My use of Judeo-Christian as a term is usually when what I’m saying is applicable only to Judaism and Christianity, when it applies to all Abrahamic Religions I do say Abrahamic. And a lot of times it's a term used just to acknowledge the Jewish origins of Christianity in opposition to all the Neo-Marcionites who want to deny or minimize it.
The Three Major Abrahamic Religions form a Venn Diagram, you can make any one of them seem the most different from the other two based on what you choose to Emphasize or De Emphasize. And all three have in common not just what it academically means to be Abrahamic but also our expectation of a future Bodily Resurrection of the Dead, that is why I don't accuse Muslims of being Pagans.
Thing is Christianity’s common ground with either of the others is much more doctrinal, much more tied to the core definition of what being a Christian even is. While the common ground between Judaism and Islam is much more cultural, a product of being more tied to the Near East and Semitic Languages. And indeed Middle Eastern Semitic Speaking Christians seem a lot less different from Jews and Muslims on such things.
I’ve talked before about how the core confessional beliefs of New Testament Christianity are that Jesus is both The Christ/Messiah and The Son of God. Muslims agree that Jesus was The Messiah or Al-Maish. Jews don’t believe Jesus was the Only Begotten Son of God but they do believe all Israelites are Children of God.
I identify with the label Judeo-Christian not because of what that tends to mean politically to American Conservatives who I loath, or because I want to deny that Islam is Abrahamic (which I don’t), or because of my sympathies with the Hebrew Roots movement, or even the Isaac connection I focused on in the Edom post. It’s because what we have in common with Islam over Judaism is something nominal, something with minimal impact on how Islam, as it currently is, actually functions as a Religion while Judaism does still believe in the concept that they believe Jesus was not.
Islam rejects the concept of calling God Father at all, or any people even faithful Believers God’s Children. That’s not an accusation thrown at them by Christian Polemicists, it’s something I’ve seen Islamic Apologists explain and defend. Within Judaism there is dispute on if the Fatherhood of God applies to all of Humanity or only Israel (which has parallels within Christianity), I’ve seen Jewish Websites taking the more exclusivist position quote Rashi as agreeing with them, but today the more Universalist approach has become more popular.
The Fatherhood of God is vital to my Theology, to my Understanding of Universal Salvation. Jesus' status as The Messiah, as a prophesied Savior figure, only has any meaning in the context of being the means by which The Father intends to Save His Children.
Of course there are Christians who’ve functionally removed the Fatherhood of God from how they view His character. What’s I feel is wrong with Islam is largely what it has in common with Calvinism.
This is in my opinion also the key to how to solve the issue of the Quran and later Islamic Sources claiming the Jews claimed an Uzair (commonly mistranslated Ezra) to be the Son of God. I think Sallam ibn Mishkam really condemned Muhammad for rejecting that Israel is God's Son as stated in Exodus 4:22-23 and Hosea 11:1. The Etymology of Uzair I can't be sure of but it could be Usayr ibn Zarim the leader of the Banu Nadir which was Sallam's clan and Muhammad chose to word his response like they were saying this of Usayr specifically.
Sam Aronow is a Jewish History YouTuber who I view as the Modern Josephus in that his presentation of history is better the more recent it is. He provides an invaluable breakdown of the History of Modern Zionism for example. But every video on Ancient History is filled with glaring issues that to someone like me who’s into the primary sources for these subjects are very frustrating to listen to. Saying the Zealots wanted to restore the Davidic Monarchy when they were actually Anarchists is a particular pet peeve of mine.
In his video on the birth of Islam he went on a rant about how he doesn’t like the term “Judeo-Christian” because he feels Judaism has more in common with Islam than Christianity, he’s barely concealing that what motivates this is annoyance at American Conservatives, he’s looking at it through the lens of two religions that are both marginalized minorities in the West and is looking for common ground because of that. But the most recent episodes of his own series have shown how quick and easy it was for Arab Christians and Muslims to find solidarity with each other when they felt threatened by Zionism. And there are now plenty of Fundamentalist Islamic states where it’s Jews and Christians who have a shared status of being oppressed by Islam. I blame Western Imperialism for the current state of the Islamic world, but regardless that’s our reality.
But what’s funny to me is how even though it's motivated by annoyance at political usage of Judeo-Christian in a mostly Protestant Country (Conservative American Jews do go along with it like Ben Shapiro), he’s clearly making his argument based on Catholicism.
Like on the “Central Authority” issue he’s definitely thinking of Catholicism. Low Church Congregational Polity denominations are definitely way less central in their authority then either Judaism or Islam.
Judaism and Islam have a more Dogmatic Ritual Law system while Christianity was never intended to be an Organized Religion in that way. But various strands of Christianity do have cultural practices we debate about, like the Foot Washing argument or when to observe the Eucharist, and of course Baptism.
The idea that in Christianity our Personal Relationship with God is influenced by Worldly Affairs just comes from nowhere, the Relationship with God is via The Spirit. Christians also don’t believe we have any promise that nothing bad will happen to us. The only Christians who believe anything close to that today are the Prosperity Theology heretics who are a unique product of 20th Century American Capitalism.
The concept of a Personal Relationship with God is one Christianity has that the other two don’t according to Aronow, which seems true but for different reasons. For Judaism it’s a matter of where we are on the timeline, Hebrew Bible Prophecies that Christians view as more already Fulfilled then Jews do. For Islam it’s about doubling down on the Platonist heresies of Divine Impassibility and Divine Immutability that they inherited from Greco-Roman Christianity.
I know when you ask Google if Judaism teaches either of those things the first answer you’ll get from the AI Overview is yes because websites like Wikipedia can only interpret that question as asking if The Messiah can be God in The Flesh. But The Hebrew Bible definitely teaches a God who is emotional and changes and Jewish Theologians recognize that, it's also why Augustine wanted to reject the "Old Testament" until Ambrose convinced him he could just allegorize it all away.
Sam Aronow also misunderstands why the Miaphysites (if he’s against calling people things they don’t like being called he should stop saying Monophysites) and Nestorians seemingly have more compatibility with early Islam then the followers of the Imperial Churches. They did not stress the Human Nature of Christ any more than the Chalcedonians did.
A lot of it was being more culturally Semitic, but for Nestorians it was chiefly sharing the extreme view of Divine Impassibility. It was actually only within Chalcedonianism there was ever any resistance to Divine Impassibility especially in the 6th Century when the Fifth Ecumenical Council explicitly affirmed The Theopaschite Formula.
There was no Council of Yavne/Jamnia, that’s a conjecture formed from a few vague Talmudic references to some discussion of the Canon happening there.
Religion for Breakfast has a good video on how there was no one single moment that Judaism and Christianity split but rather many were to some degree getting along attending Synagogue and observing Jewish Feast Days together even into the Fifth Century. The Greco-Roman Emperors and High Church Bishops tended to not like it but for the common people it was a different matter. And this lack of full separation I suspect lasted longer among Semitic peoples and in part explains the origins of Islam.
In a way the belief in a very early clean break between Christianity and Judaism is tied to the popular misconception of Christian persecution under Rome. The Neronian Persecution didn't happen, the persecution under Domitian was part of his persecution of Jews and the same likely applies to what little Roman in origin Christian Persecution happened under Trajan and Hadrian. Christian Persecution happened in select outbursts, originally mostly local. Only the Diocletian Persecution was as intense as popular fiction will present the entire Pre-Milvian Bridge Era. So no, Christians were not by default excluded from the legal protections granted to Jews by Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus and Caracalla. Tertullian talks about Severus being well disposed towards Christians so I get annoyed at him being labeled one of the 10 great Persecutors just because of things that happened during his reign, same goes for Marcus Aurelius. Also no Caracalla did not massacre his own wedding to start a War with Parthia.
Personally I theorize that in the Revolt Against Constantius Gallus some Nicene Christians allied with the Jewish Rebels seeing the Arian Emperor as a common enemy, after all Athanasius was calling him a forerunner of The Antichrist. Cyril of Jerusalem claims loyalty to The Emperor publicly in his surviving letters but I’m skeptical of that. Likewise during the reign of Valens I suspect some Near Eastern Jews may have allied with the Nicene Arab Queen Mawiya. But our later Historians of these events didn’t wanna talk about that.
Aronow’s discussion of Constantine takes at face value too much of what Eusebius says, Eusebius liked to make his fictionalized Constantine a mouthpiece for his own views. The real reason for the desire to stop using the Jewish Calendar for determining the date of Pascha was because of the same issues going on within Judaism at the time, people didn’t like it falling too far from the Spring Equinox. The Kariates came to a similar conclusion.
And Aelia Eudocia wasn’t a Pagan, she was a Christian who even got involved in an internal Christian dispute siding with the Miaphysites in their 452-3 revolt. Another revolt that I speculate might have gotten Jewish support that the chroniclers ignored given Eudocia's friendly relations with the Jews.
I’m not making this post to tell anyone who they should and shouldn’t feel solidarity with. I’m simply showing why it’s not nonsense to see Christianity and Judaism as more like each other than either is to Islam.
