Charles L. Cohen

“Relegating Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to separate spheres discounts their affinities. Even as they strove to differentiate themselves polemically, they acknowledged that they shared a common deity and took notice of each other's sacred texts.”
― Charles L Cohen, The Abrahamic Religions: A Very Short Introduction: A Very Short Introduction

“Notwithstanding the preeminence of cultic observances, religious life during the Second Temple era increasingly emphasized personal duties to purify oneself, follow the Torah, and perform daily rites. Jews prayed in both public and private, beyond as well as within Jerusalem. Scripture study emerged as a principal function of a new local institution, the synagogue. Injunctions for holy living (like dietary prohibitions) multiplied. This shifting emphasis toward God's relationship with Jews individually, as opposed to Israel collectively, was manifested theologically by an intensified interest in the workings of God's justice and personal redemption, stimulating heated speculation about resurrection, free will, and eternal judgment. In some circles, apocalyptic (Greek, "revelation") theories explaining evil's persistence and Jews' subordination posited a final war between the righteous and the wicked in which the former would triumph, led by a messiah (mashiach, "anointed one") who was ordinarily conceived as a transcendently powerful human figure and occasionally as a cosmic one. Still, Jews coalesced around their rules of conduct, not their beliefs.”
― Charles L Cohen, The Abrahamic Religions: A Very Short Introduction: A Very Short Introduction