G. Richard Jansen
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
Published August 01, 2006
There are three monotheistic faiths in the world that claim descent from the Jewish Patriarch Abraham. All of Judaism derives from Abraham (Abram) whose genealogy is described in Genesis 11: 27-31
This is the account of Terah.
Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.
In Genesis 12: 1-3 The Lord made a covenant with Abram:
The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
Christianity fully embraced the covenant made with Abraham in the Jewish Bible and added a new covenant in Jesus Christ, who is believed by Christians to be divine.
As will be further discussed in this paper Muhammed claimed to be the latest and
indeed the last, prophet of the covenant God made with Abraham and, in addition,
claimed that Abraham, Ibrahim in the Koran, was Muslim as indeed were all the
Jewish patriarchs and Jesus as well. Muhammed gave the name Allah to God and
claimed that Allah was the Muslim God before he was the Jewish and Christian God
because, in Islamic belief, the Koran existed since the beginning of the world,
i.e. predated the Bible. It is reasonable to conclude that all three of these
monotheistic faiths claim to worship the same creator God with the important
distinction that Christianity believes that the divine Jesus Christ is part of a
Triune God in the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Islam rejects totally
the Trinity and considers that those who believe three in one
, i.e.
Christians, are unbelievers. Muhammed did, consciously, appropriate the God of
the Jews as his God and as the God of Islam but he gave the name of Allah to
this God. Allah had been the name of a pagan god in the Kaaba in pre-Islamic
Mecca.
The Old Testament was written, perhaps in part, as early as 1400 B.C, but certainly completely by 400 B.C. The first five books known as the Books of Moses are the Jewish Torah and describe the Creation of the world and pre-history of the Jews. Later books describe historical events from the time of Saul, David and Solomon, approximately 1000 B.C., through the Assyrian conquest, the Babylonian captivity, until the returnof the Jews to Jerusalem from Babylon under the Persian ruler Cyrus in 538 B.C.
The New Testament was written from 50 A.D. until the late 90's A.D. It describes the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus, and the ministries and writings of his Apostles.
The Koran is considered by Muslims to be the word of God, Allah, as revealed to his prophet Muhammed. It is believed by Muslims to provide revelation from God that is complete, unalterable and final, and is not subject to change or amendment. The intermediary in these revelations to Muhammed was the Angel Gabriel. It is clear that Muhammed's understanding of these revelations was influenced by his knowledge of the Jewish scriptures, the Christian Old Testament as well as the teachings of Jesus. It was his view that the Jews from the time of Jacob, renamed Israel in the Bible, had gone astray and that his revelations expressed the true word of God in the lineage from Abraham to his son Ishmael via Hagar.
Many Bible stories and Biblical history are repeated in the Koran. The Jewish Torah, the first five books in the Bible, is considered to be a definitive law in the Islamic faith. The Koran includes from the Bible the creation story, Adam and Eve's fall, Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon and many other Biblical stories and events. Of the twenty-seven prophets mentioned in the Koran exclusive of Muhammed, twenty-two are from the Old Testament including Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses. Three are from the New Testament; John the Baptist, his father Zechariah and Jesus. In addition to stories, events and individuals many concepts were taken from Jewish sources and incorporated into the Koran. These include Hell, Satan, redemption, resurrection, a time of judgment and paradise.
The Koran consists of 114 suras, or chapters. Some of these revelations were made to Muhammed in Mecca before the hegira or flight to Medina. These are the Meccan suras. The Medinan suras, approximately two thirds of all suras, are longer than the Meccan suras and exhibit less apparent religious enthusiasm. There is more tolerance for other faiths and even for pagan Arabs in the Meccan suras than suras from the Medinan period after Muhammed had consolidated political and military power, and religious authority. The suras were recorded by scribes, called ameneunses, since it is believed by some scholars, but not all, that Muhammed could neither read nor write. Some were Christians, some were several of his wives and other Muslims who could read and write.
At the time of Muhammed's death in 632 the Koran had not yet been compiled. The first written text of the Koran was , in the main, compiled under the direction of the Caliph Uthman in 655, twenty three years after Muhammed's death. It is not known who arranged the order and named the suras in their present form.
Comming Soon...
Bible translations are from the New International Version taken from http://www.biblegateway.com/
Koran translations are taken from the Koran at the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia http://etext.virginia.edu/koran.html