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Knowledge
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Introduction
Knowledge is used to refer to the information that an individual has concerning a concept, principle or any other thing. Often this information serves different purposes. There are different forms that people can obtain this information. There are first-hand information, secondary information from secondary sources, research projects among many other sources. The information may be passed from one person to another in different forms. The information which transforms into knowledge would serve different purposes. The information on religious knowledge varies from one religion to another (Modood, 2014, pg125). These are information kept on various storage devices such as books, scrolls, and even e-storage devices. Religious belief varies from one religion to another. The Islam religion and the Judaeo-Christian religions are the major religions which are so close only differentiated by little differences.
There are various historical sources which present the origins of these two religions. They relate in origins only that there a slight difference. The Judeo-Christians are a bit different from modern Christianity. This is due to a difference in the information that they have and he believes. The principle for the two religions is similar. Even the character in the books used by each for reference to their faith has almost the same characters. How the information has been presented is however different and even the language they are written in. Knowledge about the two can be obtained from only a study of the books for reference to their faith. Islam uses the Quran for knowledge on their faith while the Judaeo-Christians use the Jewish Bible (Stroumsa, 2014, pg83). Deep knowledge of these two groups thus is to be derived from the two spiritual books. To each group, they believe the books are hallowed and authored by Yahweh, to the Jews and Allah to Islam, therefore, should be handled with respect.
The aim of the Knowledge
The main aim for the knowledge in the Islamic and Judeo Christianity is to focus on the modes of transmission, the trends of either continuity or change in the knowledge of these religious studies. This will look into the transformation that the knowledge on the religions has transformed over the ages and the current look of the knowledge about their faith. The combining of both religions seeks to identify how the two relate similarly or differently on various grounds.
In the ancient days, knowledge was cherished and taken to be good, especially on religion backgrounds since it was scared. When knowledge was obtained through information on history, it was written down and kept. Often the information would be written on scrolls and other ancient storage devices. This would then be kept with the priest and passed to others through teaching. For example, the Jews had teachers of the law who would teach others on the law since they could not reproduce many copies of the scripture since it was taken to be holly. For both religions, some of the knowledge was concealed while the others which seemed relevant to the people would be presented.
Judeo-Christian describes the concepts and values which are common between Judaism and Christianity. The Christian concepts are borrowed from the Judaism scripture. The Christians take more of the new testament of the scriptures while the Jews hold on to the Old Testament more. The Jews differ from Islam slightly in that for the Muslims; they believe the Quran was passed to them by Allah through the prophet Mohamed. For the Jews, the scriptures were authored by God through the prophets.
Over the ages, these written materials have transformed and are currently taking very different forms. The Islam, however, has maintained the manuscripts in the original language which is Arabic. The Jewish Bible is written in Greek. The Christian bible has been transformed into many languages. Initially, this knowledge could only be accessed by a few religious leaders but currently, can be accessed by anybody. There are even soft copies of these written materials, and the sacredness with which it was held initially isn’t there currently. The interpretation is no longer by a few religious leaders but can be done by anyone as long as they can access it.
Nature of Knowledge.
The Quran is the basis for the Islamic religion. The derivation of the knowledge in Islam is, therefore, to be drawn from the Quran. This includes natural science, social sciences, nature doctrines and the social-political disciplines with the fundamental beliefs of the Islamic people. The design of the knowledge has its roots in the Quran and the beliefs according to the definition in the Quran.
The three religions that are the Islamic, Judaism and the Christian have the same Abrahamic monotheistic religions (Mohammad, 2019, pg2). The three have common believes such as the creation being through a supreme being, who to the three is God. However, the perception of the religions on the relationship between humanity and the natural world is diverse. For Islam, the natural world is a sign of God to the human and should be thus taken sacred which is not the case with the Christians.
This message of the Quran is believed by the Muslims to be the word of God Himself, passed down by the angel Gabriel through the prophet Mohamed who relayed it as he revealed. It is therefore sacred and should be handled with respect. To then, the term knowledge is not even sufficient in the expression of the facts in the Quran. This is because, in the Quran itself, the concept of knowledge is invisible and holistic. It includes scientific knowledge and represents reality at all levels of abstraction.
The knowledge presents the Islamic perspective of themselves as special before God due to various aspects. First, the knowledge presents them as superior among the creation of God with the ability to think and talk, unlike other creation. Man is presented to be above the laws and the principles that operate on earth since they have authority above them as the superior creation of God.
The teaching show humanity and the environment around them. It draws the facts that the entire creation and its spectacular nature is the work of a supreme God. The defense for these arguments is drawn from the Quran which they term as God’s written word. The connection between science and religion lost a stand during the classical era, and the concept of knowledge took over.
The knowledge in the Quran is presented to be true and therefore provides no room for speculations of falsehood in it. In other words, the knowledge in the book is sacred and absolute truth. To them, this knowledge extends even to space since God has encircled everything with knowledge. The level to which a person has this knowledge thus is determined by reality, and the extent of the knowledge determines the level of awareness of reality and consciousness.
The knowledge in Judeo-Christian is based on concepts that Judaism and the Christian believe reference (Topolski, 2016, pg267). The information about this concept is more ethical than theological. It was formed by western reformers to bring together Christianity and Judaism. This was based on the fact that the two shared some common concepts such as the Torah and the Abrahamic covenant.
The Judaeo-Christian concept took an initial political perspective by the westerners but later decreased (Van den Hemel, 2014, pg68). It suggested that Judaism found its completeness in Christianity. This is however protested by many of the Christian theologians. This is because Judaism if grounded on facts such as that God is the creator with the knowledge of His creation being beyond human knowledge.
In this created order, like the Islam man according to the Judeo-Christian refers to the man to be a special creation. It presents man as created in God’s image in that; they have the power to dominate and subdue the other creation. Unlike Islam, the concept of being in the same likeness as God is not inherent among the Jews. This, however, is not for the human needs as Islam have it but rather for God and therefore the creation is for God and not for human.
The information for this group is drawn mostly from the Bible, the Old Testament. They believe that the word was authored by God Himself who anointed the prophets in the scriptures to write them. This presents laws which the Jews follow to guide their conduct known as Torah. The adherence of these laws is to them worship in itself.
Knowledge is taken to be a gift from God which is presented on request by an individual. The scripture, therefore, does not provide all the information and thus the individual must ask (Francis et al. 2014, pg77). This is presented through revelation in which God would reveal to the person asking of it. Prayer is the method that they use and can be done by an individual and not necessarily through some intermediary.
This knowledge also presents believes that nature can be sanctified through human action. This included an ancient offering of sacrifices. This follows the covenant given as a sign of love from God. This covenant presents the form of conduct through which the Judeo-Christians conduct themselves. The knowledge thus bases on discrete laws that are believed to have been presented by God himself.
Source of Knowledge
The sources of the above knowledge came from various backgrounds. These include reason, perception, introspection, memory, and testimony (Jesen et al., 2016, pg161). The first source is through the perception by experiences. There are experiences which are beyond human intellect and therefore, drives to the assumption that it must continue the work of a supreme being. These include things like miracles and the likes.
The second source of this knowledge is introspection where one does a self-evaluation. It works together with perception. Often after experiences are later evaluated. Perception leads to introspection and thus enables the individual to come up with some lessons which turn to knowledge in the experience (Marraffa, 2015, pg257).
Reason also is another source of knowledge. This involves pondering of truths that have been presented to identify their credibility. Through the process of reasoning, one will be able to identify truths through relation to other factors. This often is complemented by memory which recalls of previous events and knowledge. Memory especially is good for reference to knowledge that had been acquired previously.
Lastly, testimony is also another source of knowledge. This includes people witnessing of experiences that they have had. Mostly it is made concerning teaching that particular truth present. These are part of the teachings that people are taught in their various religions. Testimonies act as a confirmation of the effectiveness of truths that religion presents.
Epistemology and Ontology of Knowledge
This is fields which focus what makes a truth that people claim to be factual, the evidence to support it and make it true (Klakegg, 2016, pg89.The religious believe if both Islam and the Judeo-Christian is based because there is a supreme being who is above creation. They argue that this Supreme Being is the one who created everything and should be revered and worshiped. The believes have been justified by several pieces of evidence.
First of all these evidence are based on the perfectness of creation and the fact that everything is done with perfection. Thing like the laws and the principles of nature did not just happen by chance. Many scientific theories trying to explain the mystery of creation but have failed. The religions, however, explain that all these magnificence can only be the work of a supreme being.
The other evidence is that the intellect of human being is the most superior of all other creation (Brent, 2019, pg6). These religions provide that the Supreme Being, the creator gave man dominion over other creatures. This is eminently visible that indeed man is the most superior in all of creation.
The experiences that the people have and how they relate to nature brings about the claim of knowing these things. The daily interaction with the natural environment and the teachings in the holy books seems to conquer. This thus cements the claim for ownership the knowledge.
The supernatural experiences that the people face serves as an indicator that they know. The groups exercise their faiths, and successful results from the faith bring about the fact that they know what their faith entails. It also comes with the teaching and readings from the books for the various group’s teachings.
Faith plays a key role in bringing to reality things which are not seen. This has been seen on various occasions. The Judaeo-Christian, for example, believe in miracles which are beyond biology. It is thus provisional for everyone who subscribes to the religion to adopt the nature of the faith. Often this is not based in evidence but a later manifestation of what was believed when they happen.
Faith can also be taken as trust. I this sense, faith is provided to be more than a belief especially in the Judeo-Christian religion (Dingemans, 2015, pg740). Some parts of the scripture emphasize that faith should be accompanied by the trust which is brought by hope. In James, it challenges the Christians that even demons believe. In other words, they have faith. It is on such occasions that trust will thus distinguish the two believes.
Methodology
Content analysis is the methodology that was used in this research. Several secondary sources were used in the analysis and collection of information. The reason for this method was because the majority of the content is already o written sources I historical books (Krippendorff, 2018). The analysis followed various steps.
The steps involved choosing of all relevant material that was required in the study and the analysis of the topic of research. It involved systematic readings, keying main points and writing of areas of interest on short notes. The texts that seemed relevant would be label though highlighting.
The use of computer technology was very helpful. This was due to easy labeling, filtering, and grouping of information. Multiple references to various sources were made possible. Contents that contained pattern were analyzed using qualitative analysis by the use of statistical methods relevant to the piece of literature (Afifi & Stanley, 2014). The case brought by computers, for example, entailed the use of devices such as machine learning which label a large number of texts.
It entailed mostly analysis of historical books and magazines that presented information on the knowledge of Islamic and Judeo-Christian religions. A collection of the latest updated books and the magazines were used, to ensure that the analysis is up to date. This also owes to the fact that content analysis has been used on the past to analyze sacred. The mass information contained in the e-media would have required content analysis to pick the most relevant information.
Conclusion
In conclusion, knowledge in Islam and Judaeo-Christian presents a religious system based on beliefs whose faiths are separated by slightly different doctrines. The two present a believer in a supreme being who is taken to be the creator, God. A man takes as the most special part of the creation with dominion over the other creatures.
The faiths are grounded on teaching based on the distinct religious books believed to have come from God (Walls, 2015). The contents of the book are taken to be God’s communication and thus sacred. The knowledge is passed to others through teaching and learning at the individual level — the relevance of the content in the book activated by faith which is powered by trust.
Sources of information are basically for the knowledge was from reason, perspective, introspection, testimonies, and memory. All these work together as they appear to come from an individual point of view. The memory works together with introspection which brings about perspective. The reasoning bases on the previous knowledge also retrieved through memory. Finally, all these culminate to testimony especially when truth in the sacred scripture happens to an individual.
The epistemology and ontology focus on the faith of the religions. The faith bases on the fact that the order of the universe and the perfection of laws of nature provide enough evidence of the existence of a supreme being. This also has been evidenced by supernatural happenings such as miracles that make these religions more than just a philosophy but a truth that has been witnessed (Larmer, 2014, pg616). The fulfillment of what the sacred books present considering the ancient days they were written gives the people claim of the information.
The methodology based on content analysis. This was because the content of the paper is from secondary sources. Majority of the sources which are written materials with information from long historical backgrounds. The analysis based on the similarities and differences between the two religions. It looked into the transformation that the religions had undergone and the current position where the initially so sacred writings are now accessible to all under technological influences.
Work Cited
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