On Sun, 27 Oct 2013 07:02:44 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net>
wrote:

>On Sat, 26 Oct 2013 12:45:22 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
><grammatim@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>On Saturday, October 26, 2013 11:41:22 AM UTC-4, Whiskers Catwheezel wrote:
>>
>>> Moses is the one with whom the distinctive teaching and traditions
>>> inherited by Jews Christians and Moslems can be seen to begin, and from
>>> which they began to diverge around 2000 years ago. He seems to be the
>>> first 'prophet' to commit his teaching to writing, thus creating 'th
>>> book' which the Koran mentions as the core of what Jews Christians and
>>> Moslems believe in common.
>>
>>Show the biblical or qur'anic genealogy that traces an eponymous ancestor
>>of the Arabs, or of Muslims, to Moses.
>
>The biggest Muslim country in the world today is Indonesia, and I think that
>very few trace there their ancestry in that way.
>
>>Your options are Abraham's grandson Esau (preferred by some) and Abraham's

Who prefers Esau to Jacob?

>>son by Hagar, Ishmael.
>
>Christian writers of the 7th-8th centuries referred to Muslims as
>"Ishmaelites", but that was because they were living in countries that had
>been conquered by Muslim Arabs.
>
>But if you want to know the historical origins of the religions, as opposed to
>groups of people who espoused those religions, then both Christianity and
>Rabbinic Judaism arose from Second-Temple Judaism. I'm sure you already know
>that, since it probably touches on your own field of study. And Mohammed who
>had had some contact with fringe elements of both, combined them with a few
>additions of his own into a third religion.
>
>The point is that they didn't diverge after Abraham (which is why "Abrahamic"
>can be misleading). They diverged most significantly after the destruction of
>the second temple, and Islam reflects a convergence of some elements.

But both Jews and Moslems teach that Arabs descend from Ishmael,
Abraham's older son. Even though they both know that Muhammed wasn't
born until about 2300 years later.