Did Paul view Christianity as a Jewish religion?

Answer 1

A:In his epistles, Paul seems proud of his own Jewishness. He took the Jewish laws on diet and circumcision so seriously that he felt the need to justify that these laws need not be followed by gentile converts, and even sought the approval of the Church in Jerusalem for his decision to exempt gentile converts from circumcision. There is no doubt that Christianity at this stage saw itself as a Jewish sect and that Paul supported that view. A:Many others come to the exact opposite position with the exact same evidence. Paul, although adhering to Jewish traditions, began to convert non-Jews to Christianity without passing them through Jewish rites. This would seem to indicate that he believed that the new generation of Christians were no longer Jewish or at least no longer Jewish in any meaningful traditional sense. These new converts, according to Paul's own Epistles, did not have to observe the Sabbath in the Pharasaic fashion nor restrict their eating practices.