I just finished reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, and within it, Dawkins states that Judaism likely started as a tribal religion that just so happened to have the right stuff to survive through the ages. This would obviously imply that Christianity and Islam started the same way, since they branched off of Judaism. From a purely historical, nonreligious standpoint, I thought it was fascinating that the god of some otherwise unimportant desert tribe would grow to become the most commonly worshipped thing in the world. What do we actually know about the origins of these religions? My uneducated guess would be that it started during the Jews' time in exile after they fled from Egypt. Knowing that they had a "promised land" to look for would surely have made that time easier. It then had just the right combination of self-replicating traits to survive through the ages. Is anything like this backed by any historical facts? Or is my guess as good as anyone's?
EDIT: I have been told that I should be more specific, so here are my main questions.
What is the oldest mention of the Abrahamic god that we have discovered in texts outside the holy books of those religions? Where and how did we find this writing? What can we infer about the very first days of this religion from that?
What do we know about the origin of the Old Testament? What is the oldest known copy of that? And again, what can we infer about the early days of Judaism from it?
Finally, since it is such a broad topic, what resources exist to learn about the history of these three religions from a completely unbiased point of view?
I haven't read Dawkins book, but it's worth bearing in mind that from what I have come across of his concept that religious features amount to cultural "genes" of, as you say "of self-replicating traits to survive through the ages" simply has no bearing whatsoever on the development of Islam or Islamic law.
Looking for the "reasons" behind why certain groups in Islam fold their hands one way in prayer and another keeps their hands at their sides, to give one such example, is not going to be a fruitful exercise in the study of comparative religion.
As it is, the history of the origin and development of Islam, let alone Christianity and Judaism, is quite an expansive question. As in, it's literally an entire field of study. To put it in national terms, imagine asking "What do we know about the history of France?" Are there any particular aspects of this that you wanted to know about?
There is no exact event or location that we can point to conclude the origins of the main monotheistic tenant that holds the three main Abrahamic faiths together.
There are varying theories on how the Jewish religion began and as /u/CptBuck stated, asking about the origins and development of Islam, let alone the entirety of the Abrahamic religions is an extremely difficult question to answer, that as of now has no empirical answer.
Dawkin's book is not a scholarly work on subject and was widely derided by scholars of theology and history at the time. It's filled with straw men, untruths and poor research. After a terrific run of superb science books this was poor stuff. But it sold a heap perhaps because of the misplaced belief that a clever person well versed in one subject should be trusted on a subject they are not well versed in. The book is junk.