The Intertestament Period

408 BC – 5 BC

Learning Objectives

1. Examine the political events and how God would use pagan rulers in the ancient world to bring Glory to himself.2. Examine how God sovereignly used this period of time to prepare the coming of the Lion of Judah.3. Have a deeper appreciation for Galatians 4:4-5 (But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.)

Ezra 4:24-6:22

Xerxes 486-465 BC

Esther 2: 4-17

Esther 7:1-10

The Battles of Thermopylae and Artimesium 480 BC

Phillip of Macedon 382 BC – 336BC

The Macedonian Phalanx

Alexander the Great

The Indian Campaign

Alexander’s Mark on the World

For all his brilliant achievements in Battle, Alexander was a poor ruler. Often he governed more with emotion rather the reason.He spread Koine Greek throughout the known world. This is the language that both the Old Testament Septuagint and the New Testament would be written.He would be the one who would spread Hellenism throughout the whole world.

The Divided Kingdom of Alexander III

The Ptolemy Dynasty 323 BC to 30 BC

The Seleucid Empire 311 BC – 65 BC

With the increasing influence of Hellenism upon the Jewish Communities, there were two Greek Philosophies that would affect Jewish Communities throughout the Persian Empire. Those philosophies would be Stoicism and Epicureanism. The Stoics were from the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle. They tended to be fatalists. The Epicureans were believers in pleasure and happiness but not at the expense of lustfulness. The Epicureans believed that when people died, there was no afterlife and that the body and soul returned to atoms. The Stoics believed in pantheism but also believed in life after death. In resistance to this influence two forms of Judaism would arise. The 1st school would be that of the Pharisee. The Pharisees would be the ones who would add additional man-made philosophies to the Levitical Law in order to “earn more favor” with God. Their often hypocritical way of life often put them at odds with the common everyday Jew. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection from the dead and tended to accept the view of predestination. The second school of Jewish thought that developed was the school of the Sadducees. They tended to come from very wealthy families and claimed their lineage from the priest Zadok.

Matthew 2:13 Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord *appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.")

Rise of Rome. 753 BC

Checks and balances.

Veto Power

Rome defeats Antiochus III in 191 BC at Thermopylae

168 BC The line in the sand.

Antiochus Epiphanies

Daniel 8:9-14 Matthew 24:15

2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.

Hasmonean Dynasty.