This question is even harder to
answer than the question addressed in the previous post whether
Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Christianity is sometimes
spoken of as a daughter religion of Judaism. It is more accurate to speak of
them as siblings. Both have the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament as their first
canonical document. Both have arguably been shaped as much or more by a second
volume, the New Testament in one case, the Talmud in the other. Events in the
first century were obviously crucial for the development of the Christian faith;
the destruction of the temple within a generation of the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus was arguably just as decisive for Judaism.
But this is not the chief obstacle
in addressing the question of the title. The chief obstacle is that being
Jewish is an ethnic and cultural identity at least as much as a religious one.
Many Jews are agnostics or atheists.[1]
A good few Jews are Christians. Some Jews dabble in New Age spiritualities,
others follow one of a number of ultra-orthodox traditions. There are orthodox, conservative and liberal
interpretations of Jewish faith and traditions.
In other words, it is perfectly
impossible to generalise about Jewish theology. Christianity and Islam have of course
their own divisions and denominations but what they are agreed on arguably
provides a sufficient core for at least addressing the question whether
Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
I see no benefit in developing
a detailed taxonomy but maybe four things can be said by way of a rough sketch of
some configurations.
(1) Jewish atheists do not
worship the same God as Christians.
(2) Jewish Christians worship
the same God as non-Jewish Christians.
(3) The concept of God held by many
Jews is probably less definitive than that held by most Muslims. For Muslims
the Quran offers an authoritative account of God which is explicitly formulated
over against the Christian faith.[2]
With a less definitive picture it becomes harder to say whether an account is
an inadequate portrayal of God or an account of a different “God”.[3]
(4) Forms of Jewish belief in
which the Hebrew Bible is read through the lens of a more definitive theology which
has been developed in monistic or other anti-Christian ways are closer to presenting
an account of a fictional character based on a real person (as I have suggested
for Islam) than forms of Jewish belief which are open to a variety of experiences
and descriptions of God.
And two final points, not so much
by way of conclusion but as a reminder:
(5) There is a significant
difference between a (Jewish) prayer whose words a Christian can appropriate
without qualms and a (Muslim) prayer which makes claims that a Christian cannot
affirm.
(6) A Christian prays in the
name of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit to the Father or to Jesus or
to the Holy Spirit.
[1]
It is not generally considered possible for a Muslim or Christian to be an atheist
and rightly so. An atheist can emerge from a Muslim or Christian background but
they cease to be Christian or Muslim (in anything but maybe the vaguest
cultural sense) when they identify as atheists. A Jewish atheist does not cease
to be a Jew.
[2]
The Christian faith is misrepresented in the Quran but this misrepresentation
is canonical and there is no ground for believing that a properly understood Trinitarian
faith would be acceptable to any school of Islamic theology.
[3]
The same question arises with regard to other, modern movements. Mormonism may
be closer to misrepresenting the true God, while Deism present a different “God”
from Christianity.
