Background to Apocalypticism:
The Maccabean Revolt
OK, I’m back to my discussion of where Jewish apocalypticism
came from. So far I have laid out the understandings of the
Jewish prophets, focusing on Amos (from the 8th century BCE).
Now I need to explain why the “prophetic” views came to
change. To make sense of the change I have to sketch a set of
historical events that the people of Israel had to live
through.
Some people find these kinds of historical sketches
fascinating; others find them dull as dirt. But in either
event, you really have to know what happened among ancient
Jews in order to make sense of what their theological beliefs
were, since these beliefs were molded by and informed by
nothing so much as the historical context out of which they
emerged.
And so here is a very brief sketch of the history of Judea
over the four hundred years from approximately 540 BCE, when
the Persians were in control, up to 63 BCE, when the Romans
came in and took over.
I’ve taken the sketch from my
textbook, The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction.
**************************************************************
************
The Later History of Judea
In the Persian period (starting in the late 6th century BCE),
the land of Judah came be a province called Judea. This will
be its name in the time of the New Testament. So too, as we
have seen, inhabitants of this land, and descendants of former
inhabitants who maintained their ancestral religious and
cultural traditions, were called Judeans, or Jews.
The Persian empire was to last for about two hundred years.
In the mid- to late-fourth century Greece, to the west, rose
to prominence, especially under the leadership of Alexander of
Macedonia, otherwise known to history as Alexander the Great.
We will learn more about Alexander in chapter 9, as, somewhat
ironically, his conquests proved to be more important for
early Christianity than they were for the Hebrew Bible. Here
suffice it to say that Alexander and his armies went on a
massive campaign to the east, conquering Egypt and the Levant,
and eventually the entire Persian empire, by 330 CE.
Eventually they got as far east as modern day India, before
turning back.
Because Alexander was himself, culturally, Greek – he actually
had the great Greek philosopher Aristotle (disciple of Plato,
disciple of Socrates) as his private tutor when he was young –
he considered Greek culture to be superior to all others. One
of his goals was not simply…
THE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR MEMBERS ONLY.
If you don’t
belong yet, JOIN!!! You’ll be so well informed that no one
will be able to STAND you!!!
You need to be logged in to see this part of the content. Please Login to access.