NT SURVEY // UNIT - 1 // LESSON - 1 // INTERTESTAMENTAL PERIOD //

 UNIT - 1                                                                                                                    LESSON - 1

INTERTESTAMENTAL PERIOD

The Intertestamental Period began with the completion of the Old Testament. From the time of the prophecy of Elijah to come in the closing chapter of the book of Malachi (Mal 4:5-6) until the announcement by the angel of the impending birth of John the Baptist to his father (the priest named Zacharias in Lk 1:11-20) there ensued a period of some 400 years in which there was no word of communication from God to man. This period has been called the “four hundred years of silence.” During this period many remarkable changes occurred in the world that shaped the future history of the nation of Israel and prepared the way for Jesus Christ, Messiah, also called the Son of God as well as the Son of Man.

 

I. Assyria and Babylon. (722 - 539 B.C.)

A.      In 722 B.C. Assyria had conquered the northern kingdom, Israel, but the kingdom of Judah remained an independent kingdom until the entrance of Babylonian influence in Palestine. In 605 B.C., right after the fall of Egypt to Babylon at the second battle of Carchemish, Judah became a part of the Babylonian Empire. The first deportation occurred in 605 B.C. (Including the prophet Daniel) and much of the Temple treasures were confiscated under king Nebuchadnezzar.

B.      Several Judaean rebellions occurred under king Jehoiakim and his son, king Jehoiachin, and as a consequence, in 597 B.C. after a short three month reign of the son, the second major deportation of Jews took place.

C.       Nebuchadnezzar then appointed Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle to the throne and changed his name to Zedekiah. Against the advice of the prophet Jeremiah, Zedekiah also tried another revolt with Egypt as allies. Egypt failed to support Judah in this effort and a long and catastrophic siege of Jerusalem began which ended with the slaughter of Zedekiah’s sons and his being blinded and carried off to Babylon. At this time, 586 B.C., the third major removal of the people took place.

D.      The seventy years of exile, 605 - 535 B.C.. During this time we see the rise of Synagogues as places of worship. Never meant to be a replacement for the Temple, these were simply utilized as places of worship of Jehovah as well as places of study of the Scriptures and, of course, places of Jewish fellowship. These places later became centers for the preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles upon the establishment of the Christian Church by Christ, which in reality was a Jewish Messianic Church, some 600 years later. Also during this exile we see the rise of the group known as “the scribes” which were priests who no longer could fulfil their appointed ministry so they turned their attention to the copying and study of the Old Testament scriptures. Soon, because of this, they became the learned theologians of Judaism.

II. Persia (539 - 331 B.C.)

A.      The conquering of Belshazzar of Babylon in 539 - 538 B.C. by Cyrus marked the end of the Babylonian Captivity and placed the Jews under the dominion of the MedoPersian Empire. When Cyrus conquered Media and then began expanding his kingdom, he soon become the ruler of the then known world. When God moved upon Cyrus’ heart, he became sympathetic to the Jews and issued the decree allowing them to return to their homeland and begin the rebuilding of the Temple- which task they finally completed under Darius I in 516 - 515 B.C.

B.      Under king Xerxes, known in the Bible as Ahasureus the husband of Esther, the Jews, through the intervention of Esther and Mordecai with the king, were delivered from the plot of Haman to destroy them.

C.       Under Artaxerxes I., successor to Xerxes, Ezra and Nehemiah were allowed to return to the Land where Ezra the scribe was permitted to teach The Law to the returned exiles and Nehemiah organized the people to finish the reconstruction of the walls of Jerusalem. (445-444 B.C.)

D.      Under Ezra and Nehemiah, certain matters concerning the Feast of Tabernacles were reinstituted and a revival came about. Nehemiah then returned to Persia for a time. Upon his return to Jerusalem for his second governorship (Neh ch. 13), he found the pledge broken and instituted discipline of the offenders. Under Nehemiah’s second governorship (ca. 433 - 430 B.C.) the biblical history comes to a close and the “400 years of silence” begins. NOTE: Although the book of Malachi ends our Old Testament, Malachi actually preceded Nehemiah by several years; therefore, chronologically speaking, the second governorship of Nehemiah actually ended the Old Testament period and began the Intertestamental Period. This would have set the date at right around 430 B.C.

III. Greece (331 - 323 B.C.)

A.      Philip of Macedon succeeded in uniting the Greek city states. Many had tried before him and had failed. Under his son, Alexander, the Empire spread eastward and he engaged, and defeated, the Persians, Greece’s ancient enemy, at the Granicus River. This opened the entirety of Asia Minor to him. He then defeated the Persian armies at Issus and, choosing to then advance to the south, he went on to conquer Phoenicia, Palestine, and Egypt. Destroying cities as he went, he advanced upon Jerusalem which, for some reason, he spared intact.

B.      The Greek language. Alexander is written in history as a brilliant military strategist; however, his greatest contribution truly has to be the spreading of Greek culture and language across the Mediterranean world. This Hellenization was so complete that it, or at least the language which became the language of the common people (koine means common and the common language is called koine Greek), remained dominant for six hundred years (300 B.C. to 300 A.D.) and through two empires- the Greek Empire and the Roman Empire which followed. Because of its nuances and complexity, Greek was the perfect language for the writing of the New Testament in the first century A.D.

C.       The Seleucidae and Ptolemies. During the period after the death of Alexander, the Greek Empire was divided into four sections. One section was under the control of Ptolemy. Another section was under Antigonus but he was forced, eventually, to surrender his portion to Seleucus

VI. Maccabeean/Hasmonean Period (166 - 63 B.C.) The Maccabeean era: (166 - 135 B.C.) Subsequent to Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ intolerable pollution of the Temple, the persecution of the Jews was intensified until it reached a pinnacle of offense when a priest named Mattathias refused to offer a pagan sacrifice at Modin when ordered to do so by a Syrian official. He then killed an apostate Jew who offered to do so as well as the official envoy and then fled into the wilderness with his two sons. He immediately became the vortex around which a major rebellion formed. Zealots from all over soon joined the group and the rebellion spread. Although Mattathias died shortly thereafter, he had sparked an ever-widening rebellion that would grow until, finally, they would succeed in throwing off the Syrian yoke. Upon Mattathias’ death, which was at the very beginning of the rebellion, the leadership of the group fell upon a man named Judas who was called “Maccabeus,” which means “the hammer.” The Maccabees, as the group came to be known, eventually defeated the Syrian army and Jerusalem was liberated. The Jewish feast of Hannukkah, the Feast of Lights, is kept as a memorial to that liberation.beginning of the rebellion, the leadership of the group fell upon a man named Judas who was called “Maccabeus,” which means “the hammer.” The Maccabees, as the group came to be known, eventually defeated the Syrian army and Jerusalem was liberated. The Jewish feast of Hannukkah, the Feast of Lights, is kept as a memorial to that liberation. During this time both Jews and Syrians became more and more corrupt and through political intrigue a man named Jonathan became both the ruling High Priest as well as a member of the Syrian royalty. His brother, Simon signed a treaty with Rome (139 B.C.) and gained political freedom for the Jews as well as recognition for his own family as the official priestly family from whom the high priest was chosen.

 

VII. Roman Rule (began in 63-4 B.C.)

A.      Antipater. Antipater was and Idumean acquaintance of Hyrcanus II, starting when the latter was in exile. He maintained to Hyrcanus that he had been treated unjustly treated and that he could be restored to his place as High Priest. To do this, Antipater suggested that the Nabatean Arab army be used to launch an attack against Jerusalem to restore Hyrcanus to power.

B.      Rome. Once Rome heard of this political unrest and threat of war, it decided to intervene. Choosing Hyrcanus II over his brother Aristobulus II, Rome deposed Aristobulus and restored Hyrcanus to his priestly office. At this time, 63 B.C., Pompey the Great made Judea a Roman province with three districts, Judaea, Galilee, and Peraea. During these campaigns, Pompey the Great (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) occupied the city of Jerusalem and destroyed the second Temple, which had been the center of Jewish religious life for five centuries. In the later Roman civil war, Hyrcanus and Antipater forsook their allegiance to Pompey, who had helped put them in power in the first place, and threw their allegiance to Octavius, who later became Emperor Augustus. This maneuvering by Hyrcanus and Antipater was later rewarded when Antipater’s son, Herod (the Great) was declared, and physically made, “King of the Jews” under the Roman Empire’s overlordship.

C.       Antigonus. The son of Aristobulus II, Antigonus effected a recapture of Jerusalem by conspiring with the Parthians and had himself declared both King and Priest.

D.      The Herodian Dynasty.

1.       Antipater. Although never declared king, he still was the holder of power and established a dynasty, as we saw in an earlier segment, that would last for four generations.

2.       Herod the Great and his son, Herod Antipas. Herod (the Great), the son of Antipater, was forced to flee to Rome upon the ascendance of Antigonus to the throne. There he became a friend of Mark Antony who gave him the title “King of the Jews” and threw the might of Rome behind Herod’s quest to be restored to the throne of Judea.

E.       The Zealots. We must pause here for a moment to consider this new group that had surfaced toward the end of the intertestamental period. The early groups of the period had been marked by their resignation to submissive waiting, while faithfully keeping the sacred Law, for Messiah to come and deliver them from those who would conquor and oppress them. They then expected God to place them in a position of ruling the Land that He had promised to them.

Such was the civil and religious state of Judea at the end of the Inter-testamental period and the setting for the arrival of Messiah, Jesus Christ, and the beginning of the New Testament period. By the end of the years of silence, the people were spiritually and physically ripe for the arrival of Christ and His new sect of Judaism, called Christianity. As we know from this side of the curtain of history, the Jews, by and large, rejected both- but it still remains that God had made them ready; and many did believe.