ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS = THE ORIGINS OF JUDAISM; CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM = 2

WE CONTINUE WITH PART TWO

ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS PART 2

Most people know that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all descended from Abraham, the Patriarch of the three Semitic faiths. If these three religious “children” all came from the same “Father” so to speak, why can’t they all just get along? The reason why Judaism, Christianity and Islam seem at odds with each other can be understood as a result of the original purpose for each religion. First off, Judaism was meant only for the Jewish people -- no one else.

God says in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear ye O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” This is exactly what Jesus himself quotes to his followers when they ask him: “What is the highest commandment?” Hardly surprising -- most people know Jesus was Jewish, that he was raised as a Jew and that he observed all the laws and rituals associated with Judaism. Jesus himself says he did not come to destroy the Mosaic Law (Matt. 5:17) and that his mission as stated in Matt. 15:24 was only to “gather the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel” – the Jews, in Judea and elsewhere. Specifically, Jesus came as the Messiah for the Jewish people to reform them of their worldliness and hard-heartedness. Jesus also came to prepare the Jews for their next Prophet, one who would be like Moses and whose type and nature of prophethood (Law-bearing verbal revelation) along with the location of his advent (Mount Paran in Arabia) are mentioned clearly in Deuteronomy 18:18-21 and Deuteronomy 33:2. (Paul, a Rabbinical Jew educated under Gamaliel in the exegesis of the Torah and its numerous prophecies, must certainly have understood these prophecies and their import. This would explain why he went to Arabia for three years after initially converting to Christianity in 35 AD.