What Major Religions Practice the teachings of the Old Testament?

Question

The Old Testament is how do I put this, old. One could imagine many different people coming from many different places, times and cultures would embrace this Collection of teachings.

Update:

I should have fraised this question differently.

I am looking for information on what religions read The Old Testament. It dose not matter if it is a major one practiced today or some lost faction of spitual faith from 2000 years ago.

Answer 1

Favorite Answer

There's also Karaism, which is a different form of Judaism than normative Rabbinical Judaism. Karaites only use the Tanakh, and don't believe in the Oral Law (which all other Rabbinical Jews do).

Answer 2

Judaism and Samaritanism (which many may classify as a sub-form of Judaism)

@note on Karaism - this is a hard to define group.

Some consider themselves separate, others recognise themselves as part of the Jewish nation.

Likewise from the other side - in some places "rabinic" (or "normative") Jews saw the Karaites as part of the whole, in others, the "rabinic" Jews regarded the Karaites as "other".

Also - only a sub-segment of Karaites are "purposeful" Karaites - a philosophical movement, while others are "ignorant" Karaites - a Jewish group with less access to the rabinic legislative tradition.

From the side of the evil ones -

the Nazis killed Karaites as Jews.

@Islam -- Islam does not follow "Old Testament" (ie: Hebrew Bible). They follow the Koran and Hadits - many of the stories in these parallel the Hebrew Bible - but it is a wholy different book.

...if we want to talk "micro groups"

- There are the Bnei Menashe in India/Burma - they consider themselves part of the Jewish people but they nevertheless undergo a formal Orthodox conversion -- thus, the technical Jewish view that they agree with is that they are a separate group that is trying to re-blend.

- the Abayudah in Ugandah.

They started keeping Judaism on their own in the 50ies and have been seeking Jews to convert them to "proper" Judaism. Conversions are currently ongoing.

- there is a similar group of Indians in Peru

- the Subotniks of Russia - Russians who rejected Russian Orthodox Christianity in the 18th century. There are actualy some subgroups:

- the "Gers" - like the Abayudah - they sought full conversion to Judaism but were kept separate from Jews by force under the Tzar. Rabbis snuck over when they could to convert people and teach.

- Karaite Subbotniks - they try to follow the "written Torah" only - based on their own interpretation - and they enjoy arguing with "normative" Jews. Before WWII, they tried to keep contact with the Karaites of Russia and used prayer books from them.

- Christian Subbotniks - kinda like Seventh Day adventsts

Answer 3

Judaism. But not literally. Its more about just keeping culture and following the 10 commandments.

Source(s): Jewish

Answer 4

The Orthodox Jews fall in this category. Less than 1% of the world population is Jewish, though. Most Jews live in Brooklyn or Israel, with small enclaves in Europe(screw you, Hitler!) I don't know why Christians aren't Jewish, I mean, Jesus was a Jew..

Answer 5

Islam. As a group, they live perhaps the most biblical of lives. Which should give us some idea of how bad it would be for it to be applied universally.

Answer 6

All the divine books have repeatedly the same message ,,,obey and worship God.

The rest people try to self deceive.