This question has been bugging me for a while: It is my understanding that Jews beleive in the old testament, Christians in the old and new testaments, and Muslims in both plus the Koran. If this is the case, why don’t Christian’s celebrate Passover, and Muslims Passover and Easter?
Or am I way off on what I’m basing this on?
Muslims believe that Jesus Christ was a prophet, but not necessarily that he was the son of God. So they reference the NT as well as the OT, the latter being full of God’s prophets’ stories.
Christians use the OT not just because of the prophets’ stories, but because there are quite a few predictions of Christ’s coming.
I’m not sure about Judism, but don’t they just use the first 5-6 books of the OT?
Christians use the OT for its historical, poetic, prophetic and other values but have done away with its requirements for feast observances, animal sacrifices, Levitical law, etc. The reason being that Jesus “completed” the Old Testament Law and replaced it with a Law of Grace. I could explain it further, but it would involve quoting Romans and Hebrews and it would take all day. Trust me.
My understanding is that Islam does not “believe” in the Old Testament OR the New Testament the way that Jews or Christians do. Traditional Jews take the Old Testament (first five books, anyway) as the literal and immutable word of God. Traditional Christians take the entire bible (Old and New Testament) as being divinely inspired.
Muslims take the Koran as being the divinely-dictated book. The Koran repeats many stories from the Old Testament, but often changes the “facts” behind them: for example, in the Koran, it is Ishmael, not Isaac, who is bound at Mount Moriah, and it is Ishmael (and hence the Arabs) rather than Isaac (and hence the Israelites) who are the favoured people.
Thus, while one can say that Islam generally accepts the traditional stories of both Judaism and Christianity, it does not accept the Old or New Testaments as valid. Such is my understanding, in any case, from some limited study and discussions.
I think that it might be more accurate to say that Islam accepts the prior revelations as valid but that their transmission is flawed, ergo the Old and New Testaments are ‘corrupted’ but valid to the extent they do not contradict the ‘ultimate’ revelation.
But that’s only an impressionistic reading given the same limited study and discussions.
This subject was covered on a recent previous post. Essentially, Christians do not celebrate Passover because it’s a celebration of an event central to Jewish history, but not to Gentile Christians.
I’m Irish- so it certainly wasn’t MY ancestors that God led out of slavery in Egypt (the same goes for Catholic Italians, Lutheran Norwegians, and Orthodox Greeks). So, while I recognize the importance of the Passover to Jews, and to Jesus for that matter (the Last Supper was a Passover meal, after all), it would be meaningless for me to celebrate the Passover, which didn’t involve me or my ancestors at all.
A few corrections about the Jewish point of view:
The “OT” (Jews prefer simply “Bible” or “Tanach”) is considered entirely holy, although not all parts are equally important. Basically, it’s divided into three sections:
The “Torah” - This is the core of Jewish belief, the source of most of the Jewish laws, and the greatest physical object in Jewish worship. It includes the first five books - Genesis through Deutronomy [sp?]. it’s probably the oldest portion of biblical text, and it includes mainly history - much of it supernatural - and laws.
“Prophets” - This includes the books of Joshua through the Twelve minor prophets (including the Book of Jonah). it’s almost a purly historical/prosaic text, telling stories of warriors, kings, and most especially, prophets. It is basically the history of the Children of Israel in Canaan. There are no laws or poetry here - it’s supposed to teach by example.
“Writings” - the third portion includes, basically, all of the rest. While there is some history there (such as the Book of Ruth and the Book of Esther), as well as a reiteration and reinterpertation of the first few books towards the end, this portion mostly focuses on poetry. The centerpiece, of course, are the Books of Psalms, two massive volumes of praises to God and man, but it also includes the incredibly cynical and depressing Eccalstices [again, sp?] and the subtley erotic Song of Songs. This portion is probably leastg often read form beginning to end, but it is a fertile shmorgesboard of quotes.
That’s basically it - that’s the only text most Jews consider “holy” and not open to rewriting, although it’s always open to reinterpetation.
This was discussed in the Great Debates with some factual information included. Why Don’t Christians Keep Passover?. I hope my link works.
Tinker