Is there any religion known to have inspired the creation of other religions?

Question

Many religions share same stories, Christianity, Judaism and Islam for example (the ones I know of at least). Some of those stories could even be traced to earlier civilizations in the Middle East region, like the belief in resurrection, God (gods) intervention in the worldly affairs, heaven, hell etc. My question is could we trace these ideas to one ancient religion? That is was their a religion to have been a focal point of all religion of which basic religious ideas came up and been absorbed and modified by other religions? Or were they generally the product of many stories of many unrelated not connected religions which developed separately?

Answer 1

Religions are cultural concepts, they evolve through the time, adapting some ideas from others, providing some new ones, etc. For example, having Christianity of 500 AD, you'd be able to point out some concepts taken (directly or not quite so) from Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Neoplatonism, etc. Then, Christianity itself influenced Islam, Manicheism, lots of Gnostic denominations. Putting these influences graphically, the graph would be in my opinion pretty dense.
The answer to the question would be, that yes, we'd be able to point out some religions, like Judaism, Zoroastrianism, hypothetical Proto-Indo-European cult, etc., which had greater influence than others, and developed concepts used later by many others through the time. But, whose influence was greater, more inspirational, etc., that's highly speculative and controversional, hence - there will be no concrete answer.

Answer 2

No I dont think we could trace it all back to one religion. Religion is a big part of the human experience the need to create a mythical realm where we go after death, seems to be a part of just about every culture. The major religions of today are likely derived from several older religions.