How Old Is Judaism vs Islam — And Where Does Christianity Fit In?

Judaism is widely considered the oldest of the three Abrahamic religions, with roots scholars date to roughly 2000–1800 BCE when God called Abram. The Torah records that Abraham was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael Genesis 16:16, and 100 years old at the birth of Isaac Genesis 21:5, anchoring the patriarchal narrative that forms Judaism's earliest foundation. These accounts place the beginning of the Abrahamic covenant deep in antiquity.

The formal religious and legal identity of Judaism is most often dated to the Exodus and the giving of the Torah at Sinai, events traditionally placed around the 13th century BCE. Moses himself was 80 years old when he confronted Pharaoh Exodus 7:7, a detail that situates the Exodus narrative within a traceable human timeline. This period — roughly 3,300–3,500 years ago — is when many historians and Jewish tradition itself mark the birth of Judaism as a structured, law-based faith.

The prophetic tradition continued for centuries afterward. The prophet Jeremiah records receiving the word of the LORD from the thirteenth year of King Josiah Jeremiah 25:3, roughly 627 BCE, showing that Judaism's scriptural development extended well into the first millennium BCE. Judaism is therefore not a single founding moment but a tradition that deepened over millennia, making it the oldest continuously practiced Abrahamic religion by any measure.

Christianity emerged from within Judaism roughly 2,000 years ago, centered on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in the 1st century CE. It did not see itself as a break from Judaism but as its fulfillment. The Gospel of John records a pointed exchange where Jewish leaders challenged Jesus, saying, 'Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?' John 8:57 — a moment that illustrates how early Christianity situated itself directly within the Jewish patriarchal story while making radical new claims.

Christianity's scriptures draw heavily on the Hebrew Bible, including the genealogies and covenants that trace back to Abraham Genesis 16:16 and Isaac Genesis 21:5. The faith spread rapidly across the Roman Empire after the 1st century CE, becoming a distinct religion separate from Judaism by the late 1st and early 2nd centuries. At roughly 2,000 years old, it is younger than Judaism by at least 1,500 years but older than Islam by about 600 years.

Islam is the youngest of the three Abrahamic faiths, founded in the 7th century CE when the Prophet Muhammad received the first Quranic revelations around 610 CE in Mecca. The religion was formally established with the Hijra (migration to Medina) in 622 CE, the year from which the Islamic calendar begins. This makes Islam approximately 1,400 years old — younger than Christianity by roughly 600 years and younger than Judaism by over 2,000 years.

Despite being the youngest, Islam claims a theological continuity with the very oldest roots of the Abrahamic tradition. The Quran teaches that Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Moses, and Jesus were all Muslim prophets in submission to God, and the Genesis account of Ishmael's birth to Hagar Genesis 16:16 is significant in Islamic tradition, as Ishmael is considered an ancestor of the Arab people and of the Prophet Muhammad himself. Islam thus frames itself not as a new religion but as the restoration of the original, uncorrupted faith of Abraham.

The tribal and genealogical census traditions found in scripture Numbers 1:26 parallel the Islamic emphasis on community lineage and identity. While Islam is the youngest by historical dating, its self-understanding is that it represents the primordial religion, with Muhammad as the final and seal of the prophets — a claim that sets it apart sharply from both Judaism and Christianity.