Biblical Antiquity Volume Two: New Testament

Biblical Antiquity Volume Two: New Testament

Introduction:

THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

The conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great drew the world into a Greek orbit, but if Alexander had lived much past the age of 32 it might have swung back to the Orient. As it was, his death precipitated the division of his empire into the sub empires of the Diadochi, (the Successors).

It is rumored that when Alexander was on his deathbed he was asked who should inherit his kingdom. He said, "It goes to the strongest." That idea was at least lived out by the various aides that had followed Alexander throughout his campaigns. Ptolemy took Egypt, and Seleucus took Syria and Mesopotamia. For the next three hundred years these kingdoms with their Greek culture ruled and fought over the area that became our New Testament world. When the Romans under Pompey the Great showed up in Jerusalem in 60 B.C. the culture in Palestine was Hellenistic. The New Testament was written in Greek, and many of the quotations of the Old Testament were from the Greek version called the Septuagint. The temple that Christ and His apostles visited was a Greek structure built by Herod to the styles of his time.

How did all of this take place? What events took us from the ancient world of Persia and Eygpt to the more modern antiquity of Greece and Rome?

This text does not purport to be a history of those kingdoms. Another volume for each would be needed to do them even brief justice. This cursory glance at the times of Alexander and what followed his conquest is to draw us into the world of Christ and His apostles as it appeared in the Mediterranean region for the short 70-80 years that are covered by the New Testament. The background histories are given to funnel us into the narrow place that was encountered by the Christ and was foundational to Christianity. This text will be different from Volume One in that the subjects get progressively closer to the ground. These subjects become more detailed with the information of a condensed time frame in which we encounter the backdrop for Christ and His Apostles.