The intention of this paper is to plainly and simply define the various religions, so people will have a basic understanding of what the religions are all about.

JUDAISM

Judaism starts with God choosing Abraham (in about 2000 BCE) to teach Humanity about the One True God, the creator of all. He was called the first Hebrew, because it comes from the Hebrew word, “Eevreet:” which means “to cross over.” This is because he was told by God to cross over the Euphrates from Babylon (modern day Iraq) and go to the Land of Canaan (modern day Israel / Palestine). To go from the land of Idolatry to the land that he would set up as the land of Monotheism. Once Abraham migrated to Hebron (in the West Bank), he was commanded to make a mark upon his body of this covenant that God made with him and his children, and that mark was circumcision. Abraham had 2 sons, Isaac and Ishmael. And Isaac had 2 sons, Jacob and Esau. And Jacob had 12 sons, later to become the 12 tribes of Israel. According to Judaism, God established his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Children of Israel for an everlasting covenant.

For a little background to the forming of Judaism, the giving of the Torah, there was a famine in the Land of Canaan, and the Hebrews (Israelites) went down to Egypt. After some time passed, they were made slaves in Egypt and served under the Pharaohs for almost 400 years. Then eventually Moses, from the tribe of Levi, was born to be their redeemer. After 10 plagues, the Pharaoh released the Israelites and they fled back to the Land of Canaan. On their way, they encamped in the Sinai desert, where Moses went up Mt. Sinai and received the 10 commandments. During their 40 years of wandering in the desert on the way to the Promised Land of Milk and Honey, Moses received the rest of the Torah. The Torah is the foundation stone of Judaism; it contains 613 commandments of how the Israelites are supposed to live. There are 248 positive commandments and 365 negative commandments. After the Israelites entered the Land of Canaan in about 1300 BCE, they lived there for roughly 800 years autonomously until 586 BCE when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple and carried them off to Babylon. During this period of 800 years, is when the Hebrews received over 100,000 Prophets from God (Elohim in Hebrew).

Judaism is made up primarily of the Torah of Moses, the books of the Prophets, the Psalms of David, and the Oral Tradition, which eventually formed the Talmud. That is the essence of Judaism. Judaism believes that there were no more Prophets after the first temple period. After that there are Scholars or Teachers called Rabbis that passed on this tradition from teacher to student for the last 2500 years. Judaism can be divided into 2 eras: one is the Temple era, where Judaism centered around the Temple in Jerusalem, this lasted from about 1000 BCE to 70 CE, over 1000 years! The second era is the Rabbinic era, the era of writing down the Oral Tradition, the Talmud. This has been ever since roughly 135 CE when Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi started writing down the Oral Law given to Moses. During the Temple period, worship was centered around animal sacrifice to atone for sins.

The central idea to Judaism is that God chose Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Children of Israel to receive the Torah and then to be a light onto the nations. To teach the world monotheism, morals, etc… There are about 14 million Jews in the world. About 6 million in USA and 5 million in Israel and the other 3 million distributed throughout the rest of the world in countries such as France, England, Australia, Russia, etc..

CHRISTIANITY

Whereas in Christianity, to receive forgiveness for your sins, you must accept that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins (and accept the blood of the Lamb of God) to be saved.  That is why in the Christian church, they do communion, which is eating the body of Jesus (bread) and drinking his blood (wine). Catholic dogma states that the bread and wine literally become Jesus' flesh and blood when they do communion. As the Gospel of John reports Jesus to have said in John 6:53-57, "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.   Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.  He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.  As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me."
Also in Matthew 26:26-29, "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup (of wine), and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink you all of it; For this is my Blood of the New Covenant (Testament), which is shed for many, for the remission of sins."
It should be noted that many of the beliefs and practices of the Church were carried over from the Pagan beliefs and practices of the Roman Empire when it embraced Christianity in the 4th Century of the Common Era (CE). And even when the Protestant Reformation happened in 16th century Europe, they did not rid Christianity of these pagan beliefs, such as the belief in the incarnation of God into the body of Christ, the trinity, and human sacrifice for remission of sins.
Christianity believes that while the Jews were under Roman occupation in the land of Judea (now Israel / West Bank), there was a Jew named Yeshua (Jesus in Greek) who claimed to be the Messiah (Christos in Greek) in about 0-33 CE. Christians believe that as a punishment for blasphemy and treason, that the Romans crucified him. Then they believe that he resurrected from the dead as the “Son of God”. They believe that the blood that he shed by being killed is atonement for everyone’s sins if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and you accept his Salvation that he died on the cross for your sins, which is the only way to Heaven. The basis for this belief is that because the blood of animal sacrifice atoned for sins when the Temple in Jerusalem stood, after this time period, the blood of the Messiah, Jesus Christ would atone for all of mankind’s sins. One of the problems with this thesis is that the Temple remained until 70 CE, and Jesus was crucified in roughly 33 CE, so the Temple still stood during his crucifixion, thusly at that point in time, there was no need for his blood atonement. Besides that fact, Judaism is very much against human sacrifice, and there is no prophecy according to Jewish understanding, that points to that the Messiah will be killed for mankind’s sins. Instead, according to Judaism, the Messiah would have ended the Roman occupation of Judea, and he would have become truly the King of the Jews, reestablishing the Davidic kingdom in Israel, establishing peace on earth, ending all wars and disease, etc. According to the Jewish belief, Jesus was an utter failure that did not accomplish anything for the Jews. Instead only disaster came after he was crucified. The Temple was destroyed 40 years later and the Jews were exiled throughout the Roman Empire in 135 CE. So instead of bringing redemption, according to the Jews, Jesus brought catastrophe and misery.

Christians believe in a Holy Trinity which is God the father, God the son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. According to the Gospel, Jesus says “There is no way to the father but by me.” The biggest Proselytizers for Christianity were other Jews such as Peter and Saul (later renamed Paul) who believed that Jesus was the Promised Messiah. Eventually in 325 CE, Emperor Constantine of the Roman Empire embraced Christianity and made it the state religion and soon almost all of Europe had become Christian. It was also at this time, that Christianity officiated the Nicene Creed, which made it a crime punishable by death to not believe in the Trinity. Previous to this time, there were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but did not believe that he was divine. These Jews were called Nazarenes (Nasara in Arabic). Deuteronomy 13:2-5 states (Hebrew translation)

"If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and he give thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, of which he spoke unto thee saying: 'Let us go after other gods [including other ways and beliefs] which thou hast not known, and let us serve them', thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or unto that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God putteth you to proof, to know whether ye do love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. After the Lord your God shall ye walk, and Him shall ye fear, and His commandments shall ye keep, and unto His voice shall ye hearken, and Him shall ye serve, and unto Him shall ye cleave."

This verse means that even if a prophet comes and does many miracles but tells you to worship a different god than the God of Abraham, then you should not follow him. According to Jews, Jesus called them to worship him as the son of God, and in Judaism, worshipping a man is idolatry.

In Islam and Judaism, the worst sin is Shirk (ascribing partners to God) and one who commits this sin is called a Mushrik. There is a difference of opinion in both Muslim and Jewish circles as to whether Trinitarian Christians are Mushriks. It is agreed that we all believe in the same God, whom the Christians call the "Father" in the Trinity. The issue with the Trinity is that by saying that Jesus is God (part of the triune godhead) and that God incarnated into the body of Christ, being that Jesus was a human being and he had a corporal body and Christians have images of him, and they worship him, that by definition constitutes idolatry. Also the fact that they literally ascribe partners to God by saying that He has a son and a mother (Mary), that constitutes polytheism. We are commanded to testify that God is ONE, not 3 in one! There is no where in the Revelations of Abraham and Moses a teaching about the trinity. It is simply an issue of overpraising a Prophet and making him part of God.

There are presently about 2 billion Christians in the world, roughly 1 billion of those are Roman Catholic. The other denominations are Eastern Orthodox and Protestant. All three believe in the Trinity and the Incarnation of God in the body of Christ.

ISLAM

Muslims belive that Islam started with Adam, the first man. They believe that God spoke to 124,000 different Prophets communicating to them the same basic message, the belief in the One God and to follow his commandments as conveyed by His Prophets. These Prophets include Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Jesus, etc. In the Qur'an, Abraham is called the first Muslim (the one who submitted his whole self to God) and in fact, Islam is called the Religion of Abraham throughout the Qur'an. Islam believes that prior to the Nation (Ummmah) of Muhammad, the previous Muslim nations were the Nation of Israel and the Nazarenes (the true followers of Jesus). Islam believes that whomever follows the Prophet of their time period are Muslims (those who submit to God by following His Prophets). In fact, the reason why Muslims pray towards Mecca, is that they believe that Abraham built the first house of God, the Ka'ba in Mecca with his son, Ishmael. All of the laws that Muslims follow are the laws given to Abraham (not Moses) such as circumcision, dietary laws, praying, fasting, giving in charity, etc. The laws specifically given to Moses and the Israelites, Muslims do not follow such as the Sabbath, more stringent dietary laws (such as not mixing milk and meat), wearing Tzitzit and Tefillin, hanging a Mezuzah, observing the Israelite holidays, etc. Also, Muslims believe that from Abraham until Muhammad, the message of God was more reserved for the Children of Israel, and that Prophet Muhammad had come to make the message of the One God universal for all humanity! So now instead of there just being an Israelite covenant, Islam was now a universal covenant.

A little history... Muhammad bin Abdullah came from the lineage of Abraham through Ishmael. He lived in Mecca, Arabia and used to meditate in a cave on Mt.Hira outside of the city. It was during this meditation in the Arabic month of Ramadhan in 610 CE, after the Prophet turned 40 years old, that the Angel Gabriel came to him and started to reveal the Qur’an (literally recitation) to him. Over a period of 23 years, the Angel continued to reveal the Qur’an to him. The first 13 years were in Mecca. And the latter 10 years were in the Northern city of Medina. The primary basis for this religion, is to believe that there is nothing worthy of worship besides the One True God of Abraham and to believe in all of his Prophets, starting with Adam and ending with Muhammad, including Abraham, Moses and Jesus. Islam contains 5 pillars, including Witnessing, Prayer, Charity, Fasting, and Pilgrimage. It also contains 6 essentials beliefs, that in God, Angels, Prophets, His Revelations, the Last Day of Judgment, Reward and Punishment, and Destiny or Fate. It is an absolutely monotheistic religion meant for all humanity. There are presently 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. The country with the greatest amount of Muslims is Indonesia. There are also many Muslims in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, North Africa, and the Arab Middle East.