Talk:Abrahamic religions

Sexuality in Abrahamic Religion

This section needs reworking. Let's remove the terms "negative" and "positive" and let readers make their own value judgments.

"It may be that a distinguishing characteristic of the Abrahamic religions is their generally negative stance on homosexuality, zoophilia and, in some cases, human sexuality in general, notably outside of marriage and in non-procreative contexts."

"A distinguishing characteristic of the Abrahamic religions is their general respect and reverence for human sexuality, enshrining it in the institution of marriage, and disavowing sexual acts outside of this context, such as homosexuality, zoophilia, and pedophilia."

Two ways of saying the same thing. Again,

"sexuality was considered in a more positive light (positive in the sense that it was not recommended by their Non-Abrahamic religions to legislate death punishments for the practices of homosexuality or prostitution.)"

"sexuality was treated in a less reverential light (see Herodotus where marriageable girls in Babylon were offered for a duration as temple prostitutes before entering into marriage)."

The fact that the parenthetical explanation of "positive" was as long as the original sentence argues that this can be worded much better.

"It seems to be a mark among some versions of the rise of Abrahamic traditions that all sexuality was eliminated from the concept of the divine. Notable exceptions include Judaism (i.e. Song of Songs, Kabbalah, Hassidism), Sikhism and within Islam."

sounds like original research. if you cannot source that, let's remove it.

"By the time of the triumph of Christianity, in the late 4th century CE this was generally true throughout the realms of the declining Roman Empire. For example, within territories where Christianity and Judaism held political power the presence of femininity in local deities as well as the Godhead was eliminated. Contrastingly, the Non-Abrahamic religions accepted female high-priestesses. They also believed in the existence of many powerful female divinities like Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, and Isis, who was worshipped as the archetypal wife and mother."

Christians and Jews didn't endorse worship of the Moon in the persona of Diana and this means they eliminated sexuality from the concept of the divine? wp:nor. second, eliminating worship of another religion does not equate to eliminating doctrine within one's own religion proper. why not mention something about Theotokos, Mary mother of Jesus as Mother of God? i suspect there might be a Theotokos page, and could prolly copy/paste the intro to here.

"In general Abrahamic Religions negate the possibility of sexual openness with respect to the divine nature."

sexual openness? For Abrahamic religions, what you mean by sexual openness may very well be sexual perversion. first of all, source? no source, let's delete.

Homosexuality
"Many of the sacred texts of the Abrahamic Religions refer to homosexual behavior as an abomination, deriving from the Holiness Code of the book of Leviticus and an interpretation of the legend of Sodom and Gomorrah. By the first century, the writings of Philo Judaeus and Flavius Josephus evolved it into a fully developed form. Thus the condemnation of homosexuality in all Abrahamic religions has a single Old Testament source in addition to any separate reference in other holy books. While the Abrahamic religions unequivocally condemn male homosexuality, lesbianism is nowhere explicitly mentioned in the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the Qur'an; though some scholars have argued the passage in Romans 1:26, "Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural," is a reference to it."

finally, incorporation of this link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_homosexuality The Jackal God 04:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

This whole section is totally unsourced and highly dubious. Abrahamic views on sexuality aren't particulary distinguishing. Just ask the Dalia Lama's views on premarital sex and homosexuality. The severity of the punishments may be distinguishing, but Abrahamic punishments are severe in general. This whole section needs immediate sourced to avoid being chopped as WP:OR. Ashmoo (talk) 08:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ottoman Empire

I think the forced conversions (and attempted force conversions) of the Ottoman Empire need to be mentioned in this article if the Crusades are to be mentioned and this article is to remain balanced.--Girl-razor 22:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow people are narrow minded

"This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Abrahamic religion article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject."

This whole section should be deleted--Editor2020 (talk) 19:54, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Its so ironic and sad that Islam, Christianity, and Judaism have warred and caused so much suffering over the years, while failing to realize that they all worship the same god. Its like three siblings killing each other over whose parent is real. Warfwar3 00:27, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Post it on a forum idiot.^--71.107.217.121 03:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

They do not worship the same God. Allah is much different from Yahweh. Yahweh, in both Judaism and Christianity, tries to have a personal relationship with his people. Allah does Not. He is unknowable. Even in Paradise thjere is a viel over his face. He does not forgive like Yahweh. And, unlike Yahweh, he encourages womanizing.

72.147.172.205 20:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC) 20 June, 2007

Wow! Another narrow-minded person who just doesn't seem to get it. Jews, Christians and Muslims DO BELIEVE IN/WORSHIP THE SAME BIBLICAL DEITY! Go ask an Arab Christian, hmmm, they use the word Allah! Why? Because it's Arabic and they speak Arabic! But what I'd really like to ad is to the comments regarding these three religions as being like siblings... that's exactly what is going on in a way. One has to realize that these religions' myths are all about sibling rivalries and it's only appropriate for humans to do what their religions condone or at least seem to condone. Carlon 16:28, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a blog. Argue about this elsewhere. For a bit more info on the subject, see Abrahamic religion. -- Boracay Bill 22:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe his point is a distinction between the Jewish/Christian and Islamic concept of the 'one true God.' It is obvious that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all share a common Abrahamic heritage. The point is simply that the Islamic view differs from the Jewish/Christian one. This has applicability to the article because it relates to the differences between the three Abrahamic religions. Frstep1 (talk) 02:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I seem some symbolic undertone in the siblings comment (dunno if it was intended or not), since the Israelites were descended from Isaac/Ishaq and the Arabs descended from Ishmael/Ismail; thus both founding fathers were siblings, sons of Abraham. Moses/Musa, Jesus/Isa (and countless other prophets descending from Issac/Ishaq) were Israelites while Muhammad was an Arab. While I'm sure the prophets wouldn't fight each other, their followers are and are distancing themselves from each other eventhough their origins are so closely linked. And instead of the religions fighting for their their collective forefather of Abraham/Ibrahim; they're fighting for their own respective views of God who is just as much the same for all of them; the biggest difference could be summed up as the name as they use for God, metaphorically speaking the differences are as small as a name-- only regional, cultural or historical. Infact Allah just means "The God", to emphasis the importance Islam puts to monotheism, a name was used that couldn't be pluralised (ie Gods) or made into a prefix, suffix or in someother way form part of another word (ie Goddess, Godparents), it's just become the arabic word for the monotheistic deity, which is why I'm using the word God the common english word for the aforementioned deity. I mean who cares what name you call God, as long as it's still the same God there shouldn't be a difference. Obviously some people may oppose the trinity as not all being the same God as that of Islam and Juadism but the three religions origins are so closely linked, historically and divinely. I'm a Muslim and I wish more people of all faiths were more as open-minded about this, since this kind of thing could have stopped the Crusades, the Anti-Semiticism in Pre-WWII Europe and the present Arab/Israeli conflict; after all all these prophets wanted peace, not conflict; so if people actually took the time to see these similarities, they'd see that other half the World's population worshiped the same God, a God that wanted peace no matter if you called him God, Yahew, Jenovah or Allah. khlieeq ^{t • e • c} 08:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• Frstep1, the Islamic view may be different from the Jewish and Christian view, but the Jewish and Christian views are different from each other as well. The point is all three of them worship the god of Israel and the Jews, the one mentioned in the Jewish scriptures (Tanakh and Talmud). Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 03:14, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Mandaeism

I think Mandaeism/Sabianism qualifies as an Abrahamic religion. (The preceeding was an unsigned contribution 27 May 2007 by 67.42.243.125 (talk · contribs).)

I think that "Abrahamic religions" could be used in several different meanings. I guess there are at least the following:

1. As used in the Qur'an, when referring tho those three large recognised "religiuons of the book" which themselves refer to Abraham, i.e., Judaeanism, Christianity, and Islam. (This is to be contrasted with e.g. Zoroastrism, which was recognised as a religion of the book but not as abrahamic.)
2. Ancient or modern religions or "subreligions" who themselves actually refer to a tradition going back to Abraham as a main source of their religion. I think that academic scolars of religion would be more apt to decide on which faiths to include. However, I guess that not only mandaeanism should qualify, but also some other very old but dwindling, as e.g. samaritanism, and some rather modern with large numbers of followers, as mormonism. I suspect that a reasonable listing of these faiths should be considerably longer.
3. Such religions or faiths which are actually classified as abrahamic by modern users of this term. This does sometimes include Bahá'í, according to one reference to an American institute of abrahamitic religions. I do not have the slightest ideas of which use the term has e.g. in modern predominantly moslem countries.

I have no opinion on whether the different meanings merit separate articles or not; but, if I'm right, clearly they merit some kind of recognition.JoergenB 18:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Bias regarding Sikhism

The article implies that Sikhism is purely or simply Indic in origin when this is completely fallacious. Sikhism has dual roots in BOTH Sanatana Dharma and Islam. It cannot be said to be soley based on one. Carlon 16:23, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Your assertion is not true. Sikhism did aim to brigde the gap between Islam and Hindusim early in its history, but its roots lie in Hinduism (as various Sikh gurus were Hindus and have stated so). Many would regard Sikhs as Hindu's even today (although many Sikhs don't perticularly like the idea and consider themselves to have an identity seperate from Hinduism).

Sikhism's attempt to bridge the gap between Islam and Hinduism didn't work out too well on the Islamic side as the Mughal rulers of India demanded that Sikhs convert to Islam and waged wars. The last Sikh Guru (Guru Gobind Singh) turned Sikhs into a warrior brotherhood and instead of attempting to bridge the gap between Islam and Hinduism, Sikh became a protector of Hinduism (as various Sikh Gurus publically stated).

If it was not for Sikhism, Hinduism would probably have been much less popular in Northern India. The proposition that Sikhism has roots in Islam is ridiculous. No Sikh will give any serious thought to that. Although there are continuous debates on the role that Sikhs have played for Hinduism which even Sikh's won't deny. In fact many Sikh's would proudly state that its becuase of them that Hinduism survived.

24.5.120.23 07:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

This is completely irrelevant, really irrelevant. Everyone cares SO much about whether Sikhism is MORE Muslim or MORE Hindu. To most Sikhs, it's more important that they're SIKH, and SIKHS do not worship HINDU GODS or follow ANY ABRAHAMIC PROPHETS. However, since the definition of a Dharmic faith has nothing to do with Hindu Gods, they can be Dharmic, but since the definition of an Abrahamic faith has a LITTLE BIT to do with ABRAHAM, and since Sikhs don't give TWO FUCKS about Abraham, all y'all can SHUT UP about whether Sikhs hate or love Muslims. It means NOTHING. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.147.0.44 (talk) 05:55, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you kind of missed the point, but your outcome seems logical, though somewhat crude. Half the world does care about Abraham/Ibrahim, so maybe you shouldn't be as explicit in your language. Just a thought, since half the world being really angry at you might not be a pleasing proposition. I'm Muslim, and I understand the context of what you said and the fact that you aren't intentionally trying to insult Abraham/Ibrahim or his followers but some people may not be so open-minded (,just look at how some of these religious conflicts started in the first place). Also, people would care more about what you think if you didn't swear during explaining it (there is a lot of prejudice against people inappropriately swearing on Wikipedia ;) ). But I agree in your opinion that Sikhism can't be counted as Abrahamic, since it's teachers weren't descended from Abraham/Ibrahim, or that it doesn't put any major significance to Abraham/Ibrahim in it's tenets or doctrines, even if it's blurry as to what influence Islam had on Sikhism, Sikhism still isn't directly linked to Abraham/Ibrahim except for it's worship of One God (as Abraham/Ibrahim is quite famous-- specifically in Islam-- for the smashing up of his community's polytheistic idols during which he outsmarted the priests, while he was only a boy-- which for that reason of him outsmarting them remains as one of my fave Quaranic stories); which I think could be included but other than that (which is quite important, but would be even more important if the article was dealing with "Monotheistic faiths", which could branch out to more than just Abrahamic faiths, with the Trinity's classification as Monotheistic a bit iffy.), I don't think Sikhism should really be included in this article or be considered Abrahamic. Wow, I can really write a lot when inspired. (corrected typos)khlieeq ^{t • e • c} 08:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Just checked and their does seem to be a mention of Sikhism as monothestic and having a similar prophetic teachers, but it's from an Indic origin, so can't be classed as Abrahamic. Though Dharmic on the other hand, I'm not sure since I don't know as much about faiths other than Islam, Christianity and Juadism and a little bit about Sikhism since we did it as school; which seemed kindof weird as we didn't do anything on more common or influential Dharmic religions like Buddhism or Hinduism, they mainly only focused on the Abrahamic and substantially alot of the RME curriculum had to do with Sikhism-- did it twice in Primary (once when we were studying India, and they never touched on Hinduism or Buddhism), might end updoing it again. khlieeq ^{t • e • c} 08:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Holy War

There should be mentioned, that all these religions have institution of holy war. Isn't there much differences between crusade and djihad? Even that both leads mostly to bad results. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 91.135.18.243 (talk • contribs).

It is important to consider if an action taken in the name of a religion is in fact a general characteristic of said religion, or a misuse of it. Jihad is 'holy war' sanctioned by Islam. Whereas, in the Christian religion, crusading is not doctrinal or in any religious text. The Jewish account does include warfare against others, but it would seem that it only applies to the religion when it is DIRECTLY called for by God. Frstep1 (talk) 02:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Hindu

So Jesus Crops up in Hinduism, but its not related? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.71.220.22 (talk) 23:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you elaborate? Frstep1 (talk) 02:49, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Origin of the expression

It may well be that the expression was coined by James Kritzeck in his 1965 Sons of Abraham: I was unable to find any earlier attestation, and he seems to be quite fond of it. But it is of course almost impossible to prove that there was no earlier use of the term. OED knows the adjective "Abrahamic" from the early 19th century, but only in meanings directly related to Abraham himself. This is confirmed by a corpus search at gutenberg.org, which gives "Abrahamic covenant", "Abrahamic promise", but no "Abrahamic religions". There is one attestation of "all true Abrahamic faith (Rom. 4:1-5)" in Chafer, Satan (1909). Here, reference is made to the link of Christianity to the Abrahamic covenant in the epistle to the Romans, but the intention is not to inlcude Islam. dab (𒁳) 10:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Common understanding that all three worship the same God

"Indeed, there exists among their followers a general understanding that they worship the same one God."

I've tagged and modified the above statement for two reasons: first, because it has no source, and second, because it's quite inaccurate. Of course, many people assert such a thing (witness the section up above), but the opposite is also widely asserted. Consider Christianity alone: the historic creeds that to which most Christian churches hold assert the doctrine of the Trinity, which doesn't go very well with An-Nisa 171: "And do not speak of a trinity;/it is best for you to refrain." I'm not seeking to say that this statement isn't made — of course it's said, and quite widely — but it isn't at all general. Nyttend 04:58, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The statement is now "Many of their followers believe...", a statement that is common knowledge and requires no proof. I'm removing the tag. Lockesdonkey 17:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Origins

The Origins section is starting to look good. The current first few sentences may be a little confusing, speaking first of Judaism as having its origins in the Israelite culture of the 2nd and 1st millenia, and then of Israelite culture as being Canaanite in origin. This is true of course, but perhaps the form of words is confusing, so I changed "Israelite" to "Canaanite/Israelite" in the first sentence. PiCo 03:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Origin section--paragraph 2

"It is the choice of Abraham as a common label that makes them Abrahamic." What is this supposed to mean? The whole paragraph need to be rewritten, but especially this line.--Editor2020 (talk) 19:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Meaning of 'Abraham'

This is from the Wikipage 'Abraham'. It conflicts with the meaning given here.

"For the latter part of his life, he was called Abraham, often glossed as av hamon (goyim) "father of many (nations)" per Genesis 17:5, although it does not have any literal meaning in Hebrew. "--Editor2020 (talk) 20:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Main Picture

the main picture for this article shows the star of david for the jews, the cross for the christians, and..."allaah" for the muslims? instead of the word for "God" in arabic, why doesn't this picture have the star and crescent of islam?

i might add that "allaah" is a word used by arabic-speaking jews, christians AND muslims to refer to the God. although arabic is a sacred language in the islamic tradition, i don't think that its use in this picure is appropriate. Bulbasaur (talk) 00:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)bulbasaur

Symbols

I think Islamic symbol should be changed to a crescent or a crescent with a star? radiant guy (talk) 04:26, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree, the word Allah is NOT strictly speaking a symbol. A Crecent and a five-pointed star would be more appropriate. InnocentMind (talk) 07:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Abrahamic religions: A term of Islamic origin. No, I don't think so.

Article says: "Abrahamic religions is a term of Islamic origin."

(A) I don't think that this is true.
This could be a badly phrased attempt to say that the name "Abraham" is of "Islamic" (Arabic) origin, but I don't think that that's true either.

(B) The cites given to support this are "J.Z.Smith 1998, p.276" and "Anidjar 2001, p.3". As far as I can tell, the article does not clearly specify what these are. Can anybody please track these down and check whether they confirm this or not?

-- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 20:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Jonathan Z. Smith and Gil Anidjar, both appropriate scholars to cite, but I can't find a work by Smith of 1998 or by Anidjar of 2001. Probably second editions. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:02, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I went through the refs and linked to the actual work intended in the references. The reason you didn't find works by these scholars is that Smith's is a book chapter and Anidjar's is the introduction to his translation of Derrida. Merzul (talk) 10:44, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Parallels of the "Abrahamic" category

An anon added {{dubious}} asking what is meant with "parallels" in this context. I'm also confused, so I ask it here. The last section of the lead paragraph needs some clarification. Merzul (talk) 10:45, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Dubious

I took a pass at the lead:

• Dubious - "post-modern". There is no indication that this grouping of religions is a post-modern phenomena, nor any indication that the term "Abrahamic religion" itself is associated with the postmodern movement in philosophy, anthropology and/or historical scholarship.

• I removed the reference "p.95, Greenstreet", as no source by an author named Greenstreet is provided, making it something of a pointless citation. I left the claim in the article, but indicated the need for a citation. I see the reference has been provided.

In the "Origin of the Expression" section:

• Removed the cite and tagged as needed a citation the de Perceval footnote for the same reason as the Greenstreet citation above. (Self-reverting as an editor seems to be fixing the issue.)
• Tagged an unreferenced claim about the origin and history of the term.

In the "Common aspects" section:

• The second to last bullet point seems to be written from a Judaic perspective, and appears to assert an "ownership" of certain materials and practices. While Judaism has an obvious primacy as the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, the current phrasing seems particularly lopsided.

Thoughts? Comments? Vassyana (talk) 03:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Post-modern refers to the post-1945 period. I have never seen the term used in any literature before this date. However, if you can find such a cited reference, please amend post-modern to modern period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meieimatai (talk • contribs) 03:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

That is not at all what post-modern means. Please read the article it wikilinks to for a better understanding of what you're talking about. Vassyana (talk) 05:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

The reference should be removed to recommended reading as it is not cited properly. I do not have the first edition of the book, nearest copy not being in immediate reach. The author is however a retired professor at Princeton, and a specialist in Islam.

I note that if not source for the term can be found, its interpretation becomes highly questionable--Meieimatai 05:24, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Since this is in response to fact-tagging a statement, I'm really a bit confused regarding what your saying. Vassyana (talk) 05:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I rephrased the text to say "spiritual devotion to the traditions of Abraham and not Moses by Christianity". Quite simply the entire claim to Abrahamic "tradition" is spiritual for Christianity which (see Galatians 3:13) was happy to be free of observance by Judaism at the time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meieimatai (talk • contribs) 03:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

This does not address my concerns in the least. Vassyana (talk) 05:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

I support renaming the article to Abrahamic religions to reflect contents of the article, use in cited references, and lack of any identified group of worshipets of Abrahamic religion (in the singular)--Meieimatai 07:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Religion (as such) is not always a singular noun. "Religion" can refer to broad groups (such as "monotheistic religion" or "neopagan religion"), as well as a singular religion (such as "the Judaic religion" or "an ascetic religion"). Vassyana (talk) 08:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Tis in English--Meieimatai 10:31, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

There's a reason we have Cow and not Cows. Singular number is preferred in titles. Ilkali (talk) 13:47, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

No, what we do have is Cattle, which is plural as a grouping for the a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. Abrahamic religions is also an attempted taxonomy, though one distinctly different from the approaches taken for other religions--Meieimatai 13:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, bad example. You're missing the point, though. Read the MoS. Ilkali (talk) 16:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(plurals): An exception to the rule of "always use singular" is "articles on groups of specific things, rather than a class of things". The important question is: is this about a group of specific things, or a class of things? As far as I understand, this article falls into the first category, and the rule is not appropriate. The article is not about religions with roots in Abraham. It is about a particular group of specific religions that have been deemed "Abrahamic". So I support the move. 81.98.251.134 (talk) 17:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)