Abraham and Threes in Religion

Many believers in some of the 12 recognized classical world religions worship multiple gods. Buddhists, Hindus, ancient Egyptians and others are or were polytheists.  Other believers worship just one god.  Christians, Muslims and Jews are monotheists, and including those who do not believe in any god, then, one group of threes emerges:  atheists, monotheists and polytheists.  The transition from the worship of many gods to the worship of one god or many gods and nature as one began with the appearance of prophets and teachers Jesus and Muhammad, and it can be traced to the forebear of the current monotheist traditions—Abraham.  Much of this shift coincided with a period in Europe and the Middle East during which Rome became the dominant power. 

 

For Jews, Abraham is a revered patriarch, referred to as Our Father Abraham, to whom God made several promises including one big one that guarantees Abraham would have numberless descendants and they would receive the land of Canaan, the "Promised Land.”  For Christians, Abraham is a spiritual forebear rather than a direct ancestor.  For example, Christian iconography depicts him as an early witness to the Trinity in the form of three "angels" who visited him.  In Christian belief, Abraham is a model of faith, and his intention to obey God by offering up his son Isaac is seen as a foreshadowing of God's sacrifice of his son Jesus.  In Islam, Ibrahim is considered to be the first Muslim and part of a line of prophets beginning with Adam.  Abraham is called Our Father Abraham as well as Ibrahim al-Hanif or Abraham the Monotheist.  Islam holds that it was Ishmael rather than Isaac whom Ibrahim was instructed to sacrifice.    

From Threes, Chapter Four, “Threes in Religion and Mythology”