Truth you can trace
Between the Testaments
The four centuries between Malachi and Matthew.
The four hundred "silent" years
Why "silent"? Because the last of the Hebrew prophets had spoken.
Malachi 4:5 · Malachi 4:6 · Matthew 11:13
ReadAlexander the Great and the coming of the Greeks
The era's first force is Alexander the Great.
Daniel 8:21 · Daniel 8:5 · Daniel 11:3
ReadThe Ptolemies and the Seleucids: Judea between two thrones
On Alexander's death his empire split, and little Judea sat on the fault line between two of its fragments: the Ptolemies, the Greek kings of Egypt to the south, and the Seleucids, the Greek kings of Syria to the north…
Daniel 11:5 · Daniel 11:6
ReadAntiochus IV Epiphanes: the great persecution
The hinge of the whole period is one man: Antiochus IV, who styled himself Epiphanes ("the Illustrious") and reigned over the Seleucid…
Daniel 11:31 · Daniel 8:9 · Daniel 8:23
ReadThe Maccabean revolt and Hanukkah
" (ISBE, "Maccabaeus; Maccabees," and "Asmoneans," restating 1 Maccabees 2). Mattathias died within the year (166 BC), leaving the fight to his sons, above all to Judas, surnamed Maccabeus.
John 10:22 · John 10:23
ReadThe Hasmonean dynasty: an independent Jewish state
Judas fell in battle in 161 BC, but his brothers carried the cause to victory.
John 10:22 · Daniel 2:44
ReadThe rise of the parties: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes
It is in exactly these Hasmonean years that the religious parties of the Gospels take shape.
Acts 23:8 · Mark 7:3 · Matthew 3:7
ReadRome takes over: Pompey, 63 BC
The Hasmonean civil war between the brothers Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II handed Judea to a new master.
Luke 2:1 · John 11:48
ReadHerod the Great: Rome's king of the Jews
Out of the wreckage of the Hasmoneans rose one of history's most capable and most cruel rulers: Herod the Great.
Matthew 2:1 · Luke 1:5 · John 2:20
ReadThe world of the New Testament: "the fullness of time"
By the time the four hundred years close, the pieces of the New Testament world are all in place. Rome had imposed a hard peace and a network of roads that the gospel would later travel.
Galatians 4:4 · Mark 1:15 · Daniel 9:25
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On contested questions we show every major view, attributed and cited, and pick no winner. Answers are synthesized from primary sources, truth you can trace, not opinion.