I had an interesting question in email:  “what religion did people practice before Christ?”  The short answer is the Jewish faith.  Of course there were other religions, as there are now, but the forerunner of Christianity was Judaism.

Jesus (the Christ) was a Jew.  He also said that He came to fulfill every aspect of the Jewish law as told in Scripture.  Much prophecy in the Bible points to Christ, so in hindsight as we look at the Christ we now know and project back across what we call the Old Testament, we see a continuity.  Jesus was the Father’s plan all along, and the world was being prepared for Christ’s coming at exactly the planned time.

As far as whether those people who accepted Scripture before Christ came were saved:  see a recent comment to a similar question under Open Questions.  The short answer is “yes”, if they accepted the knowledge of God that He had provided up to that point.