Sanders' Religion Thread, Begun @ LC Forum Options

[Sanders]

e-Dog and I have decided to re-constitute this from LC. It is a thread about the 3 major religions of the world. The goal was to follow the path of each from their common origins to the present day. We (a number of LC posters and I) got as far as the begining of the First Crusade while the thread was active.

What becomes of this thread when all the copying is done is not clear. It may be just a read-only thread for the Religion topic. Or it may be left open to posting, so we can finish the journey.

[Guest_librarian_*]

Posted by: DayAfterTomorrow Jul 31 2006, 04:57 AM

I can't comment on the identity of God stuff, other than to say the obvious - that the source of Judaism's, Christianity's and Islam's belief in one God is the same (Abraham). Don't let me interrupt - carry on.

I am attempting to learn Hebrew, which is a long and excruciating process, but I remember reading a while back that the Hebrew word for "wife" in the Bible as used for Sarai/Sarah is different than the Hebrew word for "wife" as it relates to Hagar. This could occur because the Hebrew language is MUCH MUCH more specific than the English language, so there are sometimes like 7 words in Hebrew that mean different variations of one word in English. My understanding is that the word "wife" used for Sarai/Sarah means actual spouse, like we think of wife today. Whereas, the word "wife" as used for Hagar means more of the act of sexual intercourse or 'pretend' wife. This is not to be confused with sexual intercourse in relation to prostitution.

So if this is true (and I am still trying to find where I read this at), that would mean Ishmael was not Abraham's first legitimate child. It would further reinforce the fact that, in the Bible, God referred to Isaac as the one through whom the nation of Israel would be created. Also, there was huge significance to Abram's name being changed to Abraham, and additionally Sarai was changed to Sarah. Hagar's name was never changed. Was there this name changing fiasco in the Qu'ran?