History of "modern" relegious texts

[pigface]

Are the Qur'an and New Testament both branches of the Old Testament?

[Artemis]

The Old Testament is the basis for both Islam and Judaism. The New Testament is biased towards Christianity.

[El D]

Theoretically they are separate documents - each representing a creed supposedly dictated to man by a god.

[Lonnie]

The New Testament is meant to be a continuation of the old, and both were out before the Qur'an, (and i'm playing devils advocate here), which took from both as its own.

[Toureman]

Yes, there both fairy stories.

[Lonnie]

To a certain extent Tourman, yes, but don't forget that the Old Testament is also a history book, in which certain parts have been proved to be true, unfortunately, its also laced with stories that aren't true, and as far as that part goes, I agree.

[kempie]

The OT is the history of the Hebrew people and contains (for the most part) the same teachings as the Torah Shebiksav (or Tanakh), the sacred book of Judaism. Islam also holds the bulk of the OT to be true, and thus forms part of the Quran, but also includes more recent writings.

The NT is the Christian Bible; the OT is included as cultural context to understand Jesus Christ (he was, after all, a Jew) but the Christian faith does not follow the teachings of the OT per se, even though it does recognise the OT prophets.

The Quran recognises Jesus (Isa) as a prophet (along with the other OT prophets) as well as a more recent prophet Mohammed, in whom Judaism & Christianity choose not to believe.

[johnlambert]

The Qur'an was dictated to the prophet Muhammad as the word of God by the angel Gabriel over a period of 23 years

[agnabeya]

'The Qur'an was dictated to the prophet Muhammad as the word of God by the angel Gabriel over a period of 23 years' -

very true -

but it contains all the stories, elements and prophets of the Old and New Testaments.

Just as Christianity came from Jews who believed Christ was the Messiah (the Jews are still waiting for the Messiah) - Islam set out to correct the the other two and Mohamed is the final true prophet ..

Do you know about the Hymn to creation sung in the English Anglican church today?
It's origins are from Akhenatens temple - his hymn to the one God of creation - (the Sun)

The theory is the Children of Israel took this text with them - and it passed through them into the Christian faith.

Maybe all the major religions are descended from Ancient Egypt?

I reckon it's tosh myself - based on Bronze age mythology and mis-remembered history.

People have always been superstitious - and will invent unseen powers to help them deal with what they can't control in their lives.
- Don't get me started on New Age 'energy crystals', Reiki etc -
it's all b***ocks...:-) - and the same impulse that led to religions in the first place.