Chapter One
INTERTESTAMENTAL AND
NEW TESTAMENT HISTORICAL
BACKGROUNDOverview:
The Greek Period and Preliminaries
The Maccabean Period
The Roman Period
Summary
Study Goals-Learn:
What political events took place in the Middle East
from the end of the Old Testament period through
the intertestamental and New Testament periods
How the Jews fared
What cultural developments took place
What religious questions arose out of the political
events and cultural developments
What factions the political events, cultural
developments, and religious questions produced
among Jews
Who the leaders were in these developments and
what they contributed to the sweep of this history
The Greek Period and Preliminaries
From the Old Testament to Alexander the Great
In Old Testament times the kings Saul, David, and Solomon ruled over all
twelve tribes of Israel. Then the nation split into the ten-tribe northern kingdom
of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin
absorbed into the tribe of Judah. The Assyrians conquered the
northern kingdom and took most of its inhabitants as exiles into Assyria.
Next, the Babylonians took control of the Middle East from the Assyrians,
conquered the southern kingdom of Judah, and took most of its inhabitants
as exiles into Babylonia. The Persians then took control from the Babylonians
and let exiled peoples, including Jews, return to their native lands if
they so wished. Some did. Others did not. Under the Persians there began
the intertestamental period, sometimes called "the four hundred silent
years" because of a gap in the biblical record (though nonbiblical records
have survived). During this gap Alexander the Great came from Greece-Macedonia
and conquered the Middle East by inflicting successive defeats
on the Persians at the battles of Granicus (334 B.C.), Issus (333 B.C.), and
Arbela (331 B.C.).
Hellenization
The Greek culture, called Hellenism,
had been spreading for some time
through Greek trade and colonization,
but Alexander's conquests provided far
greater impetus than before. The Greek
language became the lingua franca, or
common trade and diplomatic language.
By New Testament times Greek had
established itself as the street language
even in Rome, where the indigenous proletariat
spoke Latin but the great mass of
slaves and freedmen spoke Greek (compare
Paul's writing his Letter to the
Romans in Greek). Alexander founded
seventy cities and modeled them after
the Greek style. He and his soldiers married
oriental women. Thus the Greek and
oriental cultures mixed.
Diadochi
When Alexander died in 323 B.C. at the
age of thirty-three, his leading generals
(called diadochi, Greek for "successors")
divided the empire into four parts. Two
of the parts are important for New Testament
historical background, the Ptolemaic
and the Seleucid. The Ptolemaic
Empire centered in Egypt. Alexandria
was its capital. The series of rulers who
governed that empire are called the
Ptolemies, after the name of the first
ruler, Ptolemy. Cleopatra, who died in
30 B.C., was the last of the Ptolemaic
dynasty. The Seleucid Empire centered
in Syria. Antioch was its capital. A
number of its rulers were named Seleucus,
after the first ruler. Several others
were named Antiochus, after the capital
city. Together they are called the
Seleucids. When the Roman general
Pompey made Syria a Roman province in 64 B.C., the Seleucid Empire
came to an end.
Because it was sandwiched between Egypt and Syria, Palestine became
a victim of rivalry between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, both of whom
wanted to collect taxes from its inhabitants and make it a buffer zone
against attack from the other. At first the Ptolemies dominated Palestine for
122 years (320-198 B.C.). Generally, the Jews fared well during this period.
Early tradition says that under Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 B.C.)
seventy-two Jewish scholars began to translate the Hebrew Old Testament
into a Greek version called the Septuagint. Translation of the Pentateuch
came first. Remaining sections of the Old Testament came later. The work
was done in Egypt, apparently for Jews who understood Greek better than
Hebrew and, contrary to the tradition, probably by Egyptian rather than
Palestinian Jews. For parts of the translation betray a knowledge of Hebrew
so poor as to indicate that the translators had less familiarity with Hebrew
than with Greek, as would be probable if they lived, not in Palestine, but
in Egypt. The Roman numeral LXX (seventy being the nearest round
number to seventy-two) has become the common symbol for this version
of the Old Testament.
(Continues.)
