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The Abrahamic Religions are the three largest and most important monotheistic religions in the world. They are Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and their respective denominations. Monotheistic means that they each only believe in one god, and Abrahamic that they all originated from the biblical Abraham. Most ancient civilizations had polytheistic religions, meaning they worshiped many gods, ranging from a dozen in Greek mythology, to millions in Hinduism. However when Abraham was born he started the first monotheistic religion, Judaism.
Judaism
Historically, Judaism has no known origins. The only details known of Judaism's origins from a confirmed historical point of view is an approximate time of roughly 4000 years ago. However, the Torah (Judaism's Holy Book, also part of the Old Testament of the Bible) has some record of the origins. Abraham, a direct descendant from Noah and Adam, established a covenant with God. A covenant is an agreement that God makes with humanity or a group of humans. In the Abraham covenant, God agreed that he would no longer flood the earth like in Noah's time, and that he would bless all of humanity. It was technically an unconditional covenant, as in humanity wouldn't have to do anything for God to upkeep his end of the deal, but any human who would want to be entitled to God's blessing would have to be circumcised. And so the Jewish people came into fruition as a race specially blessed by God.
A drawing of Abraham talking to God
As previously mentioned, Abraham was a direct descendant from Noah, who was a direct descendant from Adam. He was born in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Syria) and grew up in a pagan family. He supposedly realized that there was only one true god through his own reasoning power. Because of this dedication and intelligence, God chose Abraham to be the one to reveal God to the rest of the world. Abraham has no historical presence other than the Torah, but if the story of his life in the Torah is to be believed then there would be no historical record of him. If Abraham wasn't real, then Judaism's origins are unknown.
Within Judaism, there are only two major groups, Orthodox, and not. Orthodox believe that all the rules stated in the Torah must be followed, and follow all of them very strictly. Non orthodox are more focused on the core values of the Torah, and may or may not follow all the rules.
Christianity was started by Jesus Christ, who was born in Bethlehem (south of Jerusalem) roughly 2000 years ago. He does have a presence outside of the bible, though his existence is the only thing backed by historical fact. He spread his word that he was the son of god for his life, with rumored miracles and a virgin mother supporting his claim. Both his miracles and Mary's virginity are poorly reported, and thus unconfirmed. Many Jewish leaders at the time believed that the end of the world would soon come, and that the messiah would save those who worshiped the right god, so this set the stage for Jesus to be followed. Jesus rise is also poorly reported, the only record of it exists from his followers. Of course some people see what they want to see, so this is also a grey area.
What Jesus actually looked like according to historians.
Within Christianity there are many many denominations. These include Protestant, Episcopalian, Baptism, Lutheranism, Evangelicalism. Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholicism, Satanism, and Pentecostalism. The differences between these branches are sometimes slight, and oftentimes very confusing, but to grossly over-generalize, typically Protestants, Episcopalians, and Lutherans care more about the specific lessons of the bible, and don’t follow every rule, similar to non-orthodox Jews. And Catholics, Pentecostals, Evangelicals and Baptists are more generally invested in the rules. Mormons, Satanists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are spinoffs of Christianity, with Jehovah’s Witnesses having their own set of beliefs, and Mormons having their own book, but they still do technically believe in Jesus.
Controversial depictions of Muhammad
Due to it's more recent origins, Islam has the most concrete record of it's history. It was started by the prophet Muhammad in 632 CE, when he started to get visions from Allah, the Islam God. Muhammad was born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia and he was chosen to be the final prophet for Islam. Muslims believe that the full story of Allah was relayed to multiple prophets throughout history, including Abraham and Jesus, with Muhammad being the final one. Muhammad wrote the Qur'an, which claims to be the direct word of Allah through Muhammad, unlike the Bible which has gone through multiple people to be written down. Muhammad is likely most famous to those outside of the Islamic faith as being the person that cannot be depicted under Islamic law.
The two big divisions of Islam are Sunni and Shia. The vast majority of Muslims across the world are Sunni. The main difference between the two is the belief of who should lead the caliphate, or muslim government. Sunni’s also believe more in God’s power in the political world.