Posted by Losky Lion on July 13, 1999 at 10:18:39:

In Reply to: Re: Roman Philosophy Negligable...? posted by LanceD on June 02, 1999 at 00:27:11:

Although not your main point, you strike out on interesting ground by commenting that Paul was not a Jewish thinker. It is my guess he would take exception with you. One's opinion of the degree to which Paul was or was not Jewish in his thought would be influenced by one's understanding of what he was up to and how it related to the Jewish ideas that came before him. If one sees Christianity as striking out in a completely new direction as to Judaism, then yes, one might argue that Paul was something other than Jewish in his thought. However, if one views Christianity as a continuation or extension of Old Testament Jewish religion, then Paul could be easily understood as being in that flow of ideas.

It is my opinion that Paul understood himself and the Christianity he knew and experienced to be the intended and logical continuation of the Jewish religion. The fact that he played a prominent role in the universalization of Christianity does not contradict its primarily Jewish roots. Both the ideas of Savior and the universality of the Christian message are clearly alluded to in numerous Old Testament texts.

Therefore, while it is easy for us to look back and say "Well, Christianity is clearly something different from Judaism," Paul understood himself as a sort of bridge between these two worlds, the one leading or tending towards the other. It is easy for us to look at Paul after 19 centuries of Church history and miss the fact that he was a Jewish-Christian, and that in his mind these two realities were complementary and organically related rather than contradictory.

I might also add that through his role in the spread of Christianity, he made a significant contribution to western thought through the dissemination of Judeo-Christian morality. Secularists, however, would try to find a different source for the moral base of Western Civilization.

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