Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Jesus’s role in Judaism, Christianity and Islam


My name is Francesca Di Leo and today I will be writing about the two chapters that intrigued me the most in the book chapter 5 and 6; which talk about the three main religions around the World.  These are Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and specifically I’ll be talking about the role Jesus had in each one of these religions.  Judaism which is the root of Christianity and Islam, Jewish believe only in the Old Testament.  Their primary book the Torah or “The Law” comprises of five books: the Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy; the other two books are “The Prophets” and “Writings”.  Judaism does not accept the New Testament because they do not accept Jesus as the Messiah or as a divine force.  To the Jewish community, Jesus was just a common person spreading his own thoughts about God, but they did not believe he was the actual son of God.  In Judaism God is a non visible force that cannot be touched but just felt, so a human could not be the Messiah. 
In Christianity Jesus played an imperative role that changed history and sped up the spread of Christianity.  Christians believe in both the Old and the New Testament, which means they accept Jesus as a divine force and as the Messiah.  They believe that he was born from a divine birth between Mary and God, and that his miracles were real and the proof of his Holiness.  The main point or event that did split the people’s opinion about Christianity was Jesus’ Resurrection, which divided non believers which kept following Judaism, and the believers that converted from Judaism to Christianity.
Finally Islam which is the final religion and revelation of God, does believe Jesus existed ( in Arabic “Isa”).  Their main book called the Qur’an says Muslims considered Jesus one of the most influential prophets in spreading God’s words and also believed in his miracles which were granted by God, not by Jesus himself.  Still just as the Jewish, Muslim do not believe Jesus was divine, because to them God or (Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful) was an invisible force and the last prophet to them was Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him) which is the man that started spreading Islam. 
I hope this blog helped people see how no matter how different these three religions are, and in the end they all originated from the same root and do incorporate some the same figures or idealisms.


3 comments:

  1. It would be wonderful if all of the major religions of the world would fully recognize that their roots are the same, and learn to, as you said, “Coexist,” instead of constantly shedding blood in God’s name as has been the case for thousands of years. I, myself would love to have an opportunity to see the holy land some day but I cannot foresee ever going there due to the level of constant turmoil that exists. In a way it’s almost a shame that all of this “real estate” that is so important to all of the major religions is in the same place. Perhaps if it were even just a little more spread out than it is right now, we would not have so much fighting going on in the world.

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  2. The post was short and sweet i must say. The one thing i never understood about the different cultures beliefs towards Jesus was that either way Jesus plays an important role in each of the religions and their beliefs. As a christian we do believe in the old an new testament because the old tells us how it begins and the new testament shows the end. Jesus was a great influence on all religions and this was a great topic choice for this chapter.

    TEAM 4

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  3. My opinion on this Blog is that I agree to a certain extent. I agree because it is true that all three religions have a different opinion about who Jesus is and why he would or would not be the Messiah. The Jewish people believed in "The Law", which was the first five books of the bible in the Old Testament, which are "Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy..." Islam believed that Jesus was a prophet who was spreading God's word and said that Muhammad was the last prophet. However, Jesus was God, and Islamic and Jewish people looked at God as a non-visible force that cannot be touched, only felt. On the other hand, Jesus is the only one that rose from the dead by himself and taken up into heaven on a cloud and was seen by many.

    JMB

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