Introduction to Judaeo-Christianity

THE NEW TESTAMENT AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Having emerged from the Roman Empire which adopted much of the Ancient Greek tradition, the New Testament is written in a Hellenistic context – it brings Greek philosophy into a Judaeo-Christian understanding of God. However, whilst this has lead to many parallels between Plato’s Form of the Good, Aristotle’s Prime Mover and the Judaeo-Christian God, the Ancient Greek approach to theology is markedly different to that of Judaeo-Christianity.

THE DIFFERENCE IN APPROACHES

The key difference is that the Greeks adopted a philosophical approach to solving the mystery of the divine. Their concepts of the Form of the Good and the Prime Mover have been devised as an attempt to logically explain the existence of mankind and provide a purpose for life. A Greek philosopher’s starting point therefore is to form a rational, coherent argument to explain why God may or may not exist. However the Judaeo-Christian approach is…