Religious history is often told as a story of divine revelation. The Torah, the New Testament, and the Qur’an are presented as timeless wisdom from heaven. Yet when read historically they reveal a very different pattern. Each book did not simply appear; it was composed to address specific political crises, cultural needs, and struggles for authority. Each new scripture claimed continuity with its predecessor while at the same time declaring itself superior. What results is not a sequence of revelations but a lineage of manuscripts designed to bind communities, consolidate power, and displace rivals.
This is the story of supersession, where every new faith inherits and rewrites the script of the one before it.
Judaism and the Birth of the Tribal God
The Torah, the central text of Judaism, was not conceived as a universal doctrine for all people. It was the constitution of a tribe, a text designed to give scattered Israelite clans a shared identity. Through genealogies, laws, rituals, and myths, it turned a group of competing tribes into a people who believed they were chosen by a jealous god.
As scholar Mark S. Smith observed in The Origins of Biblical Monotheism, early Israelite religion was not pure monotheism but a process of elevating one god above others. The Torah crystallises this transformation. Its stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses are not just narratives but claims of divine favour that legitimise land, law, and conquest.
The function of the Torah was simple: to define who belonged, who did not, and who had the right to rule. Religious devotion and political identity became inseparable. To obey the law of the Torah was to obey the leaders who interpreted it.
Christianity and the Expansion of the Market
When Jesus’ followers began to spread their message, they faced an obstacle. Judaism was deeply rooted in the covenant of the Torah. How could a small sect reach beyond the boundaries of Jewish law? The answer was to reframe the Hebrew scriptures as incomplete.
The Hebrew Bible was renamed the “Old Testament,” a collection that pointed forward to the arrival of the Messiah. The New Testament then declared Jesus to be the fulfilment of every promise and prophecy. As Bart Ehrman has written, “The New Testament authors appropriated Jewish scripture not by rejecting it but by rewriting its meaning.”
This manoeuvre preserved continuity while claiming supremacy. The old covenant was not wrong, it was simply fulfilled. The church then placed itself as the sole interpreter of this fulfilment. Councils determined which gospels were canonical, which letters were authentic, and which doctrines were orthodox. By controlling the text, the church controlled the community.
This was not accidental. It was strategy. By opening itself to gentiles and reinterpreting scripture, Christianity scaled from sect to empire. The Roman adoption of Christianity under Constantine was not a triumph of spiritual purity but of institutional adaptability. The New Testament became a tool of governance as much as a book of faith.
Islam and the Declaration of Final Authority
By the seventh century, Judaism and Christianity already dominated the religious landscape of the Mediterranean and Near East. For Muhammad to establish a new community in Arabia, he needed more than a local cult. He needed a text that claimed both continuity and supremacy.
The Qur’an presents itself as that final revelation. It affirms Abraham, Moses, and Jesus but insists their followers distorted the original message. The doctrine of tahrif (corruption of earlier texts) is central to Islamic theology. As the Qur’an states: “They distort words from their [proper] usages and have forgotten a portion of what they were reminded of” (Qur’an 5:13).
By declaring the Torah and Gospels corrupted, the Qur’an creates space for itself as the true word of God, unaltered and eternal. This claim is reinforced by naskh, the doctrine of abrogation, which allows later verses of the Qur’an to override earlier ones. Revelation becomes adaptive, responsive to circumstances, and firmly under the control of the emerging Islamic community.
As historian Patricia Crone argued, Islam was never just a religion of belief but a scripture-based empire. The Qur’an unified tribes, legitimised conquest, and supplied a comprehensive legal and moral system. It was both a book of prayer and a constitution for statehood.
Why New Scriptures Were Needed
The emergence of each new scripture can be understood in terms of recurring pressures:
- Legitimacy Crises
Judaism had to hold a people together in exile. Christianity needed to justify its break from Judaism while appealing to outsiders. Islam had to establish its authority in a region dominated by two older scriptural traditions. - Institutional Fatigue
Over centuries, older texts became encrusted with disputes and sectarian divisions. A new revelation promised to sweep aside confusion and restore clarity. - Supersession as Strategy
Each text claimed the old was valid in origin but corrupted in practice. This preserved continuity while declaring final supremacy. - Control of Interpretation
New books created new elites. Priests, bishops, and jurists became gatekeepers, translating divine words into law and doctrine. - Political Consolidation
Scripture provided rulers with ideological legitimacy, justifying both obedience and conquest.
Isaac Newton, in his essay An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, pointed out how Christian texts had been altered to strengthen doctrine. He described certain passages as “changed” by later editors to reinforce the Trinity. The very act of corruption shows that scripture was never fixed, but constantly shaped to serve power.
Continuity as a Weapon
The brilliance of each new book lies in its ability to claim continuity while seizing control. Judaism created identity through covenant. Christianity rebranded that covenant as universal and centred on Christ. Islam affirmed the prophets but declared their followers corrupt, presenting itself as the final word.
This tactic is not unique to religion. It mirrors political revolutions, where new regimes often claim to restore a “true” constitution or fulfil a betrayed promise. The rhetoric of continuity provides legitimacy, even as power is radically restructured.
Implications for Today
Once this pattern is recognised, the aura of inevitability disappears. The Torah, the New Testament, and the Qur’an are not timeless revelations but successive projects of authority. The Torah created a people. The New Testament built a church. The Qur’an forged an empire.
Far from liberating humanity, the sky-god books often served to bind people under clerical or political power. Their claim of divine truth masked a human struggle for control.
The critical question for our time is simple: if these texts were always about consolidating power, why should humanity still submit to them? Once we see the scaffolding, the spell is broken.
References and Voices
- Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (on textual variation and reinterpretation)
- Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism (on the consolidation of Israelite religion)
- Patricia Crone, God’s Rule (on Islam as a scripture-based empire)
- Isaac Newton, An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (on textual alteration in Christian doctrine)