Christian Philosophy - Origins

Origins

See also: Paul of Tarsus and Judaism

There is no record of any written works produced by Jesus. Nor is there a record of any any systematic philosophy or theology written by him. Several accounts of his life and many of his teachings are recorded in the New Testament. Those records form the basis for some Christian philosophies, such as Jesusism.

Saul of Tarsus (later Paul the Apostle or St. Paul) was a Jew who persecuted the early Christian church and who helped to facilitate the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, a Greek-speaking Jewish Christian. Saul underwent a dramatic conversion, becoming a Christian leader who wrote a number of epistles, or letters, to early churches in which he taught doctrine and theology. In some ways he functioned in the manner of the popular marketplace philosophers of his day (Cynics, Skeptics, and some Stoics). A number of his speeches and debates with Greek philosophers are recorded in the Biblical Book of Acts, and his epistles became a significant source for later Christian philosophies.

Read more about this topic:  Christian Philosophy

Famous quotes containing the word origins:

    “Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
    —W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)

    “Lucretius
    Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
    smiling carves dreams, bright cells
    Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
    —Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)

    “Grown onto every inch of plate, except
    Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
    Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
    Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
    The origins of art.”
    —Howard Moss (b. 1922)