Abrahamic

Abrahamic

English

Christian, Islamic, Jewish, and Baháʼí symbols

Etymology

Abraham +‎ -ic

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /eɪ.bɹəˈhæm.ɪk/
• (US) IPA^(key): /eɪ.bɹəˈhæm.ɪk/

• Audio (US)

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Adjective

Abrahamic (comparative more Abrahamic, superlative most Abrahamic)

1. Pertaining to Abraham, the patriarch. [First attested in the early 19^th century.][1]
   • 1832, Issac Cullimore, “Criteria for Determining the Accuracy of Scripture Chronology”, in The Morning watch: or, Quarterly journal on prophecy, and theological review, volume 4:

     [T]he Noachic and Abrahamic churches are connected by Shem, and the other long-lived patriarchs, who existed before the apostasy of Noah's posterity, and survived it

   • 1896, James S. Kennedy, “Spiritual Development of St. Paul”, in The Methodist review‎, page 66:

     Paul's faith was at this crisis in his spiritual illumination more Abrahamic than Christlike in its character.

2. (of a religion) Descended from the religious tradition of Abraham.
   • 2005, Yvonne Sherwood and Kevin Hart, quoting Jacques Derrida, Derrida and Religion: Other Testaments, page 121:

     [The messianic] does not belong properly to any Abrahamic religion (even if I may here continue “entre nous” for essential reasons of language and of place, of culture, and of provisional rhetorical and historical strategy of which I will speak later, to give to it names inscribed by the Abrahamic religions).

   • 2007, Hent De Vries, Religion: Beyond a Concept, →ISBN, page 123:

     Most anthropologists, myself at the forefront, are doubtless incredibly naive about the nature of Christianity and provincial with respect to the depth and riches of Abrahamic-based theory for the analysis of religious phenomena more broadly no less than for philosophy.

   • 2009, Stig Jarle Hansen, Atle Mesøy, Tuncay Kardas, The Borders of Islam, →ISBN, page 158:

     Christianity, not Islam, was the first of the Abrahamic cults to come to the Sudan.

   Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Baháʼí Faith are all Abrahamic religions.

Usage notes

Not all religions that revere Abraham are considered Abrahamic. The term always covers Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and often includes Baháʼí. Other faiths descended from these religions, such as Rastafari and Mandaeism, are sometimes not described as Abrahamic even if they consider Abraham holy.[2]

Synonyms

• (pertaining to Abraham): Abrahamical, Ibrahimic
• (of the family of religions revering Abraham): Abrahamist, Ibrahimic, Semitic, Judeo-Christo-Islamic

Derived terms

• Abrahamic religion

Related terms

• Abrahamism

Translations

pertaining to Abraham

Asturian: abrahámicu (ast) Catalan: abrahàmic Chinese: Mandarin: 亞伯拉罕的／亚伯拉罕的 (zh) (Yàbólāhǎn de) Finnish: abrahamilainen French: abrahamique (fr) Polish: Abrahamowy (pl) m Portuguese: abraâmico

pertaining to Abrahamic religions

Asturian: abrahámicu (ast) Catalan: abrahàmic m Chinese: Mandarin: 亞伯拉罕諸教／亚伯拉罕诸教 (Yàbólāhǎn zhūjiào), 亞伯拉罕宗教／亚伯拉罕宗教 (Yàbólāhǎn zōngjiào) Finnish: abrahamilainen French: abrahamique (fr) German: abrahamitisch Hungarian: ábrahámi (hu) Polish: abrahamiczny (pl) m, abrahamowy (pl) m Portuguese: abraâmico

Noun

Abrahamic (plural Abrahamics)

1. a member of an Abrahamic religion: usually Christians and Muslims, and also Jews.

References

1. Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief; William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “Abrahamic”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 7.
2. “Meanings of ambiguous terms beginning with the letters "A" to "R"”, in (please provide the title of the work)‎, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, accessed 2012-06-09