The similarity in the birth story of Christian prophet Jesus and prophet of Jews Moses and its more similarity with birth story of Lord Krishna inspires me to talk on the religions in new way.
Moses the prophet of Jews took birth in Egypt when Jews were slaves under Pharaoh of Egypt and one day Pharaoh was told by one priest that he has dreamed that one child who would born in Slave family will destroy the hegemony of Pharaoh and end his empire . Pharaoh ordered his army to search every house of Jewish slaves inside Egypt and murder every new born babies but the parents of Moses have been able to smuggle him anyhow and left him in a river and it was the destiny of Moses that other day the princess of Egypt received the bucket with a child in river and she adopted him as her son and took care of him along with her other son as part of royal family and later he become the prince of Egypt as he was the elder brother but as a prince he revolted against the inhuman behaviour of Pharaoh on slave Jews and he decided to free his people from the slavery of Pharaoh.
After disobeying the pharaoh he left the Egypt and received the commnad of God that he is the “ Chosen son of God” . He went back to Egypt and motivated the Jews Living in Egypt as slaves for a long time with his divine powers and does miracles to successfully escpae his people from Egypt to make them free .
Later he was revealed with commandments from God which later become commandments for Jews which is popularly known as Ten commandments. Interestingly Moses saw God in the form of divine Light and God told him “ I am That I am” later it become famous as moses code and till date the mysticism of Judaism heavily depneds on this code and their spiritual and mystic tradition Kabbalah also follows this principle which transformed itself from time to time and most of the celebrities in Hollywood practice Kabbalah .
( This story seems mixture of Lord Krishna and Karna).
The birth story of Jesus also echoed the birth story of Lord krishna as he also born in captivity and secrecy.
I suppose that Indian tradition always believed in memorasing the stories and passing it to next generation with narrting the stories and due to this tradition the birth story of Lord Krishna has been preserved for several hundreds years and the business ties of ancient India with other cultural and business centres spread the story of Lord Krishna and Mahabharat to other cultures as well .
Now it is time for us to think seriously to research the influence of Indian tradition and culture on Abrahmic faith to get some common point.
As long as my views on religion is concerned I believe that every religion is highly influenced under the circumstances of its origin, evolution and geography later on it depends how one interpretate it. Like human being religion is also part of a process of evolution and if Humans get changed as that religion too
There are two ways to look into the history and evolution of religions. One is subjective way to be faithful and mix myths with history and not allow Myths to be looked into rational prizm and other way is to be faithful and even having respect for religion but looking into its history and its evolution process in academic and critical way as neutral observer.
Every religion and sect are interconnected in one way or the other and every religion or sect has some impact on it of its previous faiths and also with a temptation to align it with those previous symbols and places which were source of strenght and symbols of power.
As Judaism is the first monolitihic religion and its strength and source of faith and power lies in Jerusalem and that is the reason when Prophet of Islam came out with his new prophecy and revelations of God to him he tried hard to get the legitimacy of elite Jews from Jersusalem to be allowed to use Jerusalem to preach his message and communicate a message of power associated with this place. Before Islam the prayer was offered towards the direction of Jerusalem but when he did not succeed to get the legitimacy of Jerusalem he commads his followers to offer prayer in the direction of Mecca.
The similar case was with Lord Budhha in India also . When he came out with his new divine message he also tried to associate himself with Varansi the then spiritual capital and source of strenght and power . When he has not been able to do so he decided to choose the place very near to Varansi that is Sarnath.
Every religion or sect has impact of tecahings and rituals of its previous faiths as christinaity is very much near to Buddhism in its rituals and even they have borrowed most of their missionary mechanism from the Math tradition of Buddhism.
It is also true with Hindu religion aslo which is presently not the purest form of Vedic school of thought and today which is being defined as Hindu religion is mixture of Vedic thoughts which mostly draws inspiration from Shiv and Shakti form of the cosmic emenrgy later the influence of Egypt, Roman and Greeks and other ancient cultures infused few elements into Hinduism which later pave the way for the evolution of the Vaishanvite form of Hinduism and lord Krishna become symbol of amalgamation and infusion of these thoguths and influecne and that’s why there is difference between ShrimadbhagwadGita and Bhagwat Puran as former has Lord Krishna as its hero but later has Narayan as its hero who sounds more different from sages and saints and looks more a clever figure who want to establish his supremacy anyhow. He legitimsed himself with help of Lord Krishna . This is the reason why in the Middle ages when Bhakti movment took Ram and Krishna as their symbolism to soft revolt against the Islamic rulers to not accept their supremacy their portrayal of Lord Ram and Krishna was totally different from the Narayan of Bhagwat puran , later the rituals and teachings of Budhhism and Jainism also created a impact on Hinduism . Hindu religion has also evolved itself and trasformed it with according to the need of the hour.
There is only one thing have been common with Hindu religion in all its period of evolution and that is the concept of “ Eternity of Atma beyond life” and concept of cycle of Karma and rebirth. Hindu religion and all the religions with indian origin are unanimous in both of these doctrine . The major difference between Hindu religion and religions of Indian origin and Semitic religions is the Divine book and Prophecy. But it can be narrowed down if Hindus start propagating their strength which lies in the doctrine of “ Eternity of Atma beyond life” and Concpet of rebirth with cycle of Karma .Even without defining or accepting the elternity of Atma at the extent of depth of Hindu religion or other religions of Indian origin the mysticims in semitic traditions also not rejct or rule out totally the doctrine of expression of divinity in the form of light the supreme power above the limits of three dimensional bodily reach and they also believe in the continuity of life beyond this body. If it would not have been the case the concpet of Dooms day and lighting the cadles on the graves of forefathers would not have been the part of semitic traditions.
In Last centuries human being have fought in the name of religion because motive was to fight not to coexist but in this century we can work to evolve commonality between religions on their core principle of spiritulity not on the outer form of divisions which highly depends on the geographical and other certain conditions.