Comparing and Contrasting the Beliefs of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Judaism: Beliefs and Practices

 You Are To Write a Formal Essay Using The Seven Rubrics Developed By Young (The World’s Religions) For Comparing/Contrasting Religions.

There are variety of religions in the world with different beliefs and views. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are some of the major religions of the world and all these three religious sects with differing beliefs in God and they have different ideas about their religious aspects and values. The present essay is based on the seven questions raised by the William P. Young in his book ‘The World’s Religions.’ The author described his opinion about the Islam and provided a detailed information and comparison about the world’s famous religions. 

Christianity believes in one eternal God who is creator of all wonderful things, which are around us. The Islamic religion believes in Allah who is the infinity superior and transcendent from humankind. However, Judaism believes that there is only one God and that God is called Yahweh. Like these different thoughts about god, these three different religions have different views and ideas about the world and people. The present essay compares and contrasts among these three religions and their ideas about the God and spiritual beliefs based on the book of William P. Young (Young, 1995).  

Judaism is one of the modern religions and it is based on the relationship of Jewish people with their God. William Young in his book described that people of Judaism religions believe that they are supported, blessed, and challenged by the God (Young, 1995). Loving people is the greatest people of Jews social life and the founding inspiration of this Judaism community. In current time Israel is the major country that supports Judaism community and accept that all the Jewish people in the world are citizens of Israel (Rubens, 2019). The Judaism people also believe that there is a single God who created the universe and every Jewish people have a personal relationship with the God (Young, 1995). They believe that God have covenant relationship with people and for this relationship, God has done many good works and continue to think well about the Jewish people (Young, 1995). The Jewish community believe the God is almighty and present everywhere in the world and God affect everything that people do in their life (Stroumsa, 2014). Apart from this, the Judaism community believe that God appointed Jews to show the ethical and spiritual way of life to the Jewish people by showing an ethical and holiness behaviour to the world. Judaism is generally means living the faith and it is also considerable that almost everything that a Jewish people do is an act of worship (Young, 1995). Young described in his book that people of Judaism believe that Jew is someone who is the the son of Jewish mother. However, the Judaism have a very wide range of ideas and religious belief about the God and they think that God does not have a body, which means God have neither a male or female. As Judaism religion, Christianity and Muslim religion believe in single God concept and they think that God have supernatural powers. It is also possible in Judaism that if a person is not born in a Jewish community, than he or she can be converted in Judaism. The Judaism religion believes that God is beyond of everyone and is transcendent. The Judaism people also believe in “The Hebrew Tanakh’ which is holy script and is similar to Christians Old testament Hebrew: ‘Law. Judaism religion people follow their holy script and believe that an ordinary Jew, not the Messiah nor a divine person (Young, 1995). The other religion like Hinduism and Jainism believe that there God have supernatural powers and they can do anything (Hunt, Walter & Hamilton, 2016).

Christianity: Beliefs and Practices

As Judaism people believe in collective and participative relationship with eternal God through their traditions, thoughts, rituals, and ethical activities and assume the God is one, the Christian people believe in Triune God. Christians believes in God in human form that is rejected by the Judaism religion because they believe in single God concept. However, William Young described in his book about the eternal God of all these three religions and said that the one thing is common in all the three religions that all have belief in single God (Young, 1995). The founder of Christianity religion has been assumed to be Jesus Christ while Judaism belief that Abraham was their religion founder. Christianity name was taken from the Greek word ‘Christos’, which means Jesus Christ (Zellentin, 2019). The Christian religion has three main groups Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic. Young also mentioned in his book that unlike the Judaism and Islam who reject the concept of original sin, the Christian religion belief that Jesus Christ atoned our sins after his death on the cross. However, the Christianity also believes in the concept of hell or heaven that is a place where people will be punished after their death for their sins and unethical acts (Young, 1995). However, the Judaism believes in the Gehinnom or Gehenna where people will be punished for their sins and people may suffer for temporary punishments or eternal punishments for their certain sins (Ray, Berman, Johnson, & Van-Buren III, 2014). There are large numbers of people in the world who believe in Christianity and belong to the Christian religion. Although, the number of Muslim people in the world are maximum but they believe in different concept of life and God because of their different groups such as Shia and Sunni group of Muslim people (Young, 1995). Although the Christian people have a deep and unconditional faith in the Jesus Christ, Islam religion believes in Allah. However, there are more than 2200 million people belongs to Christian community and 1500 million people follow the Islamic religion all over the world. In comparison to these two religions, only 14 million people follow the Judaism religion in the world (Higgs, 2019).  

The one of the oldest religions ‘Islam’ is almost 570-632 AD old and the name of this religion was derived from Arabic world ‘Salaam’ that means ‘peace’. The founder of this religion was ‘Mohammed’. The Shia and Sunni are two groups of Islamic religion who are fighting with each other for legitimate successor of Prophet Mohammed. Apart from this, a spiritual austere movement in Islam is called Sufi. Islam is known for its rigorous faith in Allah and their aggressive beliefs and ideas about their God (Stott, 2017). They strictly follow their traditions and obey their Quran, which is the holy book of Islam (Idel & McGinn, 2016). The belief of Islam about the God is almost similar to the other two religion Christians and Judaism, because the Muslim people think that God is almighty, powerful, and merciful. The Muslim people think that their Allah has guided humankind through prophets. The people in Islam believe that Allah is the only one and no one even equal to their Allah (Young, 1995). Unlike to Christians and Judaism thought about God, Muslim people believe that there is no intermediary between their Allah and his creation. Islamic people also believe in hell and heaven, which is based on the acts of people and also based on the spiritual and corporeal. The people in Islam believe in judgement day when people will be rewarded or punished based on their sins or ethical acts. The people in Islam also believe in Hajj, which is the pilgrimage in Mecca and prescribed by Quran to every Muslim people to visit once in their lifetime (Parsons, 2017).  

In conclusion, it can be said that these three religions believes in one God concept unlike to the Hindu religion that have many more God and Goddess. Large number of Christians and Judaism are almost believe in same thought and ideas about their religion and have single root of believe in Bible. However, Islam believes in Quran. All the three religion have a prayer house where they pray from God, Allah, and Jesus Christ. However, the Muslim people celebrate lot of festivals days in comparison to the Christians and Judaism people. The Christianity believes in a trinity of God the Father, while Muslim believes in Allah. In other words, it can be said these three religions have different way of opinion and ideas but all these though have somewhere same meaning and intention to stop people to commit crime.

References

Higgs, E. T. (2019). Liberal Christianity and Women’s Global Activism: The YWCA of the USA and the Maryknoll Sisters, by Amanda L. Izzo. Religion and Gender, 9(1), 125-127.

Hunt, S. J., Walter, T., & Hamilton, M. (2016). Charismatic Christianity: Sociological Perspectives. Berlin, Germany: Springer.

Idel, M., & McGinn, B. (2016). Mystical union in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: An ecumenical dialogue. UK: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Parsons, T. (2017). Christianity and modern industrial society. Sociological theory, values, and sociocultural change, 18(5), pp. 33-70.

Ray, D. E., Berman, S. L., Johnson, C. M. E., & Van-Buren III, H. J. (2014). Refining normative stakeholder theory: insights from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 11(4), 331-356.

Rubens, H. M. (2019). Christianity and Judaism. Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America, 74, 138-139.

Stott, J. (2017). Basic Christianity. Retrieved from: http://onthewing.org/user/Stott%20-%20Basic%20Christianity%20-%20Study%20Guide.pdf

Stroumsa, G. G. (2014). 3 Jewish Christianity and Islamic Origins. In Islamic Cultures, Islamic Contexts, 14(8), 72-96.

Young, W. A. (1995). The world's religions: worldviews and contemporary issues. 4^th ed. USA: Prentice Hall.

Zellentin, H. M. (2019). The Qur'an's Reformation of Judaism and Christianity: Return to the Origins. London, UK: Routledge.