Introduction
High school students in Ohio — and maybe elsewhere as well — used to take a course that introduced them to many of the world’s religions. In classes filled with children of many beliefs, teachers would talk about how a particular faith developed and how it spread.
Today, when it seems that the faithful in one religion can’t resist taking potshots at believers in another religion, people may have forgotten how life was in past eras. People of different faiths used to live and work side by side with little concern. At one time, Jews served as advisors and heads of state in Muslim countries. Christians and Jews labored together to build the culture in Catholic Spain. Christians lived in harmony with Muslims in the Middle East.
Less than 1,000 years ago, Catholic Roger II of Sicily relied on Arab scholars and financiers to run his widespread Mediterranean kingdom.
At one time, Jewish and Christian icons were included with the Ka’baa, the holiest religious monument in Islam, located in Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. Even today, Jerusalem is home to the Dome of the Rock, a sacred Islamic mosque, and the Wailing Wall, the last surviving piece of the great Jewish Temple that once existed there.
Visitors to Jerusalem can see religious Jews wrapped in prayer shawls, trudging along ancient streets alongside Muslims and Christians. Overhead, the cry of the Islamic muezzin, calling the faithful to prayer, rings out along with the tolling bells of Christian churches. The flag of Israel flutters in the breeze with the Star of David in its center.
Such situations are too rare. Members of the three religions seem to fight more than they pray together. Over time, the three great religions have become separated by seemingly unbridgeable chasms. Actually, they are very much alike.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share a common heritage. They each tie their history to a single event and a single person, Abraham, who lived maybe 4,000 years ago.
The three religions all worship the same God and shun the pagan concepts of multiple deities. In Judaism, his name is Yahweh. In Islam, the name is Allah, which means God. Christians simply call him God.
They have similar holidays. Easter, for example, the holiest day in the Christian calendar, is tied directly to Passover, one of the most significant holidays in Judaism.
Each religion believes Jerusalem is a sacred city.
There are many more links among the three faiths — they share many likenesses and have fewer differences.
But in spite of the similarities between these primary Western faiths, fissures between them continue today. These disputes can be seen in the Roman Catholic pope’s apologies for comments he made about Islam, as well as Jewish and Arab fighting over Israel, American battles in Iraq, Iranian insistence that the American president is the “devil,” and more acrimonious and violent behavior.
Maybe it’s time to review the histories of these religions and use this understanding as a way to create a peaceful path into the future.
About This Book
This book examines and compares the three great religions that believe in the same God. They are among the oldest and most widespread religions on earth. Jews, Christians, and Muslims can be found on almost every continent and in every country.
Each chapter in Comparative Religion For Dummies will bring you closer to understanding what each faith’s followers believe, how their beliefs compare with their counterparts, and how each religion reached this point in time.
“Dummies” is actually an affectionate term. This is a book for people who don’t know about these three great faiths, but want to find out more. All three of these religions encourage education. They can claim most of the world’s greatest scholars — some who devoted their lives to helping others understand the world. This book continues that honorable process.
All the topics in these pages, of course, have been extensively researched by many people over the centuries. You can find books that devote thousands of pages to tiny aspects of each religion, as well as whole libraries focused on the founders of each faith. This book gives you an overview, with each chapter standing on its own. You can pick and choose what you want to know. Then when you need additional information, you’ll know where to go to find what you’re looking for.
Foolish Assumptions
You don’t have to be a religious scholar to understand or appreciate this book. We don’t assume that you have a background in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. But if you are familiar with or believe in one of these religions, we think you’ll find the comparisons presented in this book to be enlightening. The three religions are more similar than most people realize, and we hope that developing an understanding of the similarities and differences can only improve the current state of affairs in our world.
Conventions Used in This Book
Historians today are moving toward connoting time by using CE (of the common era) and BCE (before the common era.) The old way — BC, meaning “before Christ,” and AD, standing for “the year of our Lord” in Latin — was seen as too religious. With so many scholars from so many different faiths working together, no one wanted to offend anyone else’s beliefs.
We don’t either. However, BC and AD are such a part of our lives and the lives of our readers, we decided to stick to them. We don’t want to offend anyone. We’re just trying to reduce chances of misunderstanding. We are sure our readers will agree.
A note about translations: Nothing is harder than taking an ancient text and trying to convert it into modern English. It’s worse than wrestling pudding. At least, if you do that, everyone agrees that you’re talking about pudding. With the ancient documents, particularly those seen as holy, some people even object to the concept of translating.
In Chapter 9, we try to explain why it’s so hard to translate the Bible and the Koran, the two principal sacred documents of the three faiths. Nevertheless, they are often the only texts that deal with the oldest portions of religious history, and we relied on the best translations we could find. Other writers may translate the words in a different way, but the gist is the same.
Finally, we use the following conventions to help you understand new words and concepts:
We italicize all new words and terms that are defined.
We boldface keywords or the main parts of bulleted lists.
We use monofont for Web addresses.
We’ve put quick little stories or fun trivia facts in shaded boxes called sidebars. The stuff in these sidebars is interesting, but you don’t have to read them to gain an understanding of the topic at hand.
How This Book Is Organized
The book is divided into six parts.
Part I: History Is a Happening Thing
This section introduces the origin of religion and explains the rise of a belief in one God. That’s when the curtain opens on Abraham, a nomadic tribesman who is credited with fathering the three faiths. Little is known about him, but historians have uncovered lots of information about his time and beliefs.
The section also explains how all three religions link their history back to Abraham.
Part II: The Development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
This part explains how three different religions were nurtured on Abraham’s vision. Each developed in a separate environment, endured hardships and setbacks, and then became firmly entrenched in the mind of man.
Chapters 3 and 4 concentrate on Judaism, the oldest of the three religions. The next two chapters, 5 and 6, look at Christianity, which developed directly from Judaism. The third section, Chapters 7 and 8, discuss Islam, which is younger and was born about 600 years after Jesus lived.
You’re introduced to beliefs, customs, traditions, and rituals that characterize each faith. In many cases, you see how one belief influenced another or was the source for some idea.
Part III: Shared Aspects of the Faiths
In this section, you get the scoop on how members of the three religions have developed similar approaches to worship and to expressing their faith. You discover their sacred texts that serve as a bedrock to their beliefs, and you tour their holy cities.
Part IV: Shared Ideas Among the Faiths
This part focuses on similar religious ideas and concepts that help link the three religions. They all look to a messenger from God (called a messiah), foresee the day when the world ceases, provide ways to forgive sin, and propose ideas of what comes after death.
Part V: The Part of Tens
Like all For Dummies books, the last few chapters are top-ten lists. This part lists the main misconceptions about the three religions, our favorite religious films, and the top ways that the religions have influenced the world.
Part VI: Appendixes
We conclude the book with two appendixes. The first provides a timeline so you can see when events happened. The second attempts to trace Abraham’s family tree back to Adam, the first man, and ahead to Jesus and Muhammad.
Icons Used in This Book
Information in the book has been highlighted to help you pinpoint exactly what you need to know.
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Where to Go from Here
You don’t have to read this book from cover to cover. The chapters can stand alone, so check out the Table of Contents and read whatever topic interests you.
Finally, please let us know what you think about this book. It took a long time to write and produce this book, so we’d love to hear your thoughts. You can write us through the publisher at www.dummies.com. You are also welcome to write the authors at wplazarus@aol.com. We’ll try to respond to all legitimate comments.