ABSTRACT
Christianity originates from Judaism, from which it departed as a separate religion during the first century. With a number of adherents amounting to approximately 2 billion and represented in all the corners of the world it is the largest of the world religions. The holy scripture of Christianity is the Bible, which consists of two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament corresponds more or less to the Jewish Tanakh, whereas the New Testament narrates the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who is said to have been conceived by a holy spirit and born by a Jewish virgin named Mary. Jesus is estimated to have lived in what today is known as Israel/Palestine between about 4 BCE and about 29-32 CE (MacCulloch 2009: 82-83). During his life, Jesus preached his central message, the restoration of God’s kingdom, and also performed a number of miracles. However, he also managed to provoke the anger of the rulers of Israel and was crucified by the Romans in his early to mid-thirties. The two most important Scriptures of Christianity differ in many respects.
The texts of the Old Testament were originally compiled in Hebrew between the fourth century BCE and c.100 CE, whereas the New Testament was written in Greek and dates back to the first century (Bailey 2006: 25-27; Reichert 2006: 170). The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are described in the four gospels of the New Testament. The Apostle Paul (Saul), whose writings, consisting of thirteen ‘letters’, are included in the New Testament, is generally regarded as the most important interpreter of Christianity. The doctrine of the trinity, according to which God is one totality but takes
the shape of father, son or holy spirit, is a central feature of Christianity. This, however, does not mean that Christians worship three different gods. Christians make an important point in stressing the fact that Christianity, like Judaism and Islam, is monotheistic; in other words, there is only one God but he can appear in different shapes. The monotheism of Christianity is, however, sometimes challenged by Jews and Muslims, who claim that the principle of oneness of god is violated by the doctrine of the trinity.
