Sample Religion Studies Essay Paper on Jews, Christians, Muslims: A Comparative Introduction To Monotheistic Religions

New Testament

New Testament is a collection of the writings of early writings of the Bible produced by the early Christian church. New Testament has 27 books written soon after the death of Jesus Christ and is a fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. The 27 books include the Gospels, which give a collection of Jesus life and sayings, Acts of Apostles, give the historical narrative of the early periods of the Christian church, the Epistles are letters of advice and instruction to local Christian groups mainly written by Paul. The last book in the New Testament is the Revelation written as prophecy to future events of God’s intervention (Powell et al. 1).

Similarity of New Testament and Other World Religions

Islam and Judaism believe in the existence of a monotheistic God with all powers to control everything as reflected by the New Testament writings of one Omnipotent God. Judaism’s concept of the Messiah’s prophecy of a descendant from the throne of David who will establish an everlasting Jerusalem is reflected in the New Testament as Jesus is born from the lineage of David and establishes a new Kingdom of God among Christians (Corrigan et al. 1). Additionally, sacred texts from Zoroastrianism in Egypt establish the existence of angels and demons the same concept is in the New Testament of angels such as Angel Gabriel and the existence of demons.

Differences of New Testament and Other Sacred Books

Authors of New Testament were inspired by God to write God’s message yet other holy books such as the Quran of the Islamic religion give a historical report of events from a third-person view. New Testament gives monotheistic worship of God while holy books of Buddhists and Hindus explain of polytheistic worship (Bernauer et al. 89). New Testament states that everyone is a sinner regardless of age contrasting Mormon’s holy book which tells of children free of sin. Quran explains that God had no son who will offer salvation to mankind while the New Testament narrates that God gave his only son Jesus Christ to save mankind from sin (Oakes et al., 2).

Works Cited

Bernauer, James. “Michel Foucault’s philosophy of religion: An introduction to the non-fascist life.” Michel Foucault and Theology. Routledge, 2017. 89-110.

Corrigan, John, et al. Jews, Christians, Muslims: a comparative introduction to monotheistic religions. Routledge, 2016.

Oakes, Peter, and Janet Oakes, eds. “1. New Testament General.” (2017): 1-3.

Powell, Mark Allan. Introducing the New Testament: a historical, literary, and theological survey. Baker Books, 2018.