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    The Last Minute: A Study of the Intertestamental Period: Start2Finish Bible Studies
    The Last Minute: A Study of the Intertestamental Period: Start2Finish Bible Studies
    The Last Minute: A Study of the Intertestamental Period: Start2Finish Bible Studies
    Ebook110 pages2 hours

    The Last Minute: A Study of the Intertestamental Period: Start2Finish Bible Studies

    By Steven C. Hunter

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    About this ebook

    Between Malachi and Matthew is a span of at least 400 years. When we arrive at the Gospels, we read of Pharisees, Romans, and synagogues, none of which were present in the Old Testament.

    The Intertestamental Period is one of the best commentaries on the first-century Jewish climate. The sects, institutions, and divisions of Judaism—not to mention the rejection of Jesus as Messiah—is given clearer understanding by knowing what took place during this period.

    In this 13-lesson study of the period between the Testaments, Steven C. Hunter gives Bible students a window into the first-century world in which Jesus preached, was rejected, and crucified. The result will be a deeper understanding and richer appreciation for the New Testament world.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart2Finish Books
    Release dateMar 8, 2016
    ISBN9781524268008
    The Last Minute: A Study of the Intertestamental Period: Start2Finish Bible Studies

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      Book preview

      The Last Minute - Steven C. Hunter

      THE LAST MINUTE

      A STUDY OF THE INTERTESTAMENTAL PERIOD

      STEVEN C. HUNTER

      © 2016 by Steven C. Hunter

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

      Published by Start2Finish

      Cover Design: Evangela Creative

      Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Unless otherwise noted, all apocryphal or deuterocanonical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Preface

      The historical period between Malachi and Matthew has long been a subject of interest for serious Bible students. When one transitions from the Old to the New Testament, several changes take place. Where did Herod, the Romans, and the Pharisees come from? What about Hanukkah and the Apocrypha?

      In Galatians 4:4, Paul asserts that God sent his Son into the world at just the right moment—the fullness of time. Look at any calendar and it’s evident that the Advent of the Messiah was the climax of history in more ways than one. The 400 years of history before Jesus’ birth, therefore, represent the last minute in God’s scheme of redemption.

      In this study, Steven Hunter takes the student on a tour through the political, cultural, and religious transformations that took place between Malachi and Matthew. Given his love and study of both classical history and the Scriptures, I can think of no one I’d rather have as my guide through this particular epoch than Steven.

      — Michael Whitworth

      Acknowledgments

      I am greatly indebted to the following works that have helped me in my research on the Intertestamental Period:

      Ferguson, Everett. Backgrounds of Early Christianity. 3d. ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003)

      Scott, J. Julius. Jewish Backgrounds of the New Testament. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1995)

      Surburg, Raymond F. Introduction to the Intertestamental Period. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1975)

      Many of the lessons herein benefited from these three works, and since many of my lessons here were originally in outline form when I made this work, I’m hard-pressed to identify where I might have borrowed the work of these scholars in my lessons. Suffice it to say, their scholarship has aided the production of this work, and I thank them for their scholarship and what I’ve gleaned from them.

      1

      Introduction to the Intertestamental Period

      The narrative of God’s people didn’t stop upon the completion of the Old Testament. God’s work among His people didn’t simply have a gap in time. However, we do lack the certainty of divine revelation between a period of about 400 years that spans between the completion of the Old Testament and the time of events in the New Testament that begins with the visitation of the angel to Zacharias. I hope to fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge of that time period as a way to better link our Old and New Testament, as well as to help us better understand our New Testament given that things mentioned in them aren’t referred to in the Old Testament. Hopefully, you’ll find this to be as edifying a study as I would desire it to be.

      A PRELUDE

      The Intertestamental Period is the time period between the end of Malachi and the beginning of Matthew. It’s referred to this way because it’s the time between the testaments of the Bible. At the closing of the Old Testament, the Jews lived under Persian rule. However, the Greeks would arise to conquer the Persians, and then the Romans would prevail over the Greeks to become the world’s superpower. All of this was foretold in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2.

      This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold. But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. (Daniel 2:36–43)

      The book of Nehemiah was the last to be written in the Old Testament, and it dates to 424–400 B.C. The book of James is believed to have been the earliest writing of the New Testament and dates to A.D. 44–49. Between those dates, a lot of history occurred that we don’t have in our Bibles.

      Between the testaments is an entire body of writings we refer to as the Apocrypha that tells much of the history that occurred in this time period. Moreover, in the New Testament we read about the synagogue, Pharisees, and Sadducees—none of which are mentioned in the Old Testament. Knowing our Intertestamental Period history can better aid our understanding of the New Testament.

      GOD’S SILENCE

      The silence of God through the prophets is notable in the Intertestamental Period. God had spoken by the prophets to His people for centuries (Hosea 12:10). The first prophet ever mentioned was Abraham, the father of both Judaism and Christianity (Genesis 20:7). Many of our Old Testament prophets were literary, but others were not. Abraham, Nathan, Elijah, and Elisha were prophets who never penned a book. Later, John the Baptist was also a non-literary prophet.

      Reflecting back over the history of God’s people, Nehemiah acknowledged that God had indeed spoken to His people through the prophets (Nehemiah 9:30). Before that time, Amos had stated that God did nothing unless He disclosed it to His prophets (Amos 3:7). Yet, God promised that a day would come when the prophets would be silent.

      Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, And from north to east; They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, But shall not find it. (Amos 8:11–12)

      A particular Psalm dated to decades after 586 B.C. expressed the widespread pain of having been chastised by God. In Psalm 74, the psalmist noted the absence of the prophetic voice as feeling like God had abandoned them, There is no longer any prophet (Psalm 74:9). Of course, history tells us that the prophets again spoke after the Babylonian exile which occurred in 586 B.C. Whether Amos’ prophecy was reflected in the Psalm or if it pointed to this particular period is unknown, but a case can be made either way.

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