Bible 101: What Happened Between the Old & the New?
The mysterious time between Malachi and Matthew (it isn't that mysterious)
Let me set the scene:
You’re reading Malachi.
You’re totally amped up because you made it to the end of the Old Testament, which most people deem as the most difficult part of the Bible.
You read the last few verses and already are giddy to start the Matthew, “and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
You turn the page…and suddenly, it’s Matthew and even more suddenly, it’s very apparent that the Romans are in charge??
Wait. When did that happen??
You flip back a few pages trying to figure it out, but you realize…
THERE IS A HUGE CHUNK OF TIME MISSING!!
What the heck happened there???
Well, my friends, this time between the testaments is also known as:
*The Intertestamental Period*
Most smart people say that this time was from 433 BC to 5 AD (give or take).
It was a time of prophetic silence, which is wild considering the last 29 books of the Old Testament were riddled with prophetic stuff.
But alas, there was no prophetic stuff, and if there was, no one felt it was important enough to write down.
“If there was no prophetic stuff, what was there, Reverend Doc?”
Other stuff.
Historical stuff.
Also, a lot of cultural changes.
Let me give you a lil' snapshot of those 400ish years:
As soon as the Israelites were exiled thanks to the Babylonians, they were no longer deemed a nation. Instead, they were a sad little people group that (apparently) needed to be governed.
Alexander the Great took over around 330 BC and was bound determined to make everyone love the Greeks.
The language.
The culture.
The government style.
The food (can’t blame him for the food one…have you even had tzatziki and that one spicy red pepper feta hummus??).
Anywho, you may have heard of this happening. It was called Hellenization. And it was real bad, namely for the Jewish folk.
When Alex the Great died, the governing split up into two parties: the Ptolemies and the Seleucids.
I may be boring you, so let me just skip to the bad part: the Ptolemies were fine (I guess), but then the Seleucids took over and were dead set on eradicating the Jewish folks and their beliefs.
The main Seleucid dude, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (what a name, am I right?), attempted to destroy every Torah scroll around, prohibited going to the Temple and made it mandatory to sacrifice & give offerings to Zeus.
The Greek god.
Zeus…?
You know? The one with the lightning powers in Hercules??
Yeah. That one.
They were quite literally FORBIDDEN from their beliefs.
Antiochus pushed the Jewish folk over the edge of agitation when he decided to sacrifice a pig to Zeus…in the Temple of Jerusalem.
Thus, the Intertestamental Period became the ultimate “We’re Not Gonna Take It” era (you may have heard of the Maccabees, the rebels who revolted against all the crap and BS).
“Okay…so what’s the point of knowing all of this, Doc?”
THE POINT IS:
WHEN YOU READ MATTHEW, YOU REALIZE VERY QUICKLY THAT THE JEWISH PEOPLE WERE TIRED OF FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES.
When Jesus came to preach the Good News, the Jewish people would have been VERY suspicious.
Can you blame them?
By that point, they had numerous people try to eradicate them. From the earth. From existence.
I would have been a little suspicious too if someone came up to me and said, “hey, you should come down to the river, some dude named Jesus is preaching and basically just said he was God.”
I would have been like, “nope. No way. He probably works for the Roman government” (in the end, Jesus would have totally won me over with the whole loaves and fishes miracle).
Here’s the deal though: all of them were incredibly eager for the Messiah to show up and save them from the disaster that they called ‘life.’ So, Jesus appealed to some of them pretty quickly.
However, when Jesus didn’t rescue them or overthrow the government, the jewish people saw that as a sign that Jesus was not who he claimed to be.
Their thought process was along the lines of: “why would a Messiah preach about peace and humility? We already know those things! Shouldn’t a Messiah be a total bada** and serve a hot plate of justice?”
Spoiler Alert from the Rev. Dr.: The Jewish folk didn’t really know those things in totality. It’s kind of difficult to know peace and humility when you and your people have been fighting against the regime since forever.
And, for the record, Jesus is a total bada** who serves a hot plate of justice…
You just have to keep reading to find out how.
All of this is to say that the time in between when the Old Testament ended and the time when the New Testament started…
There was some serious and horrifying malarkey going on.
When you read Matthew, think about that and then get back to me about the Jewish folk who had no faith. Can you blame them?
Go read with confidence. Thanks for being here.