INTERTESTAMENT PERIOD-THE
SILENT YEARS
INTRODUCTION:
Many Christians act as though background and context are unimportant to under -standing the New Testament. The way we ignore the Old Testament, you might think God had wasted his time all those years. It is difficult for us to grasp that the more we study the Old Testament the better we understand the New Testament. The same can be said of the Intertestament Period – “The Silent Years.” Most of us step out of Malachi right into Matthew. That causes real problems. However, you can’t read very far into your NT without coming across some things your OT did not prepare you for: Pharisees, Sadducees, Greek speaking Jews, chief priests, Herodioans, king Herod the tetrarch, Roman procurators and governors, synagogues, which all have their roots in the Intertestament Period. The world Jesus was born was a product of both ancient and recent history. A clear understanding of both helps us to gain a clearer understanding of him.
I.
External
Developments Shaping the New Testament World thru the OT
The Book of Daniel was, for the Jew of the Intertestament Period a road map to the future. In this book, God specifically reveals the shape of world over a 400+ years period.
A. Nebuchadnezzars’s Dream
1. Daniel 2:36-38 - Babylon is the head of gold.
2. Daniel 2:39a - Medo-Persia is the chest of silver.
3. Daniel 2:39b –Greece is the loins of brass.
4. Daniel 2:40 -Rome is the legs of iron mixed with miry clay.
B. Daniel’s Dream and Antiochus Epiphanes
1. Daniel 8:3-14
a. Ram with 2 horns =Media and Persia (vs 20)
b. Goat = Greece (vs 21); horn =Alexander
c. “Another horn” =Antiochus Epiphanes
2. The persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes
3. The Maccabean Revolt
II Internal Developments Shaping the New
Testament World thru the OT
A. History of Israel’s “Decline and Fall”
1. 1010 -930 B.C 80 years-Zenith of Israel
a. King David –unifying the Kingdom
b. King Solomon –establishing regal reign
2. 930 -586 B.C. - The Demise of Israel
a. Division of the Kingdom - 975 B.C. 1 Kings 12
b. Altars built in Dan and Bethel (Samaria) 1 Kgs 13
c. Destruction of Israel -721 B.C. 2 Kings 17
d. Destruction of Judah -586 B.C. Daniel 1
B. An Imitation Kingdom
4. Return of the Exiles -538, 458, 445 B.C. Nehemiah--Ezra
5. Political Realities
a. Israel was no longer an independent nation. The kingdom of Israel, that reached such splendor during the reign of Solomon, came to a crushing end with its final capture by Babylon in 586 B.C. There was 70 years of captivity during which the Southern Israelites (Judah & Benjamin) became known as Jews. (Esther) Also the “synagogue” became a place for worship while the Jews were dispersed with no temple.
b. King Cyrus of Persia allowed a remnant of Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild. (538 – 445 B.C.)
c. Slightly more than a hundred years later, the Persian Empire was overrun by the Greeks under Alexander, The Great. (325B.C.?)
d. Translation of Hebrew Scriptures into Greek by 70 Egyptian
Jews and by 70 Jerusalem Jews.
C. Between Alexander the Great and Jesus Christ. (325 B.C. – A. D.)
6. Alexanderian, Egyptian, Syrian, Maccaabean, Roman Periods
7. Antiochus III the Great, a hundred plus years after Alexander, gained possession of Palestine in 198 B.C., with the help of the Jews.
8. The Jews revolted against Antiochus due to his Hellenistic views (converting Jewish rituals into Grecian)
9. Maccabean Period. (165 -63 B.C.) Judas Maccabeus followed after the death of his father and became the leader of the Jewish patriots, and governor of Palestine, rededicating the temple (feast of Purification). Later assassinated thus leading, to various wars until the Romans brought peace through their domination with a powerful garrison of troops.
10. Enter the Caesars and the Herods.
THE RELIGIOUS WORLD BEFORE AND AFTER CHRIST
Christianity did not begin its growth in a religious vacuum in which it found people blankly waiting for something to believe. On the contrary, the new faith in Christ had to fight its way against entrenched religious beliefs that had been in existence for centuries. Many had degenerated into feeble superstitions and meaningless rituals; others were relatively new and vigorous. In general, there were five distinct types.
The Graeco-Roman Pantheon – the fusion of Greek and Roman religious cultures.
Pantheon – all the gods of a people.
A temple dedicated to all gods.
Animism – the religion in early Rome. The belief that natural phenomena or inanimate objects possess spirits.
Emperor
Worship
The fact that the head of the Roman state, a single person, had so much power for the good of the empire created the feeling that there must be something divine in him. Caesars deified at death by vote of Roman Senate (Julius, Augustus, Caligula, etc). Domitian first to compel his subjects to worship while he reigned.
Mystery
Religions
Neither State religion nor emperor worship offered protection and personal faith to the worshipper, thus they sought an experience by contact with deity. Religions from the Eastern origin fulfilled that desire (Egypt, Asia & Persia). Isis was the sister and wife of Osiris, and goddess of fertility of Egypt. They promised immortality and social equality with personal experience. Worship of angels condemned by Paul, Col. 2:18-19.
Worship of the Occult – secret, mysterious, supernatural, beyond human comprehension. Magic, horoscopes, palm readers, physics, astrology. Copernican system of astrology – sun the center of the solar system rather than the earth, causing astrology to loose much of its influence during the time of Christ. (Acts 8:9-24; 13:6-11; 19:19; I Cor. 10:20-21) Forbidden in OT, Deut. 18:10-12, 20; Mic. 5:12.
The
Philosophies
The attempt to
correlate all existing knowledge about the universe into systematic form and to
integrate human experience with it. The
formulation of knowledge into a coherent system should be governed by the rules
of logic man has devised.
Platonism
from Plato
Athenian philosopher, 4 B.C. The concept of the abstract thinking. The real is a copy of the ideal. To become real, one must escape from the
unreal through meditation, reflection and asceticism, dualism (strict or severe discipline)
Gnosticism (gnosis – knowledge, to know)
A system that promised salvation by knowledge. Matter was evil. God was good to create evil. The body thus was evil and must be brought under control. The spirit was real, the body unreal and therefore its gratification had no effect on the ultimate salvation of the spirit (Col. 2:8, 21)
Neo-Platonism (Plotinus of Lycopolis in Egypt, 204-269 A.D.)
The spirit was considered to be inevitably good and the body inherently evil. Salvation consisted in eliminating completely all bodily desires as one gradually retreated from the life dependent on sensation and moved toward the life of the spirit, which would finally be achieved by death. Then true spiritual life would blossom. Bodily resurrection was condemned. (1 Cor. 7 & 8)
Epicureanism (Epicurus – 306 B.C. in Athens)(Fore runner of evolutionism)
Universe came by accident. No recognition of immortality. Anti religious, anti-God, only gods in thought (evidence in reason) who is inaccessible. What ever is right or feels right, and is not injurious, go for it. (Acts 17:18, 32).
TERMINOLOGY (Glossary)
ETRUSCANS inhabitants of Northern Italy (Modern Tuscany) Pertaining to civilization of art, language, etc.
CARTHAGE ancient city-state in North Africa (modern Tunis) destroyed by Romans in 146 B.C.
PHOENICIA ancient maritime country on the East Coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
ALEXANDER Grecian general and world conqueror – 356 B.C. – 323 B.C.
THE GREAT King of Macedonia, 336 B.C. – 323 B.C.
OLIGARCHY form of government in which the power is vested in a few or dominant class, a clique.
MERCENARY hired soldier working for a foreign army.
AUTOCRATIC rule by an autocrat, a monarch with absolute rule by inherent right, not subject to restricts.
TRIUMVIRATE a coalition of three magistrates or rulers by joint administration.
GAUL ancient region in Western Europe, what is now Northern Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Switzerland.