📜 Stacking scripture upon scripture

One reason Christianity was so open to various interpretations is that it’s a religion

built on another religion, embracing the writings of the original — Jewish — tradition

as its own.

The Holy Scripture consists of the much-older Jewish Bible (the Old Testament) with

the newer, Christian writings from the first century AD (the New Testament). From the

get-go, Christians had to make decisions about how to reconcile this wealth of

literature. What did these incredibly rich writings — often seemingly contradictory from

one book to another and from Old to New Testaments — really mean?

By necessity, Church fathers based their teachings on interpretations — not always

agreed upon among themselves — of God’s will. For example, although Christians

revere the Hebrew Scriptures, they never followed many Hebrew laws. Judaism’s

dietary restrictions and ritual circumcision weren’t part of the new religion. Saint Paul,

a Jewish rabbi before his conversion, brought the gospel message to many gentiles

(non-Jews) in the first century AD. He taught that Christians who were not by birth

Jews could disregard these Hebrew requirements