> Orthodox jews are the ones who live by it, but you'd think anyone who believed in the bible would follow outright restrictions like that. Both Christianity a

> Orthodox jews are the ones who live by it, but you'd think anyone who believed in the bible would follow outright restrictions like that. Both Christianity and Islam preserve a place for Jews as Jews in their theology. Only Jews are expected to be required to obey all the rules in the received scripture. Which components of the Jewish law are considered to apply to non-Jews, or carried forward as part of the newer revelation, depends on their interpretation, including the function or purpose they're understood to serve. Conversely, Judaism itself has both concepts and literal rules for determining and justifying which rules (or derivatives) are supposed to be applied to non-Jews. Also, though I'm not sure about Islam's perspective, both Judaism and Christianity understand Jews to have (present tense) a unique relationship to God, and part of that relationship demands Jewish obeyance, at least part, purely for the sake of manifesting that relationship. So if God commanded Jews to stand on their head, it doesn't matter whether that rule served some efficacious esoteric purpose; the pertinent function of the rule from an earthly perspective is defining and distinguishing who is a Jew, and especially an observant Jew. If you're commanded to stand on your head, you stand on your hand without asking questions; subservience--faithfulness--is the point.