009. Chapter 7 - The Historical Background

Chapter 7 - The Historical Background The New Testament makes no effort to present the current of general history of the times. It concentrates on the telling of the “good news” from heaven. Incidentally references to kings, countries, and customs are made, but only when they are absolutely essential to the account of the life of Christ or the history of the early church. The Old Testament furnishes much more numerous and extensive references to historical events. Since it is giving the account of the rise of a nation chosen of God, it must record battles, campaigns, the rise and fall of kings and nations and the various events interwoven with the life of Israel. But even this record is very fragmentary. It is fortunate that we have so much help in reconstructing the New Testament times from Greek and Roman historians. Josephus, in spite of his faults as a historian, is of inestimable value. One of the interesting developments of modern times has been the renewed study of the historical citations of the Old and New Testaments in the light of the records uncovered by archaeologists.

Early History A survey of the sweep of general history and a study of the political and religious conditions prevailing in Palestine during the time of Christ are most essential to the understanding of the New Testament. The civilization of the world appears to have arisen in the two river valleys, the Nile and the Euphrates. Much of ancient history, as it is pieced out from inscriptions, is concerned with the mortal combat between these rival countries. Israel was between the two, and in almost constant touch with both. Abraham, the founder of the race, came out of the Euphrates valley at the call of God. Moses, the redeemer and lawgiver, forsook the great civilization of Egypt in order to lead God’s people to the promised land. A period of exile in each of these valleys forced Israel to endure centuries of sojourn in Egypt and, at a much later period in the development of the nation, a shorter term of servitude in Babylonia.

Israel’s Foes When the promised land was conquered, Israel’s chief foes were the remnants of the Canaanitish tribes infesting and encircling the land. The Philistines to the southwest were especially troublesome. Later, Israel faced a rising Syrian nation to the north with Damascus as the capital. Assyria then became the dominating nation of the Euphrates valley, and finally destroyed the northern kingdom in the days of Shalmanezer (722 b.c, 2 Kings 17:3, 2 Kings 17:5). Nineveh succumbed to Babylon, and the latter captured Jerusalem and ended the southern kingdom (586 b.c., 2 Kings 25:2). The rise of Medo-Persia brought the end of Babylon and the return of the Jewish captives. A desperate duel between the civilizations of the East and West — Persia and Greece — which brought forth the Greek victories of Marathon, Thermopylae and Plataea and the preservation of the Western civilization, finally ended with the dominance of Macedonia and the world-wide conquests of Alexander the Great. The Maccabean Period The historical record of the Old Testament closes with the work of Ezra and Nehemiah in rebuilding Jerusalem. Between the Old and New Testaments there lies a gap of four centuries. The New Testament fits perfectly with the Old Testament, taking up the inspired record of the coming of the Messiah as the natural sequence to the closing predictions of the Old Testament as to His coming. But we have a strong interest in what happened in this intervening period.

Few Bible students can give a comprehensive summary of the events, characters, developments and literature of this period. But a knowledge of all this is certain to be of great profit in understanding the background of the New Testament. For instance, the student of the New Testament begins immediately to read of synagogues. When he turns back to the Old Testament to get some light on what a synagogue is and when and where it arose, he can secure no help, for no such thing is mentioned therein. He begins to read in the New Testament of Sadducees and Pharisees, and, when he searches the Old Testament for these sects to study their origin and character, he finds no help whatsoever, for they are not mentioned.

He reads in the Old Testament of the struggles of the Jewish nation against Philistine, Syrian, Assyrian, and Babylonian or Egyptian foes, and in its closing historical books he learns of the fall of Jerusalem, the captivity in Babylon, the experiences of the Jews there, the rise of Medo-Persia and the freeing of the captives and the return and restoration of Jerusalem and the temple. But in the New Testament he finds Judaea in the hands of the Romans and a dynasty of Herods firmly on the throne ruling the country by the consent and support of Rome. How did this take place? When did the Jews first come in contact with Rome? How did the Jews come to have a king again? Whence the Herods? The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but we find the New Testament written in Greek. How did it happen that the Jewish people began the use of a foreign language? When did this occur? Greek names occur in the New Testament. Even two of the twelve apostles (Philip and Andrew) bear Greek names. How did such a strong Greek influence exert itself in Palestine?

These and a thousand other questions naturally arise as we begin an intelligent study of the New Testament. A brief, popular sketch of this period should assist in our approach to the life of Christ. The Apocrypha The first question is that of sources of information. How do we know what happened during this period of four hundred years? Where can we learn of this? Are our sources accurate and dependable? The chief source is a group of books written after the close of the Old Testament period which is called “The Apocrypha.” At the close of the New Testament period a similar group of writings arose which is called “Apocryphal Gospels.” Although these popular romances are entirely untrustworthy, portions of “The Apocrypha” have something more of a sober, historical character. This is especially true of the historical books which trace the political developments of these four centuries. Most large pulpit Bibles in Protestant churches will be found to contain the Apocrypha, because they are printed for general use, and the Roman Catholic Church has declared these books to be a part of the Bible. Neither the Jews nor the early Christians ever considered them a part of the Old Testament or New Testament, but the Roman Catholic Church, at the Council of Trent, in a.d. 1546, declared all the books of the Apocrypha to be canonical with the exception of the Prayer of Manasses and the two books of Esdras. The Apocrypha may be divided into the following groups of books: (1) Additions to various books of the Old Testament: Epistle of Jeremiah, Baruch, Prayer of Manasses, and additions to Daniel and Esther. (2) Continuation of canonical books: I Esdras and II Esdras. (3) Romances — as Tobit and Judith. (4) Books of Wisdom: The Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus (or the Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach). (5) Historical books: The Maccabees. In the Vulgate (Latin version of the Bible used by Roman Catholics) the Epistle of Jeremiah occurs as the sixth chapter of the Book of Baruch. It is a protest and warning against idolatry. Baruch is the name of the scribe of Jeremiah, and, although the authorship of the Epistle is unknown, the name of Baruch has been prefixed to it. The book is filled with appeals to the captives in Babylon and predictions of their return. The Prayer of Manasses is a sort of appendix to 2 Chronicles. Two lost documents of Manasseh’s repentance are referred to in 2 Chronicles 33:18, 2 Chronicles 33:19, and this was evidently written because of this statement. The early Christians were fond of this book because it contained a beautiful example of devotion. The additions to the Book of Daniel are highly fanciful and quite evidently spurious. They consist of two fragments: (a) The Song of the Three Children. This is interpolated into the account of the three young men in the fiery furnace. It is a prayer by Azarias in the furnace and a song by the three. (b) Bel and the Dragon. This tells of an exploit of Daniel, who fed a dragon lumps of pitch, burst it asunder and thus exposed a hoax of priests of Bel. The Latin Vulgate calls these books III Esdras and IV Esdras, because it counts the canonical Books of Ezra and Nehemiah as the first two Books of Ezra. I Esdras works over the Biblical account of the return of the captives from Babylon, with apocryphal additions. William Lyon Phelps, in his syndicated articles, has called attention to the delightful literary style of this book, which is mainly devoted to the description of a contest before the king of young courtiers on the problem as to the most powerful thing in the world. “Truth” is the answer of Zerubbabel; he is declared the winner, and the favor of the king to Jewish captives is the result. The second Book of Esdras is not extant in the original Greek, but only in versions. It describes revelations to Ezra concerning the future of the Jews and Jerusalem. It was probably written after most of the New Testament books, about a.d. 70. The Book of Tobit was probably written in the first century b.c., and is a fantastic story of family life in the Assyrian captivity. The heroes are Tobit, the father, and Tobias, his son. The book is famous for containing the Golden Rule in a negative form: “Do that to no man which thou hatest.”

Judith is the romantic story of how Judith, a Jewish heroine, saved the besieged in the fortress of Bethulia from the general of Nebuchadnezzar, Holofernes. She surrendered herself into the hands of Holofernes, but immediately outwitted and slew him. The date of the book is uncertain. The Wisdom of Solomon was written in Greek by an Alexandrian Jew about the first century B.C. It is full of noble sentiments in praise of wisdom and the justice of God in rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked.

Ecclesiasticus (The Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach) is similar, but of inferior merit both as to literary structure and spiritual content. It closes with a sketch of Jewish heroes from Enoch to Simon, the Maccabean high priest. It was written in Hebrew and then in Greek paraphrase in Alexandria in 182 b.c.

There are two books of Maccabees; both are historical in character. The First Book of Maccabees was written by an orthodox Jew who lived in Palestine, and describes the history of the period from 175-135B.C. It was written in Hebrew probably soon after the death of John Hyrcanus in 105 b.c. The Second Book of Maccabees is not so trustworthy as the first. It is an abridgment of a large work by a certain Jason of Cyrene, and treats of the period from 175-160 B.C. It was written in Greek before 40 b.c. One of the evident reasons for the desire of the Roman Catholics to canonize these books is the fact that the second Book of Maccabees offers support to their system of purgatory and prayers for the dead in a reference which states that Judas Maccabeus “made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin” (2Ma 12:45).

Josephus The second great source of information concerning this period is the work of Josephus, the Jewish historian, who wrote his Jewish Wars in a.d. 75-79, and his Antiquities of the Jews in a.d. 93. He lived near enough to the Maccabean period to have had access to considerable historical information, and he uses the books of the Apocrypha freely. In spite of his rhetorical style, his tendency to exaggerate and his free use of the imagination to invent and fill in where he lacks historical data, his work is of very great value.

Alexander the Great The account which Josephus gives of Alexander the Great’s visit to Jerusalem is one of many interesting narratives. He marched against Jerusalem to destroy it for the refusal of the Jews to support him in his siege of Tyre, but, when met on Scopus by the high priest and a long procession of priests in white robes, he relented and worshiped in the temple. The death of Alexander caused his vast conquests to fall apart into four segments. Judaea became the spoil first of the Ptolemies of Egypt and then of the Syrian kings at Antioch. Judaea was a sort of city-state, ruled by the high priest and a senate of leaders associated with him, subject to the will of the Egyptian or Antiochian rulers. The rise of a Hellenistic party among the Jewish priestly aristocrats threatened the utter destruction of the Old Testament religion. Hellenistic culture, customs, and idolatry along with the use of the Greek language threatened to inundate the nation. Countering this infidel and pagan movement among the priesthood, there arose a group of pious Jews full of devotion to the law, and fierce in their opposition to the corrupting Greek influences. A situation somewhat similar to the present controversy which envelops Christianity arose. The people, unwilling to think or to sacrifice much, attempted to follow the course of least resistance unless stirred by some tragic circumstance or some popular leader. In the midst of such a time of uncertainty and turmoil, the Maccabeans appeared.

Rise of the Maccabees

Antiochus Epiphanes, having captured and sacked Jerusalem twice, began a campaign of systematic extermination of the Jewish religion by the massacre of the faithful and the propagation of Hellenism at the point of the sword. A Syrian officer came to Modem in the hill country of Judaea to compel the Jews to offer heathen sacrifice. An old priest, Mattathias, struck down a Jew who was sacrificing, and his sons killed the officer, and the group fled to the mountains, where they were joined by a little army of bold, patriotic Jews. Then followed decades of desperate fighting for the freedom of the Jewish nation and the preservation of their religion. The five sons of Mattathias — John, Simon, Judas, Eleazer, and Jonathan — succeeded one another as head of the army of Israel. As one was killed, another took his place. Judas was the boldest military genius of the group; Jonathan, and especially Simon were the shrewd strategists and statesmen. History contains but few more surprising and engrossing narratives than the story of their heroic struggles. Mattathias died after a year of campaigning, and named Judas as his successor. Eleazer was killed in a desperate battle near Beth-zur when he rushed through the ranks of the enemy and stabbed the elephant on which the young Antiochus was riding. He had hoped to dismount and kill the young king, but the elephant fell on Eleazar and crushed him to death. Judas himself fell in battle near Jerusalem when he attacked a vast army of Syrians with only a handful of shock troops to support him. John was killed by a tribe of Nabataeans beyond the Jordan who suddenly turned traitor. Jonathan was persuaded to meet the Syrian general, Trypho, under a flag of truce, but was entrapped and slain. Simon and his two sons were treacherously seized and killed at a banquet in the fortress of Dok. But before the last of these hero brothers passed from the stage, they had led Israel for a third of a century and had founded a family which was to lead for a century more; they had built up a strong nationalistic spirit in spite of the many factions among the Jews; they had reestablished religious liberty and practically established the independence of the nation.

Rome

While these momentous changes had been taking place in the East, Rome had arisen in the West, destroyed her rival, Carthage, and started on a campaign of world conquest. The Maccabean rulers, with keen statesmanship, had sensed the future greatness of Rome, and sent embassies to form an alliance with her. Treaties were made with Rome by both Judas and Jonathan, and later by Simon.

Pharisees and Sadducees The Maccabeans were supported in their campaigns by the Pharisees, but when John Hyrcanus, son of Simon, succeeded to the rule, he formed a close alliance with the Sadducees, who remained the party supporting the government so long as the Maccabeans remained in power. The Pharisees were a religious party which had grown up to meet the crisis when Judaism was threatened with destruction. It was only with reluctance that they entered politics or took up arms. The Sadducees were the priestly aristocrats — a political party — who adopted a skeptical attitude toward the Old Testament, and had favored the Hellenizing movement. The change in the party supporting the government shows how the character of the government was changing, its religious zeal fading and its monarchical ambitions growing.

Antipater A period of internal strife and continued struggle against Syria followed. As the Maccabean line continued to war among themselves and weaken, a strong man of Idumea, Antipater, took the lead in the civil war on the side of Hyrcanus II. At this juncture Rome interfered. Pompey marched on Jerusalem, was admitted by the Pharisaical party, and was only able to capture the temple area, where the Sadducees had barricaded themselves, after a bitter siege of three months. Antipater leaped into sudden fame by coming to the aid of Julius Caesar in his campaign in Egypt, and arriving just in time to rush on the battlefield, turn the tide of battle, and change the current of world history. As a result, Rome established Antipater as ruler in Jerusalem coordinate with the high priest. Antipater immediately made his son, Phasaelus, governor in Jerusalem, and Herod, ruler of Galilee. Then followed a series of brilliant moves by Herod for about fifteen years, and he emerged from the tangle of internal strife, both in Judaea and in Rome, as king over Judaea by authority of Rome. Herod immediately executed forty-five of the most powerful of the Sadducees. This brought the Pharisees back into power. Herod then proceeded to destroy the remnants of the Maccabean house; in the course of his reign he murdered Aristobulus, the handsome young high priest; the aged Hyrcanus II; Mariamne, his beloved wife who was also a Maccabean; Alexandra, her mother; and the sons of Babas, the last of the Maccabeans. Insane with jealousy for his throne, he proceeded to kill all who came under his suspicion, including three of his own sons — Alexander, Aristobulus, and the villainous Antipater.

Herod the Great

Herod the Great provided his greatness not merely as a daring military leader, but as an astute statesman and an ambitious builder. He changed Jerusalem into a city of marble, and filled Palestine with beautiful cities and castles. He rebuilt the citadel of the temple and named it Tower of Antonia, in honor of Mark Antony. He added numerous other fortresses to the defenses of the city. He built a theater and an amphitheater at Jerusalem in spite of the protests of the Pharisees at his Hellenizing tendencies. He built beautiful cities at Sebaste, Caesarea, and elsewhere. Perhaps his greatest building enterprise was the reconstruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

Civil war and open hostilities against Rome broke out when Herod died, but Augustus confirmed Herod’s will, making his son Archelaus ruler of Judaea, Samaria, and Idumea; Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea; and Philip, ruler of the Trachonitis country. Because of cruelty to the Samaritans, the “barbarous and tyrannical” Archelaus was deposed in a.d. 6, and Judaea was placed under a Roman procurator, with headquarters at Caesarea. Pontius Pilate (a.d. 26-36) was the fifth of these. Herod Antipas (Herod the Little) inherited the virtues and vices of his father on a small scale. He married the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia, but later fell in love with the wife of his brother Philip, of Rome. Herodias proved his evil genius, and her ambition brought about his downfall at Rome and his exile to Lyons. Philip, ruler of Trachonitis, was the best of the three rulers. Philip and Herod Antipas continued the building activities of their father, notably Bethsaida Julias and Caesarea Philippi in the Trachonitis country and Sepphoris and Tiberias in Galilee.

Languages: Greek and Aramaic The use of the Greek language and the acceptance of Greek art, customs, and architecture grew during this whole period. Scholars dispute among themselves as to how far the Greek language prevailed in Palestine in the time of Christ. Hebrew became a dead language after the Babylonian captivity. The people no longer spoke or understood it. In its place a dialect with somewhat different vocabulary and syntax had arisen: Aramaic, a combination of Hebrew and Phoenician, named after Aram, a part of Assyria. The Jews accepted this dialect instead of Hebrew sometime in the second or third centuries b.c. Large parts of the Talmud were written in Aramaic. All of the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, except Ezra 4:8-24; Ezra 5:1-17; Ezra 6:1-18; Ezra 7:12-26; Jeremiah 10:11; Daniel 2:4-49; Daniel 3:1-30; Daniel 4:1-37; Daniel 5:1-31; Daniel 6:1-28; Daniel 7:1-28. There were particular dialects of Aramaic in Galilee and Judaea at the time of Christ, but we have practically no literature of the period. When a rabbi arose to read from the Old Testament in the synagogue, the people could not understand him, but custom required that an interpreter stand beside him, unless he did the interpreting himself, and after each verse of the law or every three verses of the history and prophecy, he translated into Aramaic for the benefit of the people. When Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth, He evidently interpreted for the people as He read. Jesus seems to have used Aramaic for instructing the people, although He may have used the Hebrew, especially as He quoted Old Testament passages or as He gave solemn words like the model prayer in the Sermon on the Mount. The words of Jesus quoted directly in the Gospels when He raised the daughter of Jairus, healed the deaf stammerer, or when He quoted from the Old Testament on the cross, prove this (Mark 5:41; Mark 7:34; Matthew 27:46). Did Jesus Speak Greek? The question as to whether Jesus spoke Greek is hotly disputed. This is not whether Jesus could speak Greek, for all who believe Jesus to be the Son of God believe He could speak as He chose, and even the modernists would grant Him enough intelligence to learn Greek; but it is, rather, whether Greek was so common in Palestine at the time as to make it probable that Jesus would teach His disciples or the multitudes in Greek.

G. F. Moore argues that the idea that Jesus preached in Greek rests upon three erroneous assumptions: (1) Because the Decapolis had a Greek government, therefore the people spoke Greek. (2) Because Greek customs, architecture, etc., prevailed in certain cities of Galilee, therefore it was spoken in Capernaum and Nazareth. (3) Christ would have taught His disciples in a foreign language. But the most convincing evidence as to the extent to which Greek was used in Palestine is not the remains of Greco-Roman cities now in ruins with their marble columns, stadia, outdoor theaters and every evidence of Greek customs in Palestine in the time of Christ, but the fact that the books of the New Testament were written in Greek. These began to be written within two or three decades of the crucifixion. Language changes do not proceed so rapidly as to change completely from one language to another in so short a time. This indicates that a transition was taking place at the time and the country was more or less bilingual. The inscriptions on the cross would verify this. But the fact that the books of the New Testament were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to be read not merely by those to whom they were first sent, but for all people and times, limits the force of this argument. A divine guidance seems back of the fact that the New Testament was written in the most flexible, accurate and beautiful language ever known to man. From the time of Alexander the Great, Greek customs and language prevailed to a great extent in Palestine and over the countries he had conquered. It seems probable that Jesus preached regularly in Aramaic, but when in a section like the Decapolis, where the Greek influence was especially prevalent, He may have found it more effective to speak Greek. The Synagogue The synagogue arose in the period immediately following the exile. While deprived of the temple and colonized in a foreign country, the Jews felt the critical need for some means of teaching the Old Testament to the children and of maintaining the religious life of the people. The synagogue came to fill this need. It was a schoolhouse for the children during the week and a place of worship for all on the Sabbath. Every town had its synagogue, and cities would have a number of synagogues, according to the location and grouping of the people. The synagogue did not have a regular preacher, but was ruled by a group of elders, who took turns in leading the service or who invited some visitor to speak for them.

Greco-Roman Civilization The Decapolis, beyond the Jordan, was really, as the name indicates, a collection of ten Greek cities, the remains of which astound the modern traveler: city streets flanked by commanding rows of marble columns and spanned by triumphal arches, theaters and amphitheaters of amazing size and beauty, and even an inland artificial lake where mimic naval battles could be fought. Tiberias, on the shores of Galilee, was a thoroughgoing Greco-Roman city with palaces, stadia, and streets with colonnades, all surrounded by a wall which today is crumbling in ruins. These facts show the use of the Greek language among the Jews in the time of Christ, to some extent at least. All of these innovations were doubtless resisted stoutly by the more pious Jews. The Roman rule had brought about the unification of the whole civilized world and had established in a remarkable degree the regime of law and order, for which the Romans were famous. Roman roads, built with amazing ingenuity and skill, linked all the world together. The tolerance for local religions and customs which marked Rome’s provincial policy was a strong element, as was the policy of securing world peace by persuading the soldiers of other nations to fight under the Roman eagle instead of against each other. The Jews stubbornly refused to fight in the Roman armies, and Rome did not attempt to draft them, but used Greek and Samaritan mercenaries for keeping peace in Judaea. The religion of the Jews was respected by the Romans as far as possible. The Roman standards were kept outside Jerusalem; the Sabbath was observed; the Jews had the right to slay foreigners who attempted to invade the inner courts of the temple. The Roman procurators maintained order and administered justice. The trial of ordinary civil and criminal cases between Jews was left in the hands of the Sanhedrin. The right to inflict capital punishment had been taken away some time before a.d. 30. Legal matters which involved both Jews and Romans were tried before Roman officials, and could be appealed to Caesar. The Sanhedrin was the governing body of the nation. It arose in the Maccabean period, and appears to have been an outgrowth of the old assembly of elders. Herod the Great destroyed its power by the massacre of forty-five of its leading members, but it regained its place when Judaea went under a Roman procurator. The Sanhedrin served as a municipal court for Jerusalem, enacted laws and exercised civil authority in Judaea and religious authority over the Jews scattered all over the world. It also assisted in the collection of taxes. A local Sanhedrin in each of the eleven townships of Judaea levied the major tax and poll tax. The customs tax was farmed out to publicans by Roman senatorial corporations. The synagogue is not mentioned in the Old Testament, and evidently grew up during and after the exile at Babylon. The Jews found complete liberty of worship in these synagogues which were found in every city and small town, and were the center of their intellectual and religious life.

There was the dark side to the Roman domination which becomes apparent in the downfall of the old Roman democracy before the absolute despotism of the emperors; the transformation of the virile Roman leadership of early days to the corrupt nobility of the empire; the breakdown of the home and the moral degradation of the city of Rome with its million and a half inhabitants, one-half of whom were either paupers or slaves. The pagan religions had become degenerate and the priesthood utterly corrupt. The worship of the emperor was an empty form which failed to take the place of the decaying religions. The philosophies of the period could not satisfy the hungry souls of men: Stoicism taught sobriety and self-restraint, but was hopeless and selfish; the Epicureans offered but the course of least resistance and unbridled self-indulgence; the restless push of mystery religions and hybrid combinations of Egyptian, Greek, and Syrian religions and philosophies into the West revealed a spiritual vacuum at the heart of the empire.

All things seemed to work together to make up “the fulness of time” in which God’s Son came to bring to the world the final revelation of heaven: (1) the world-wide use of a common and superbly unique language — the Greek; (2) the amazing Roman roads and the freedom of travel from one country to another under Roman protection; (3) universal peace, and Roman law and order; (4) the breakdown of heathen religions and the moral stamina of Rome;(5) the Jewish Messianic expectation which fired the nation and found echoes elsewhere; (6) the proselytes to Judaism circling the Mediterranean, which formed fertile soil for Christianity.