Iamon lyme:

> I can't assume the third Abrahamic religion he refers to is Islam, because there is no connection between Abraham and that religion except through the son of the woman who was not his wife. But it probably is the religion he is refering to.

Of course he is referring to Islam. No offense but denying that Islam is an Abrahamic religion is rather ignorant. All of the prophets of the Old Testament are also prophets to moslems, as is Jesus Christ. Scholars believe that the Old Testament refers to the descendants of Lot and his daughters as the ancestors of Arabs. More accurately, Arabs and Jews are Semitic peoples. If one goes back in time far enough, both people descend from migrations that occurred in Asia minor during the last ice age (between 25,000 and 11,000 years ago). Of course, that is older than the Old Testament's age of the world according to Genesis.

Historically, before Mohammad founded Islam, most Arabs were Christians and Jews. The religious change came with Mohammad, just as Christianity had its origins in Judaism as it existed at the time of Christ. People today look at Islamic law and think it is somehow different, but much of Islamic law is a reinstatement of laws in the Torah, plus the interpretations that Islamic scholars made of them.

One thing is certain, Mohammad was a historical figure whose existence can be proven. All of the main characters of the Old Testament have no historicity to them. In other words, nobody can prove their existence beyond what is stated in the Old Testament. The same is true of Jesus. There is no proof of Jesus' existence outside the New Testament, and the Gospels date to about 75 to 120 AD depending on what scholars intepret as the original documents and oral tradition that they were based upon.

In that sense Islam is more "historical". The person who originated the religion wrote his own book, and there is historical proof outside the religious books that form the basis of the religion. The Koran clearly states the Abrahamic origin of the religion. Some Christians refute that because they want to see themselves as entirely different from Moslems. This is not surprising considering the conflictive history between Christians and Moslems.