Arabic word that we translate into "god" in English. Second, Islam indeed developed from out of Christianity, but it is equally important to note that it was just as heavily influenced by earlier forms of Arabian mythology. It might be accurate to say that Islam is also a "Westernisation" of ancient tribal "religions" that set a much greater emphasis on concepts over ritual.

So, my point in all of this is—as simply as I can state it—to illustrate how our concepts about "religion" are completely beholden to the modernised Western development of "religion." The reason you can say Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all feature the same god, is because these three religions all emerged together or from one another with a new and different expression of religion as a conceptual enterprise apart from its symbiotic connection to culture and society. What that means is that we invariably evaluate what we perceive to be religion from this very narrow perspective, and I would argue quite inappropriately so.