Between the Testaments

by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel

You've studied the Old Testament. You've studied the New Testament. But what do you know about the nearly 500 years between those sacred books? Now, in Between the From Malachi to Matthew, Latter-day Saint scholars S. Kent Brown and Richard Neitzel Holzapel illuminate the little-understood era. They write, "This book attempts to connect the Old and New Testaments by opening a window onto events that unfold from the time that members of the covenant people returned from the Babylonian exile, not long before the end of the Old Testament age, to the period when Jews lived under Roman dominion at the beginning of the first century A.D." The authors discuss * the Dead Sea Scrolls * apocrypha and pseudepigrapha * the return of the Jewish exiles * the Hellenization of the ancient world * Essenes and Zealots * feasts and festivals * the hope for a Messiah * and much more that will help you understand the full sweep of the history of the house of Israel. They also include numerous maps and a helpful timeline of this pivotal period.

Genres: Religion, History, Church, Lds, Nonfiction, Unfinished

Unknown Binding

First published November 1, 2002

About the author

Dr. Richard Holzapfel is a Professor of Church History in the Religious Education Department at BYU. He attended BYU, Hebrew Union College, and the University of California, Irvine (B.A., M.A., and Ph.D.) emphasizing in Middle Eastern Studies, Jewish History, Ancient History. Dr. Holzapfel began teaching at Brigham Young University in 1993, and has taught in the Church History, Ancient Scripture, and History departments. He is currently the Managing Director of Religious Studies Center Publications and the Editor-in-Chief of the center’s periodical The Religious Educator. In addition, he serves as an Editorial Board Member for BYU Studies. Dr. Holzapfel has received various awards and honors for his teaching, including Continuing Education Faculty Teaching Award in 2006. In 2008 he was named the BYU Honors Professor of the Year. Along with his teaching and university appointments, Dr. Holzapfel remains one of the most rigorous and widely published writers on campus.

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had wanted to read this book for quite a while and really enjoyed learning about the subject matter, but I did not love the organization. The authors mention upfront that they wished to write the books so a reader could start at any chapter and understand that piece of information and acknowledged that this would include repetition. As someone reading the book through from start to finish I did not think this would bother me, but it turns out it did and I actually found myself getting a little bit confused from time to time. I enjoyed the part of the book where they told the history in a straight forward way, and I rather wish they could have included the other information along the way when it was relevant rather than separating it out into different chapters. I did enjoy the slightly fictionalized intros to each chapter, they were quite fun.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful insights about the time between the Old and New Testaments. Here are some favorite quotes:

"After reading Malachi and then turning to Matthew's Gospel, we sense that more than unspoiled time has passed lazily between the end of the Old Testament period and the beginning of the New Testament. The nearly five centuries that separate the two parts of the Bible represent far more than a mere chronological divide. They also represent a hefty cultural gap (p. xi)."

"This book... attempts to connect the Old and New Testaments by opening a window onto events that unfolded from the time that members of the covenant people returned from their Babylonian exile, not long before the end of the Old Testament age, to the period when Jews lived under Roman dominion at the beginning of the first century A.D., coinciding with the beginning of the New Testament era (p. xii)."

"We discuss the developing canon of sacred scripture and other important religions texts, such as the now-famous Dead Sea Scrolls as well as the lesser-known Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha... we review the religious practices and beliefs that framed the world of the people of God during this sometimes calm, sometimes turbulent period (p. xiii)."

"Flavius Josephus... his literary works are without peer for the intertestamental period. Born in Jerusalem as Joseph ben Matthias in A.D. 37, he tied himself to the Roman Flavian family following the Jewish War against Rome (p. xvii)."

"Josephus is the sole surviving source for our knowledge of some of the events of the intertestamental period (p. xviii)."

"The fact that Ezekiel and Daniel seem to have moved about rather freely indicates that the exiles were not thought of as prisoners, and they probably lived in their own villages (p. 6)."

"We do not know how long those who took Jeremiah remained in Egypt (p. 7)."

"The forced exile of people from Jerusalem to Babylon had broken the sense among Jews that they had to live in their homeland to worship and carry on their lives (p. 8)."

"When the exiles returned from Babylon... they wept. The sight of the city must have been horrible (p. 9)."

"From God's viewpoint, there was an urgency to build the temple (p. 12)."

"There was no descendant of David on the throne of Israel or Judah (p. 15)."

"After the temple was rebuilt and dedicated in the spring of 515 B.C., it became the unquestioned center of life in the wider community (p. 15)."

"One of the most vexing issues that was never solved was the relationship of the people of Judah with the people of Samaria (p. 16)."

"Over time, each group found more and more reasons to despise the other (p. 17)."

"What was he to do to surmount these problems and bring unity to his people?... Jerusalem became a city of safety and importance with the farsighted assistance of two Jews who neither were natives of the city nor had relatives living there. But they did not create a nation--a people united by a common purpose and a set of shared memories. That would not happen for another three centuries, beginning with the Maccabean War (p. 20)."

"Because of a lack of security, a small population, and encroachments into Judah, people chose to live away from Judah... The fact that these people had built a temple and adopted worship patterns consistent with both their former temple and their new Egyptian environment shows that they saw themselves as living permanently away from the land of Judah (p. 23)."

"Jewish men could and did rise to positions of trust within both the Babylonian and Persian empires (p. 23)."

"In Nehemiah's effort to rebuild the city walls, he had recruited people from all around the land of Judah (p. 25)."

"Outside the walls, enemies still sought to undo Nehemiah and his work. But he was shrewd enough that he refused invitations to meet such people outside the city, where he was vulnerable to foul play (p. 27)."

"It soon became clear to Nehemiah that the priests, who should have been leading out in acts of devotion within the society, had slid into a state of laxness that affected the whole populace (p. 28)."

"Friends and officials translated the Hebrew of Ezra's copy of the law into Aramaic so that the audience could understand clearly the meaning, an indicator that people had begun to lose their abilities with Hebrew... This is the first occasion we know of when an interpretation of scripture was made in another language (p. 32)."

"The points at which threads of life began to unravel again had to do with people who continued to marry outside their ethnic group and pugnaciously retained their economic and other relationships with outsiders (p. 32)."

"Ezra had brought the Law with him, carrying it in his hands. Most investigators conclude that this corpus of law consisted of the Pentateuch basically as we know it, the materials from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy... For the people to seriously come to grips with what Ezra had brought to them, he would have to drive a very large stake in the ground (p. 33)."

"When all was said and done, Nehemiah and Ezra had assisted their people immensely in and around Jerusalem. Perhaps significantly, they were both outsiders from Babylon (p. 35)."

"Alexander was born in 356 B.C. to King Philip II of Macedon and Olympians of Epirus. His father was massively ambitious and held influence over all of Greece, which he had gained by either military conquest or diplomacy. Moreover, he was a champion of Greek culture and spread it wherever he could... Alexander adopted his father's dreams, both for military conquest and for spreading Greek culture (p. 38)."

"In the year of Alexander's death, Ptolemy snatched the reins of government in Egypt (p. 42)."

"It now appeared that Greek ways had won. All that Alxander had stood for had seemingly triumphed, in the worst possible manner (p. 45)."

"Antiochus actually abandoned the traditional Greek idea of religious toleration... Antiochus took the ultimate drastic step of converting the holy temple into a pagan shrine (p. 52)."

"History is often more complex than we would like it to be (p. 55)."

"Before his death sometime between April 166 and April 165 B.C., Mattathias blessed his sons much as the ancient patriarch Jacob had done before his own death. In Mattathias' final blessing, he counseled, 'My children, be valorous and resolute for the Torah, because through the Torah will you win glory (p. 57).'"

"They rededicated the temple on the third anniversary of its desecration by Antiochus. This memorable event gave birth to the Feast of Hanukkah (p. 58)."

"Unlike Antiochus IV, who had sacrificed swine upon the altars after capturing the city, this Greek seemed to be someone with whom John Hyrcanus could deal, and, to everyone's surprise, negotiations between the two rules had proven successful--the Greeks would withdraw if Hyracanus would pay a tribute for the cities on Judea's border now controlled by the Hasmoneans (p. 63)."

"Josephus preserves more information about Alexander Janneus... than he does about any other Hasmonean ruler... relentless territorial expansion of the Hasmonean kingdom and severe internal conflicts between the king and his opponents (p. 67)."

"Understanding Rome's unique cultural and political development helps explain its unique approach to Hellenistic politics in the eastern Mediterranean... According to tradition, Rome was founded on April 21, 753 B.C. (p. 74)"

"The republic's last hope for substantive reform was Julius Caesar, a major figure in Roman politics from 60 to 44 B.C. (p. 79)"

"After a century of civil violence, Rome was finally at peace (p. 80)."

"At Jesus' birth, the emperor Augustus ruled over an empire even larger and more diverse than Alexander's. Rome controlled not only most of Europe and all of North Africa but also much of the Near East (p. 80)."

"Some Jews were relieved to see Rome intervene in what had become a seemingly endless, chaotic situation (p. 82)."

"In the fall of 63 B.C., after eighty years of independence, the Jews were again subject to a foreign power, Rome (p. 83)."

"Through Herod's influence, Rome demonstrated a restrained respect for Judaism and its institutions on numerous occasions... During his reign, Herod distinguished himself in Roman eyes and therefore received many honors, including such titles as 'friend and ally' (p. 95)."

"Some feel that the palaces and fortress complexes reveal Herod's paranoia... In spite of the many successes during his reign, Herod's last year was difficult and full of confusion, betrayal, and stress (p. 101)."

"Through Eleazar, the high priest of their temple in Jerusalem, he had invited a group of Jewish scholars to Alexandria to translate their book into Greek... Scripture consists of both sacred writings inspired by God and a person's state of mind. On God's part, sacred writing exists independent of whether anyone believes such writing to be divine or even important. On the human side, we must accept scripture as inspired and important before it can exert any meaningful influence in our lives (p. 105)."

"The most important set of manuscripts that have survived from antiquity is that known as the Masoretic Text or Scripture. Written in Hebrew... an agreed-on or established text whose contents were accepted about A.D. 90 by a group of Pharisaic survivors of the horrible Jewish war with Rome (p. 106)."

"Because different versions of the biblical books were known in their society, as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has shown, they felt the need to agree on an official Bible (p. 106)."

"All of these decisions--making the scripture more understandable, opting to keep only the Pentateuch and discard the other records, and buttressing their worship center on Mount Gerizim--led to the creation of the Samaritan Pentateuch, which would guide the lives of generations of unborn Samaritans (p. 109)."

"The Septuagint, which became the Bible for early Christian missionaries, including the Apostle Paul, is one of the few pieces from our scriptural heritage for which we have a story about its creation (p. 110)."

"It seems certain that the large Jewish population of Alexandria... needed a version of their scriptures that they could read... They no longer felt a compelling necessity to read scriptures in their original Hebrew (p. 111)."

"After the Septuagint had served Jewish congregations all over the Greco-Roman world for a long time, the Christians came along and everything changed (p. 112)."

"Old Testament passages quoted in the New Testament often different from what they find in the Old Testament (p. 113)."

"Since their initial discovery in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have captured the hearts and minds of scholars and laypeople alike (p. 117)."

"The importance of these textual discoveries... can hardly be overestimated. Like the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, these ancient texts open an important window onto the past (p. 118)."

"The Essenes produced and transmitted these works for their own use... The central theme of this manuscript is that it was the Qumran community with whom God established his 'New Covenant' as prophesied by Jeremiah... The Dead Sea Scrolls include examples of all the Old Testament texts, except the book of Esther (p. 121)."

"The biblical manuscripts demonstrate that the canon was not closed at this period of time (p. 122)."

"The people of Qumran rejected the priesthood and the temple in Jerusalem as being corrupt and therefore dwelt in the desert awaiting the building of a perfect temple to replace the one in Jerusalem (p. 123)."

"The painstaking effort to assemble the fragments and scrolls took more than a decade... the Dead Sea Scrolls greatly enrich our understanding of the religious and social life of Judaism during several centuries for which few sources are available (p. 125)."

"Joseph Smith leafed through his family-size King James Version of the Bible. There it was, the section titled 'The Apocrypha.' What was he to do with this section?... Joseph Smith, like most Protestants of his era, was uncertain about the value of the Apocrypha... Amid such conflicting points of view, it seems only natural that Joseph ask the Lord whether he should translate it. The answer to his inquiry is found in Doctrine and Covenants 91 (p. 127)."

"The general inaccessibility of the Apocrypha since it was removed from the Bible during the nineteenth century has made it difficult for Latter-day Saints to study the 'many things contained therein that are true,' unlike members of the Church living during Joseph Smith's ministry... The books of the Apocrypha found in early Protestant versions of the Bible are described briefly in the Bible Dictionary (p. 129)."

"The term apocrypha is technically a neuter plural adjective in Greek... that was made into a plural noun, much as we currently use the word data (p. 133)."

"Luther and other Protestants reasoned that, since the books of the Apocrypha were not included in the Hebrew canon, they were spiritually inferior to the books of the Old Testament (p. 135)."

"Christians seemed to have been more interested in these texts than their Jewish neighbors (p. 139)."

"These texts also reveal the conflict and struggle among Jews to define their self-understanding and the role of God in their lives (p. 141)."

"Malachi knew he had been inspired to dictate those words about Elijah and the typing together of families. What he did not yet know was that he would be the last to receive prophetic inspiration until the coming of a messenger to God's temple four hundred years hence (p. 142)."

"After Malachi, there was a prophetic silence. What took its place?... During the intertestamental period, a feeling began to blossom that almost any person could study and come to understand the Law (p. 145)."

"They evidently tried to apply common sense to the stipulations of the Law so that it became a helpful tool for the ordinary person (p. 146)."

"Following the intertestamental period, Jesus Himself appealed to expressions that are at home in apocalypticism (p. 154)."

"There is reason to hope and, ultimately, to rejoice in God's plan for this earth (p. 156)."

"From the days of the decrees of King Cyrus of Persia (538 B.C.), priests and Levites stood at the top of the governing structure of life in the land of Judah (p. 159)."

"Besides the high priest's responsibilities as head of the temple and its services, he also served as head of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin. There were seventy members of this body (p. 171)."

"As a scribe, Ezra stood as an example for others (p. 172)."

"We could see these scribes as usurping the place of the priests and Levites whose scriptural duty was to teach their people, but someone had to perform this important function (p. 172)."

"The Pharisees were already a force by the time Hyrcanus came to power (p. 178)."

"Josephus calls the Pharisees one of the four major 'sects' or 'schools' of his society... The others were the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the... Zealot movement (p. 179)."

"Although Josephus marks the Pharisees as the most powerful group in his society, holding influence over the majority of the populace, it is evident that over time there were few who rose to positions of power either under the Hasmonean priest-kings or under Herod and his Roman successors... Beginning with the elevated status accorded to them when Alexandra Salome was head of state, they enjoyed a major role in the Jerusalem Sanhedrin (p. 180)."

"Because the Sadducees evidently made up the majority of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin, they are identified in large measure with the priests who served in the temple (p. 181)."

"How should we view the Samaritans?... Throughout the entire intertestamental period, the most bracing question that grew directly out of their relationship with Jews was, Who is an Israelite? As for Samaritans, they saw themselves as fully Israelite... There are hints that Jesus and, later, His followers held Samaritans in high esteem, even though... Samaritans refused hospitality to Jesus and His disciples simply because they were on their way to Jerusalem (p. 193)."

"The kind of faith that invites the blessings of heaven is not limited to geography or ethnicity. And Samaritans serve as prime examples of these principles in these New Testament stories (p. 194)."

"During the period between the writing of the Old and New Testaments, two very conservative groups appeared who took broadly different paths toward both temporal and spiritual salvation (p. 195)."

"The Essenes viewed the temple and its functionaries as impure (p. 197)."

"One of the most intriguing aspects of the Essenes' life had to do with marriage... Although we cannot be exhaustive in reviewing all of the Essenes' beliefs, several others draw our attention. First, these people believed in a hierarchical system of angels... a predestined world... a person's soul inherits a bodiless eternity (p. 199)."

"Liberty was not the only ideal these people embraced. At the doctrinal heart of their enterprise stood the conviction that God was their only master (p. 204)."

"During the period between Malachi and Matthew, it appears that no one spoke in the name of the Lord until the time of John the Baptist (p. 212)."

"The book of Zechariah is the best source for this new wave of messianic hope (p. 214)."

"The period of severe persecution under Antiochus IV naturally cultivated a fertile ground for a renewed messianic hope (p. 215)."

"Most Jews and Christians accept what the author of the book of First Maccabees implied in his own narrative--that prophecy ceased after Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi... The lack of prophet, it seems, best explains the incoherent picture that emerges regarding the messianic hope... A careful reading of the New Testament suggests that even among Jesus' most intimate disciples, a correct understanding of the Messiah's mission was seriously lacking... With the reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, the disciples were endowed with a special ability to open the scriptures and provide a correct interpretation of key messianic passages (p. 219)."

"At the heart of every enduring society stands law (p. 230)."

"The Maccabees were willing to defend their religion by force of arms, whereas other devout Jews believed that such action would violate the Law (p. 234)."

"Interpreting the Law was the central focus of Judaism during the intertestamental period... Divisions manifested over the fundamental question of who was authorized to interpret the Law (p. 237)."

"Those nearly five centuries brimmed with far-reaching changes that included periods of crippling crisis, brilliant inventiveness, cautious adaptation, and painful transition (p. 251)."

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot that I didn't know by reading this book. For one thing, I had no idea that circumcision was such an offense to the sensibilities of the Greek world that dominated between the Old and New Testaments. It was interesting to contemplate how much that distinguished those who wanted to fit in to the world and its (naked) athletic games and those who wanted to keep to tradition and covenant. There were even surgeries to reverse a circumcision. Fascinating stuff.

Also covered were the Maccabees and other political happenings.

[Cherie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having finished an Old Testament study course last year, and beginning a New Testament study course in January of this year, I wanted to know what had happened to the people living in the Holy Land, during the roughly 500 years in between. I thought this book might fill in the gaps. As I read this book, I realized what a huge undertaking it was to write a book about this period in time, and a rather big undertaking for me to even assimilate and understand all the different kingdoms and ruling families that had part in the history of this area and this time. Besides the history of the conquests and rulers, this book concentrates chapters on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and various apocryphical and pseudepigraphical books that add to the knowledge of this period of time. There are also entire chapters about various groups of people, such as the Essenes, Zealots, Pharisees, Sadducces and Scribes, telling telling the who, where, when and why of their existence.
I really think I learned a lot, but it was so much and so fast, I am not sure how well I will remember the facts. However, most importantly I do need to remember what was stated in the conclusion. I will quote some of it here. " The world of Jesus was made up of many dimensions and even contradictions, including a Roman Pilate and collaborating high priest in Judea. In Galilee, Herod Antipas attempted to make the region like the Judea of this father, A Jewish world with a Greco-Roman veneer. But these elements are part of a continuing story from the past. Much had happened to the Holy Land and its people during the nearly five centuries that separate the Old Testament period from the New Testament. It was far more than a mere chronological divide; it also represented a hefty cultural gap. The central difference between the peoples who lived at the end of the Old Testament period and those at the beginning of the New was the ever-shaping, ever-renewing passage of time. Those nearly five centuries brimmed with far-reaching changes that included periods of crippling crisis, brilliant inventiveness, cautious adaptation and painful transition. By all accounts, the major influence in that era was Hellenization. Hellenization sought to repackage the world as Greek. ...Hellenization affected people in profound ways and explains many of the differences in tone and texture between the Old and the New Testaments."
"For Christians, (especially for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,) John the Baptist symbolized the final transition from the Old Testament covenant and the beginning of the New Testament Covenant. The time of the Law and the Prophets had passed, and the time of the Messiah had arrived. John the Baptist, the last legal administrator of the Mosaic covenant, had one foot in each dispensation."

[Tanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brown and Holzapfel set themselves a nearly impossible task in Between the Testaments: to cover the nearly 500 year inter-testamentary period with its evolution of Jewish culture, law, and scripture -- and all in 250 pages. They try to outline the shifting foreign entanglements of Palestine, from Assyrians to Babylonians to Persians to Greeks to Ptolemaic Egyptians to Seleucid Syrians to Romans... The speed at which foreign names, dates, and events are thrown at the reader is nearly overwhelming (and I've learned all this before and was looking for a good review!). I understand that these authors were trying to present a quick overview, primarily for LDS students of the Bible, that would be useful in a Sunday School-type setting, rather than an involved academic study. They've tried to take a very complex history and boil it down to manageable snippets without oversimplification. But I found that their attempts to provide enough detail to give real understanding only muddied the waters. 250 pages just wasn't enough for the task.

I did learn some new (to me) details about the origins of the Maccabean revolt and the changing office of High Priest of the Temple. I also liked the section that talked about the gradual evolution of the biblical canon. Honestly, the chapters with a greater religious focus were much better done than those dealing primarily with history.

3.5 stars.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book that provides some valuable historical and cultural context and background for the years from the latter part of Old Testament history until the start of New Testament History. Helps bridge the gap between the two books and understand some key differences in the context in which the two records were produced. Very helpful.

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad overview. The first part is the best bit however there is a lot of Morman thinking that does not fit with most scholarship. It seems snuck in too. I wish it would have stated something like, "From a Mormon perspective..." in these bits. It makes me wonder how much an average person wouldn't catch if they were not more familiar with the topic.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not being well versed already in the history of this time period, I tended to get confused fairly often while reading this and had a hard time keeping track of who is who and what is going on where, but it was still a very interesting read.

[Shane Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good info but I cannot recommend this book otherwise.....

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. I learned a lot about the setting Jesus was born in to.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good, but needed some editing, as there were repetitive sections.

[Katy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting look at the years between the Old and New Testaments.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was an easier and faster read than I anticipated. I enjoyed learning more about this time period.

[Marla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reference book for the time between the Old and New Testaments. Written by a scholar, but easily readable history that sets up the time of Christ really well. Highly recommend!

[Jared · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given that Judaism has its roots in the Torah, I errantly thought that when the Old Testament ended there was little left that significantly shaped the Jewish culture. Holzapfel would probably feint if he heard me utter the hint of that opinion. Obviously, I assumed incorrectly, and it wasn’t until I informed myself via this book that I have understood better what went on in Jerusalem so many years ago that influences modern politics and culture both in the east and in the west. Holzapfel and Brown, both professors of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, explain in detail the fall of the kingdom of Judah—remember the Babylonian captivity—to the birth of Christ. Despite being so small, Jerusalem and Judea remained a breadbasket and a cultural influence to the Babylonians, the Persians, the Seleucid Greeks and the Romans. Since the prophets Lehi and Jeremiah prophesied the fall of Jerusalem around 600 BC until the establishment of a Jewish state in AD 1948, there is only a brief window of time that the Jews were able to rule themselves. The Maccabean revolution was a landmark event for Jewish history—from the political nature of the office of high priest to doctrinal changes in the Sadducees’ rhetoric.

But this book is not just about history. Have you ever wondered what the Dead Sea Scrolls were all about? How about the apocrypha, or the great Diaspora? Knowing what the sociopolitical conditions were in Jerusalem has helped me understand the New Testament much better—the spiritual interpretation becomes even richer. But his book is not a novel; so don’t expect Kurt Vonnegut’s metaphors or Toni Morrison’s style. In fact, it is a bit dry—not unlike most history books.

Richard Holzapfel was my History teacher at BYU. A dynamic lecturer with an abnormal analytical aptitude, Holzapfel merits his recognition for his achievements in the field of ancient scripture and early church history. I often recommend his class and his book to anyone marginally interested in early world history.

[Jacob Lines · Rating 4 out of 5]

What happened between the end of Malachi and the advent of Jesus? There are a good 500 years between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Reading the two books, you feel and see a difference, but why? This very good book (told from a Latter-day Saint perspective) tells what happened in those in-between years – how the world changed to set the scene for the Savior’s coming.

First, the authors present the history. They tell how the Jewish exiles returned from Babylon and rebuilt Jerusalem, the Greeks came, the Hasmoneans rebelled and ruled, the Romans came, and Herod came to power. This part is well-done and very important to understanding the New Testament.

Part Two, called Sacred Writings, is excellent because it explains the different books and different versions of scripture, how they came to be accepted or rejected or ignored, and how they were used at the time. It also shows how uncertain the “canon” (if we can say there was a canon) has been through all of time.

Part Three gives a good “who’s who” among the major influence groups of the time – the different religious and cultural groups, including priests, scribes, Pharisees, Saducees, and Samaritans.

The final section deals with the religion of the time, including the law and festivals the people observed. But the best parts of this section are the chapters on the Messianic hopes of the age, which were everywhere in several varieties, and the world as it was at the time of Jesus.

Before reading this book, I had a few questions about what happened right before Jesus came. Having read the book, I now realize how much I was missing. This is a rich resource for understanding what was going on. Having the background that this book provides makes the New Testament so much more interesting and so much more understandable. I highly recommend this for all Latter-day Saints that want to understand the New Testament better.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd never known how Judea transformed from a Persian state (at the end of the Hebrew Bible) to a Roman one (in the Christian New Testament). And I knew the Maccabees fell into that transformation somewhere, but was never sure of the details. This book filled in those gaps, and many others such as "What happened to the Sadducees after the NT?" I also really appreciated learning how the apocrypha got excised from the Christian Bible and the authors emphasis that LDS will benefit from studying these books outside the Protestant cannon.

A couple things puzzled me:
* Why are the authors so resistant to the idea that John the Baptist was an Essene? The latter's focus on ritual washing, Qumran community in the desert and expectation of 2 Messiahs seems to dovetail nicely with the former's baptism, living in the wilderness and statements that a greater one would come after him.
* The authors seemed pretty biased against Greek culture and the Hellenization of the Mediterranean world. I have more than once heard the claim that the introduction of Greek ideas into early Christian thought was a part of the Apostasy, but as far as I know that claim is just a hypothesis and not a part of LDS doctrine.
* The authors repeatedly state that there were no prophets from 400 BC to John the Baptist, but that contradicts their recommendation to read the apocrypha.

[Meg Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting... but still a history book so, you know, not THAT interesting. The coolest part for me was connecting Christ as a historical figure. I'd read about him and Cleopatra in the same section and think, "Oh yeah, I guess they were contemporaries..." I wish the book was arranged sequentially instead of divided into sections. I need a through-line, folks! This brain don't jump--at least not without ample graphs and charts.

Reading it has certainly given me a craving, though, and I'm sure you lit-aholics know the fix. Is there a good "general overview of the history of time" kind of book that any of you are familiar with? I checked Borders, but I'm not talking about those 8-quadrillion page, fully-comprehensive numbers that, let's face it, I don't have the attention span for. I mean a short, concise overview of when and where history clicks together? It would be cool to be able to reconcile Ghengis Khan, Shakespeare and Marilyn Monroe in my head (or at least in a reference book). You know--some kind of glorified timeline. LET ME KNOW!

[Lisa Reising · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great history lesson about what happens between the Old and New Testaments - both politically in the region, and in terms of religious history. How did Greek culture change Jewish culture? How did the Pharisees and Scribes gain such prominence? Did the Jews look forward to the coming of a Messiah? Where did the Samaritans come from, and why was there such animosity between them and the Jews? All these questions - and many more - are addressed using the history sources currently available to us. A whole section on what those sources are is very helpful. Excellent resource for connecting the two Biblical Testaments of Jesus Christ!

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. It gives me so much understanding of the Jewish culture in New Testament times (as well as Old Testament times). Most recently, I read it in conjunction with the Apocrypha and I was amazed at how much better I understood what was going on because I had more background.

[Kurt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating tie up of the inter-testamental period.

[Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found to be interesting. Helps make the New Testament make a little more sense. A little repetitive in spots.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice, easy reading history of the intertestimental period. Glad I read it, it was a good way to fill in the gaps.

[Cliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good but seriously dry book.

[Layle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reread

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

helpful and insightful