Lesson 2.2 — Paul The Convert

Well I just happened to have studied to a degree this topic about Paul in a class about analyzing the bible but the way I too understood it was as most people did with Paul turning its back to Judaism and embracing the new religion of Christianity but after reading this I now understand that is not really the case and that I was ignorant to come to such a simple clear cut conclusion without analyzing more in depth Paul’s life and how at the time Christianity worked different from now. Now I see that Paul kept being a Jew as Christianity at the time was more like a rising Jewish sect than its own religion with the main difference being that it accepted gentiles who did not followed a lot of Jewish laws and now I see that Paul really did specify that Gentiles did not have to follow some of this Jewish laws as they are not part of the Jewish ethnicity but Paul as a jew will continue following this rules.

Its amazing to me that it took so long for scholars to figure this out since from pretty much all the time since Paul was alive everyone has considered him a Jew converted to Christianity and this has led to some less than savory outcomes as it has been used as a reason for Christians to persecute Jews at different times in history. This really shows how important its to real life properly interpreting the life of religious and historical figure as being mistaken can lead to undesirable outcomes.