The Intertestamental Period message is likely a subject few readers have heard of, but I see it as a fantastic faith builder. Between the last page of Malachi in the Old Testament and the first page of Mathew in the New Testament, there is a Scripture void of over 400 years called the “Intertestamental Period.” Catchy name, right? And yet, our Abba Father was very busy preparing the world for Jesus during that period. I recommend everyone spend some time researching the Intertestamental Period. The period is also called the “Second Temple Period” in the Jewish world.
What I love is that recorded history brings the Scripture to life. The Scripture does talk about this period in great detail. We miss it because our Abba Father had Daniel write about it several hundred years before it happened. ELB ignores this subject, and I have a theory as to why as part of ELB (but not sharing it). Daniel and the Revelation of Jesus Christ are closely linked, and everyone knows they can’t understand Revelation. Right? Let’s find out. I take a turn at it in the following two subjects that should be inspiring and provocative.
On the last page of Malachi, the Persians ruled the world, and King Artaxerxes I is probably still alive. A remnant of Jerusalem was re-established, and they built a new temple. On December 25, 165 BC, the second temple was dedicated. Two Jewish holidays celebrate the events of that period.
When we turn the page and open Mathew, we have a re-unified Israel territory, plus the Sanhedrin, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Herods, everyone speaks Greek, and the Roman Empire rules the world. That is a massive paradigm shift in the world and the Scripture with the turning of one page. And it is all ignored in ELB.
I have always been amazed at how few believers even think about how all that change happened. It’s just “poof,” and here’s Jesus! In fourteen years of preaching, no one asked a question about how all that happened, and if I ask, few have known.
The fact is, our Abba Father was busy between Malachi and Mathew. Alexander Maximus, the Macedonian general with a famous dad, conquered Persia for the Greek empire and ruled the world. The Greeks led the world in culture and philosophy and spread their culture worldwide. That is why the authors wrote the New Testament in Greek; everyone spoke Greek. If you remember, the people were scattered at the Tower of Babel and given different languages because they were too dangerous to our souls as one group.
Most believers only see Israel destroyed by an angry God and do not see its role in his majestic plan going forward because churches do not teach it. But, after Jesus’ work on the cross, our Abba Father needed one language again to help spread the word. The scattered Jews speaking Greek became safe harbors for the disciples throughout the world.
I also do not believe the Greeks would have killed Jesus. During a trip to Athens, Paul suggested they had reserved a statue for the Messiah in the Areopagus with their other gods. They would have given Jesus a booth on Mars Hill. We call the Greek-based culture of the time Hellenism if you research it. The history of that period is rich.
Alexander died young, and his four generals divided the empire. The two most prominent were Ptolemy in Egypt and Seleucid ruled the Turkey/Syria area to the north. Ptolemy in Egypt sponsored the production of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Seleucid brought Hellenism to the northern regions.
A Seleucid descendant, Antiochus Epiphanes, devastated Jerusalem and killed thousands of Jews. In 167 BC., the Maccabean Rebellion pushed back against Antiochus and won. The book Maccabee 1 in the Catholic Bible is an excellent source for this story. The Maccabee family descended from the powerful Hasmoneans. The period of their reign up to the Romans is called the Hasmonean Period.
The Sanhedrin came out of the independence of Israel as the governing body without a king. Religious, civil, and criminal jurisdictions were under its authority. The Sadducees and Pharisees were hybrid political factions on the civil side. The Sadducees were wealthy, highly religious (Torah only), and highly political. They controlled the Sanhedrin government with the Jewish aristocracy.
The Pharisees were the scribes and were very different from the Sadducees. They believed in rabbinic tradition, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and the existence of angels and demons, which the Sadducees did not. That is a huge schism in one body. The Pharisees were also devout laymen and teachers, not priests. Nicodemus and Gamaliel, the teacher of Paul, are well-known Pharisees in the New Testament.
In 63 BC, the Roman General Pompey expanded Rome’s influence to Israel’s region when Herod the Great rose to power. When Pompey invaded Palestine, Herod one’s father (there are three Herods in Mathew), Antipater, was a very powerful man and bought the right of the Sanhedrin to self-govern Israel as a subject of Rome. Jesus was then an enormous threat to the Sanhedrin government’s power.
Rome had very little to do with Jesus except they took away the Sanhedrin’s authority to execute in 30 BC, so ultimately the Pharisees had to get the Sadducees to bring Rome into the plan. After Jesus ascended, believers became a threat to the Roman Empire because the empire enforced emperor and pagan god worship. Believers have always been a huge threat to those who seek to rule us, and this has never changed.
The Deuterocanonical/Apocrypha books, the sixteen books in the Catholic Holy Bible removed from the early Protestant Holy Bible, were written during the Intertestamental period. They do not fit any of the “literary structures” built into the Canon of Scripture but are interesting.
Daniel describes the world history of this period in amazing detail long before it happened, and in my view, he does not stop there, which makes him so crucial to our faith. I pray you will agree because you are about to put in a lot of work. But necessary work.
