Old Testament Seminar

Intertestamental Years

Intertestamental Years

Close of OT

1. Last OT book – Malachi
2. About 400BC

Opening of the NT

1. Time of Christ

Political Changes

Persia (539-331 BC)

1. Permit the return to Palestine

Greece (331-143 BC)

1. Unites the world with one language – lingua franca
2. Empire divided among four generals
3. Ptolemy rules Egypt and Israel
4. Antiochus Epiphanes (Dan 11)
5. Seleucid – Maccabean revolt
   1. Mattathias and Judas Maccabeus are the key names in the Maccabean revolt
   2. Recorded in the book of First Maccabees
   3. Origin of Hanukkah (Feast of dedication/lights)

Hasmonean Rule (142-63 BC)

1. Israel an independent nation for 79 years

Rome (63 BC ff.)

1. Rome brings peace and stability to the land.
2. Establish Herod as governor then tetrarch

In all, the people had 400 years of constant change, war, and political confusion

Religious Changes

Synagogues rise to importance

1. Develops from captivity and localizes religion
2. In order to have a synagogue a group needed to have a minimum of ten men.
3. If you did not have ten men then you went to the river as a designated meeting area.
4. Temple worship is diminished

Religious Leadership diversified

1. Pharisees
   1. Largest group
   2. Most conservative group
   3. Controlled the synagogues
2. Sadduces
   1. Controlled the temple
   2. Theologically liberal
   3. Did not believe in angels, resurrection
3. Sanhedrin
   1. The collition of the left and the right that come together to make religious decisions.
4. Zealots
   1. Sicarri
      1. Names after a dagger (curved weapon of assassination)
5. Essenes
   1. Believed to be in Qumran and have produced the DSS
   2. Essentially checked out of society
   3. Possibly some connection between the Essenes and John the Baptist. Perhaps his parents died early. His parents were old when he was born. John was comfortable in the dessert. Note: Locust is not a bug but rather the fruit of the locust tree.
   4. One of the largest mass suicides in history the night before the Romans would have conquered them at Masada.

Hanukkah added to religious festivals

1. Also Purim from Esther

Temple remodeled by Herod

1. begun in 20 BC

Cultural Changes

Hebrew Language

1. Hebrew is no longer spoken by common man in Israel since returning from captivity
2. Aramaic commonly spoken
3. Greek is known universally
4. Hebrew becomes the language of the scholar

Rise of Hellenism

1. Needed to define what makes someone ‘Jewish’
   1. The answer they come up with is that the woman determines the Jewishness. Note: this is the same as today in Judaism.
2. Rise of the Samaritan problem