[NextUserName]

>Medieval Christian scholars were faced with a dilemma: their religious beliefs required them to believe that the soul was saved through a relationship with Jesus, yet going through the newly discovered Greek and Roman writings it was obvious to them that great men of virtue and honor were alive many centuries before Jesus lived. How could these people be of such high caliber yet believe such vastly different things?

If they were faced with a dilemma than they were certainly fools. Don't Christians believe that God created the world and thus was present long before Jesus was born? Did they think that virtue and honor did not exist (or were not even possible) before the birth of Christ? What about Noah, Job, Moses, David, Joseph, Daniel, The nations of Israel and Judah, ETC. of the old testament. These were scholars and had not read of these people or did not think that great men who were believers in God could influence those outside of their religion in a positive way? Did they not read when king Darius of Babylon make the God of Daniel the Official God of the land?

I am completely confused by this dilemma.

[joshuacc]

The original statement was worded in a slightly misleading way. Medieval Christians weren't confused about virtuous people before Jesus. As you point out, they knew the Old Testament. What they were confused about was the idea of the "virtuous pagan."

[fit2rule]

Oh great, you read the Bible. The Christians you're talking about hadn't even written the thing in their day and age.

[joshuacc]

The Bible was certainly written before the medieval period. The Biblical canon was pretty much set by the late 4th century. And all of the books included in the canon had been complete before that point.