Intertestamental period
Period between the Old and New Testaments of the Bible
The intertestamental period ( Protestant ) or deuterocanonical period ( Catholic and Eastern Orthodox ) is the period of time between the events of the protocanonical books and the New Testament . Traditionally, it is considered to cover roughly four hundred years, spanning the ministry of Malachi (c. 420 BC) to the appearance of John the Baptist in the early 1st century AD . It is roughly contiguous with the Second Temple period (516 BC-70 AD) and encompasses the age of Hellenistic Judaism .
It is known by some members of the Protestant community as the "400 Silent Years" because it was a span where no new prophets were raised and God revealed nothing new to the Jewish people . [1] Many of the deuterocanonical books , accepted as scripture by the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy , were written during this time, as were many pseudepigraphal works , the Biblical apocrypha , the Jewish apocrypha , and the Dead Sea Scrolls . An understanding of the events of the intertestamental period provides historical and literary context for the New Testament .
Significant events
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- Beginnings of the Jewish diaspora and Hellenistic Judaism
- Establishment of the first synagogues
- Change in common language from Biblical Hebrew to Aramaic and Hellenistic Greek
- The events of the Maccabean Revolt , as documented in the Books of the Maccabees
- Reign of the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties, followed by Roman rule
- Production of the Greek Septuagint , the first translation of the Hebrew scriptures into another language [2]
- Writing of the Dead Sea Scrolls , the rediscovery of which became central to modern and contemporary Biblical criticism [2]
- Writing of the deuterocanonical books ( biblical apocrypha ) and pseudepigrapha
See also
References
- ↑ Lambert, Lance. "400 Silent Years: Anything but Silent" . Archived from the original on February 22, 2014 . Retrieved 2012-09-21 .
- 1 2 Brown, S. Kent; Holzapfel, Richard Neitzel (December 2014). "The Lost 500 Years: From Malachi to John the Baptist" . Ensign : 56–60.
Further reading
- The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol 1, Page 457 "Literary Activity"
- Pfeiffer, Charles F. Between the Testaments . Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1959. 132 p.
- Carroll, Benajah Harvey. Between the Testaments (PDF) (PDF) . Woodstock, VA: Grace Baptist Church. p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 7, 2015.
Hebrew Bible
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