The Intertestamental Period
This open-ended seminar was a weekly gathering of scholars and laypersons, conducting a long-term, in-depth study of the 400-year period “between the Testaments.”
That’s 400 hundred years of history most of us don’t hear much about. Also called “the 400-year silence,” it was a time of tumult, spiritual upheaval, war, and great cultural change. It was the time of the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Midrash and other early Rabbinic literature. It set the stage for early Christianity.
The seminar explores the history, popular movements, and religious literature of the period spanning from roughly the beginning of the Fourth Century BCE through the early First Century CE, with lecture, discussion, and close reading of several texts from this period, as well as passing references to additional primary and secondary sources, archaeological material, sociological studies, and so on.
Presented by Sheldon Greaves, Ph.D., with Denise D. Greaves, Ph.D., both Scholars in Residence at Good Sam.
Resources
Lecture Slides
Lecture 01 – 28 October 2015
About the Intertestamental Period; time covered, nature of its literature, philosophical and religious ideas that emerged during this time, and strongly influenced early Christianity and the New Testament.
Lecture 02 – 04 November 2015
The Persian repatriation of the Jewish people, Alexander the Great and the influence of Hellenism, and how Greeks and Jews saw each other.
The Book of I Maccabees
Lecture 03 – 11 November 2015
About archaeology, how it’s done and what it can and cannot do. Review of the breakup of Alexander’s empire and the roots of the Maccabean Revolt.
Lecture 04 – 02 December 2015
The Maccabean Revolt, restoration of the Temple, questions of impurity.
Lectures 5-9 — no slides
The Book of Daniel
Lecture 10 – Daniel 1; Introduction and Apocalypse
Lecture 11 – Daniel 2; Babylonian Statecraft, Divination, and Magic
Lecture 12 – Daniel 3; Other Apocryphal Tales
The Wisdom of Solomon
Wisdom of Solomon – Background
Entries on WoS from The Jewish Encyclopedia and International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
Wisdom of Solomon Lecture 01
Wisdom literature in the Ancient Near East; Israelite Wisdom vs. Greek Philosophy. An overview of Biblical Wisdom literature and the Wisdom of Solomon.
Wisdom of Solomon Lecture 02
Death, the afterlife, questions of salvation and immortality. The role of suffering.
Wisdom of Solomon Lecture 03
Some nomenclature. The armor of God, wisdom and kingship, Jewish politics in ancient Alexandria.
Wisdom of Solomon Lecture 04
Sophia, the Logos, the Memra of the Targums, and the “Two Powers in Heaven” heresy.
Wisdom of Solomon Lecture 05
Mercy, punishment, the persistence of evil. Rabbinic literary devices. On idolatry.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Dead Sea Scrolls Lecture 01
What they are, how they were discovered, “reburied” under scholarly bureaucracy, and eventually “liberated.”
Dead Sea Scrolls Lecture 02
The contemporary setting; Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, the Maccabean revolt. Covenant, holiness, purity, and the Rule of the Community.
Dead Sea Scrolls Lecture 03
Biblical interpretation at Qumran; pesher. The Habakkuk Pesher, the Genesis Apocryphon—reinterpreting an uncomfortable text.
Dead Sea Scrolls Lecture 04
Apocalypse, eschatology and end times at Qumran. Messianic beliefs and militarism in late Israel.
Dead Sea Scrolls Lecture 05
The Temple Scroll. Purity, Law, the Levites. Innovations of the Temple Scroll, the vision of a new Jerusalem.
Dead Sea Scrolls Lecture 06
Wisdom, education, and the scribal tradition at Qumran.
Dead Sea Scrolls Lecture 07
“Request Night” — Three Questions
- What happened between 30 and 70 CE?
- What have the Scrolls taught us about the early Church?
- What is Midrash?
Other Handouts
Zoroastrian history and eschatology
The Cyrus Cylinder
Flavius Josephus on Cyrus
Intertestamental Period Dynasties
Maccabean Revolt Timeline
BAS Heliodorus Stele
Heliodorus Stele Text (English)
Heliodorus Stele Text (Greek)
Acra Fortress
Divination in the Ancient Near East
Roman-Jewish Treaty
Tomb of the Maccabees