This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 543: Read the Bible for Yourself 10: Key Background for Reading the New Testament by Sean Finnegan

This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode.

00:08
Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to Restitutio a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today.

00:24
We've taken our time working through the Old Testament section by section, before we tackle the New Testament and look at the Gospels. We need to talk about the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament and the gap of roughly 400 years, massive political and cultural changes occur.

00:43
Nowhere in the Old Testament do we see anything about the Romans, Pharisees, Sadducees, or the Sanhedrin. For example, in today's episode I'll catch you up on what happened after the Old Testament and before the New Testament, so you can better understand the world in which Jesus functioned here now was episode.

01:02
543 part 10 of our read the Bible for yourself class key background for reading the New Testament.

01:18
As I mentioned before, the Bible has 66 books in it. Last time we were just looking at the Old Testament and in future sessions we'll just be looking at the New Testament. But all together there are 66 books in the bottom. It's not incredible. It's not. Blow your mind. This is this is a library. Like I said to you before, it's not just a book.

01:37
And we've looked at the Old Testament now we're going to focus on the New Testament books 40 through 66.

01:45
27 books in the New Testament.

01:49
But first.

01:50
Before we get into the New Testament and look at the first part of the New Testament, the first part of the New Testament is called the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is the names of the Gospels, four of them. Before we look at that, it's me. Next time we want to look at.

02:06
What happened between the Old Testament and the New Testament? Because what happened between the Old Testament and the New Testament is important for you to understand the New Testament.

02:18
So here's an outline of what I intend.

02:20
To cover with you.

02:22
I want to look at recent history when I say recent history, I don't mean in the 21st century. I mean recent history. Just before the time of Christ.

02:32
Then I want to look at the geographical and political setting at the time of Christ.

02:37
Jewish groups and then important issues that were.

02:42
Around at the time of Christ. So let's start with recent history. The Babylonian Empire had conquered Jerusalem. I've talked to you about this over and over. This was the the key trauma of the Old Testament.

02:54
Well, that's not the end of the story.

02:57
After the Babylonians guess what the Persians came, and this interesting king named Cyrus the Great said to all the peoples, everybody can go home now.

03:08
And so everybody goes home to their ancestral lands and we have the return from exile.

03:14
And at that point, Israel becomes a vassal state under the Persian Empire. A vassal state means you have to pay taxes to another empire.

03:24
Sort of like under the authority of someone else.

03:29
Then.

03:30
They got conquered by the Greek Empire. The Persian Empire got conquered by the Greek Empire, and who was the great Macedonian Alexander the Great? If you ever heard of him, he cut through the whole region like a hot knife through butter. He kept going east, East, east, east. He like never got off his horse, just kept going, going, going until they were fighting with.

03:50
Elephants.

03:51
Got all the way to India to the to the border of India. Yeah, just conquered everything he could.

03:58
I don't know how old he was. Like 30 in his 30s and he had conquered the whole world. It's so sad, you know? And then he died of some mystery illness, you know.

04:08
Enigmatic person anyhow, the thing about Alexander the Great is that he wasn't satisfied just to to conquer and to make vassals or or make provinces that he would tax. He wanted to bring Greek culture with him everywhere he went. He wanted to establish.

04:28
The Greek way of doing things in every city he conquered.

04:33
Including urban planning, religion, customs, culture and language.

04:39
So the process by which a city or people adopts Greek ways of thinking and living is called Hellenization.

04:47
Because the ancient word for Greece is Hellas, so Hellenization means to greenify, a city or a culture.

04:58
And there was an allure of Hellenization.

05:01
And so in Israel, there was a tendency to have travelers going through that patch of land because on the east is desert and on the West is the Mediterranean Sea. And so Israel stands it just like that land bridge to get to Egypt or up to Europe, to the West or to Asia and the east.

05:22
So it really is a trade.

05:24
Route of great significance. And so merchants in Israel would learn Greek. Why? Because everybody speaks Greek around you now because of Alexander the Great's success in conquering the world and the Greeks. They had a really interesting culture. They had ancient histories, like Homer's books, The Iliad and the Odyssey. And these these histories.

05:46
Have all these epic wars and these stories about the Trojan horse right? Like really interesting stuff. And the Greeks had poems and play.

05:56
Days they had mathematics, Euclid. They had all these philosophers before Socrates, who basically did what we would call science. They had philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. They had superior military tactics, and it was a dominant cultural force.

06:16
So.

06:17
Those are some things that might be attractive to a Jewish person, but there's also some differences in sexual ethics. The the Greek was a very liberated person. They had no issues tolerating sex outside of marriage or homosexual sex or pedophilia. Those were all totally fine.

06:38
With the Greek mindset.

06:42
So this is now like the cultural force that is pressuring people in Israel and.

06:50
Some of the people in Israel are going to say, you know what? I'm going to stick to the law of God. I'm going to stick to what he says is right and I'm not going to adopt these Greek practices, whereas others were like, well, if we adopt some of those Greek practices, maybe we can.

07:02
Have better trade with our neighbors.

07:04
So there was some debate about that, but then there was a king, a Greek king named Antiochus epiphanies, and Italicus Epiphanes said. That's it.

07:15
I don't care what you think. You're all going to get Hellenized. You're all. I don't care if you have your own scriptures. Not anymore. But now you're gonna be part of my empire.

07:26
So this is second Maccabees, 47, where it says when Salukis died in in Takis, who was called Epiphany, succeeded to the Kingdom of Jason, the brother of Anayas, obtained the high priesthood by corruption.

07:39
So these are the main players you've got Antiochus here.

07:42
And then you've got Jason.

07:44
So Antiochus is the Greek king, Alexander the Great had died a long time ago. Antiochus is now the king of the eastern part, northeastern part of the Kingdom. So he has this Jewish guy named Jason, who is now going to be his guy to bring Greek culture into Israel.

08:04
He says in verse 10, when the king assented and Jason came to office, he at once shifted his compatriots over to the Greek way of life. He destroyed the lawful ways of living and introduced new customs contrary to the law, he took delight in establishing A gymnasium right under the Citadel, and he induced the noblest of the young men to wear the Greek hat.

08:26
There was such an extreme of Hellenization and increase in the adoption of foreign waves because of the surpassing wickedness of Jason, who was ungodly and no true high priest, that the priests were no longer intent upon their service at the altar, despising the sanctuary and neglecting the sacrifices. They hurried to take part in the unlawful proceedings.

08:47
In the wrestling arena, after the signal for the discus throwing to staining, the honors prized by their ancestors and putting the highest value upon Greek forms of prestige.

08:57
All right, so let.

08:58
Me explain this just a little bit.

09:00
The Titicus is a really intense guy. He wants all of his his provinces to be of the Greek culture. Israel is is still weird. It's still practicing its ancient laws.

09:15
So this guy Jason says, you know what? I think I could help. So Jason brings in a lot of the Greek ways of doing things like the discus. Do you see that the discus where?

09:24
You.

09:25
Right, like in the Olympics, Olympics are a Greek thing. Wrestling is a Greek thing. Wrestling was done naked in the ancient world. They had. They didn't invent athletic clothing yet.

09:36
And wrestling was done only by guys. And when guys are naked, they notice how the Jews are different than the other guys. I'll leave it there, but it was noticeable and some of the Jewish guys started to get embarrassed about that and they started to have surgical procedures to, like, physically alter.

09:56
Their genitals to appear more like the Greeks looked.

10:01
Which is a pretty extreme example of like adapting to the culture.

10:07
So Jason gives this kind of like soft push towards these things. It doesn't go fast enough, it doesn't go strong enough. So Antica says, you know what, I'm just going to make a law and I'm just going to persecute the people into becoming Greek whether they like it or not. And we read about that and 1st Maccabees.

10:26
That copies is not.

10:27
In our Bibles.

10:28
But it's a historical document written by the Jewish people. So just to mention what Maccabees is first Maccabees 141 says then the King wrote to his whole Kingdom the King Antiochus that all should be 1 people and then all should give up their particular customs. All the nations accepted the command of the king.

10:47
Many, even from Israel, gladly adopted this religion. They sacrificed to idols and profane the Sabbath.

10:54
And the king sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem in the towns of Judah. He directed them to follow customs, Strange to the land, to forbid burnt offerings and sacrifices and drink offerings in the sanctuary to profane Sabbaths and festivals, to defile the sanctuary and the Holy Ones.

11:12
To build altars in sacred precincts and shrines for idols to sacrifice pit, you can almost hear the Jewish personally spitting on the ground to sacrifice pigs and other unclean animal Jewish people don't eat pork.

11:25
For their laws, verse 48 and to leave their sons uncircumcised, they were to make themselves abominable by everything unclean and profane, so that they would forget the law and change all the ordinances.

11:39
He added, and whoever does not obey the command of the King shall die. That is full on persecution, ladies and gentlemen.

11:48
You're gonna do the Greek way or else.

11:50
You're gonna die.

11:52
Verse 51. In such words, he wrote to his whole Kingdom. He appointed inspectors over all the people and commanded the towns of Judah to offer sacrifice town by town. Many of the people, everyone who forsook the law, joined them, and they did evil in the land and they drove Israel into hiding in every place of refuge.

12:12
They had.

12:14
So the inspectors are going village to village throughout the land of Judea.

12:18
Yeah.

12:19
And they get to a village called Modeen.

12:23
And they gathered the town together, and they commanded a man named Matthias, who was of priestly descent.

12:30
And who was a leader in the town had a lot of children well established, an important person. And they said to Matthias, you offer the sacrifice to this Greek God. The Greeks literally worship different gods.

12:45
And Mathias said even if all the nations that live under the rule of the king obey him and have chosen to obey his commandments, every one of them abandoning the religion of their ancestors, I and my sons and my brothers, will continue to live by the Covenant of our ancestors, he says no.

13:06
I'm not offering this unclean animal to your unclean God.

13:13
There's a standoff, there's a showdown in the town.

13:17
What happens is another villager probably just trying to make the peace.

13:23
Comes in. It's like final offer the sacrifice and he goes to offer the sacrifice. Matthias flies into a rage, kills his own fellow villager, and then knocks over the altar and then kills the inspectors that were sent from the Greek king.

13:40
Starts a revolution.

13:43
Well, they decide they better head to the hills because you can't stay in that village anymore once you just did that. So Matthai said let everyone who is zealous for the law and supports the covenant come out with me and they went out to the hills and they initiated a revolution using guerrilla war tactics where they would set traps and.

14:04
They would fight against much bigger militaries and they would win.

14:09
So Matthias led the revolution for a year from 167 to 166 BC.

14:15
This is over a century before Christ.

14:18
Almost two centuries before his crucifixion and resurrection. But this is the big event between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Maccabean Revolution.

14:30
OK. And it starts in modeen with this guy, Matthias. Now what do I call it? Maccabean. Well, after Mattathias died, his son, Judah the Maccabee took over. Nobody knows exactly why he's called the Maccabee, but it sounds kind of like a word that means hammer in another language. So they think, well, maybe he's the hammer or there are other couple of other theories about it too. But whatever, it doesn't matter.

14:53
But the fact is this Judah guy, the son of Mathius, was a mighty warrior and he was able to win many battles.

15:01
But then he died in battle. Two in the year 160 BC, and his brother Jonathan took over. Jonathan was the leader of the revolution from 160 to 143. He gained independence. They won so many battles against the solutions that the Greek solicits that basically they gained their independence.

15:21
Of Israel, as it had not been since the days of Zedekiah the Last King when Jeremiah was the prophet.

15:30
4 centuries earlier. I mean, just a long time. They had been under.

15:34
There the Babylonian and then the Persian and then the Greeks and now they have this like little window of independence and.

15:40
It's like what's what's?

15:41
This what's going on here?

15:43
Well, Jonathan eventually dies and his brother Simon takes over and you can see as each one takes over, they expand the size of the Kingdom. Initially it's just Judea, which is Jerusalem, the surrounding areas. But then they conquer a little section to the east of the Jordan called.

16:00
Area a few other little sections and then after Simon dies in the year 135, he makes alliances to ensure stability. His son John Hyrcanus takes over and he conquers Samaria in Umea and a southern part of Korea, and at this point John Hircanus is the third generation.

16:21
So you had Matthias, you had Judah. Jonathan and Simon are all brothers of the same generation. But now, John, her canus is the third generation. Now we have a dynasty. We're the third generation. We've got a dynasty. So we call this dynasty that Hasmonean dynasty.

16:38
It's a Jewish Kingdom that survives for this whole in between time in between the Greeks and the Romans.

16:46
Because the Greeks had conquered the land, then they had independence, and then the Romans conquered the land.

16:51
About a century.

16:53
John Hyrcanus takes advantage of turmoil among the Greeks. He annexed tons of land, including Samaria and Umi, and southern Korea. His son Aristobulus the first take.

17:02
Over he only lasts a year, so he doesn't do much. He got sick and died, but his son Alexander Jannaeus has a fantastic reign and is able to conquer tons of new territory. Etheria, Gilead, Gaza, all kinds of area around the Dead Sea and the east and the South.

17:22
And.

17:23
By the time Alexander Geneus dies, the Kingdom is like roughly the size of Solomon's Golden Age Kingdom, which was like 1000 years earlier.

17:33
After Alexander Jannaeus, his wife Salome, Alexandra takes over and she reigns from 76 to 67 BC. The Queen of Israel, there is a queen in the Old Testament too, lady named Azelia. But she's really bad. So Salome, Alexandra. Kind of.

17:53
Redeems the queenship on behalf of all.

17:56
The ladies, you.

17:57
Know to show like. No, you could have a good queen in Israel. She's from 76 to 67. And then her son Hircanus. The second takes over.

18:05
There, he's only in charge for a short time and then his brother takes it away from him and her cane is the 2nd and her fabulous the second fight and fight and fight and fight. Both of them reach out to the Roman general, a guy named Pompey and say, why don't you go on our side? Pompey says forget both of you. I'm just going to take over your Kingdom.

18:26
And add it to the Roman Empire.

18:29
So in 63 BC.

18:32
The whole region becomes occupied by the Roman Empire, mostly due to the incompetence of the Jewish rulers, not so much to the ingenuity of the Roman legions and their battle techniques or anything like that.

18:47
It's kind of tragic.

18:49
But then there's a few other rulers that I I won't really get into. But then after that from 37 BC onwards there's a guy, a Wiley cat named Antipa.

19:00
Here.

19:01
You don't have time to talk about Antipater, but he was an expert politician and he succeeded in maneuvering his way into power in just such a way that made his son the king and his son's name is Herod the Great. Or as I like to call him, her the worst, but whatever.

19:21
You call whatever you.

19:22
Want so Herod the Great initiates his dynasty in the Earth 37 BC and he and his descendants basically rule over the area for many, many years to come all the way through the life of Christ and everything else.

19:37
Now how do I know the Hasmonean dynasty was a significant?

19:41
Force and in the cultural awareness of the time of Jesus. Well, think about it. Who did Jesus call as his disciples? What were the names of these people? Well, one of them was Peter. What's? What's Peter's real name? Simon. Simon Fassie, the great ruler of the Hasmonean dynasty.

20:01
Whose father, Mathias initiated the.

20:04
Ocean what was Simon's older brother's name? It was Judah, which comes into the New Testament is Judas. But it's Judah the Maccabee. That's why there's two judases among Jesus's followers. Why is there a Matthew? Is Matthew a name in the.

20:17
Old Testament.

20:19
No, not really.

20:20
Matthew is from Matthias. That's just a translation of that same name.

20:25
OK, so they're they're naming their kids after these revolutionary heroes, just like in America. Everybody knows George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King junior. You know, these like national heroes, they name their kit. Well, I guess you don't name your kid George and Abraham much or whatever. But like you, you get the point. Like, these are their. These are their heroes that they cherish. And now they're sitting under Roman.

20:46
Occupation. And they're thinking, you know what we could really use another Judah the Maccabee. Today somebody get these Romans out of here like we got the Greeks out. So you can see how relevant this history is in the time of Christ.

21:00
Let's look at the geographical and political setting at the time of Christ.

21:05
Now the Roman Empire was a massive empire, and studying the Roman rulers will help you a little bit to understand the New Testament well, it helps you understand the background of the New Testament. If you really want to go deep in the Roman Empire, I recommend.

21:24
The podcast called the History of Rome by Mike Duncan. He literally begins in the in the the mythological founding of Rome the city and goes all the way through the entire Roman Empire for for centuries and centuries and centuries. It's incredibly well done and I learned a lot when I listened to it. So yeah, that's called the history of Rome.

21:45
But anyhow, the Roman Empire had massive strength and power. Here's a video I took of the Colosseum just to give you a sense of the perspective of.

21:56
What Roman architecture could be?

22:00
Now to build something this big, when you have cranes, you have modern concrete and you have all our technology. OK, whatever. We have skyscrapers. But to build this on human backs and legs in a time 2000 years ago, the Colosseum.

22:19
Was built shortly after the time of Christ. It was built in.

22:22
The 1st century.

22:23
So the Roman Empire was massive, had many different Roman emperors, but the ones I'll just mention are Augustus, who ran from 27 BC to AD 14. So he's the emperor. He's the technically, he's the first Roman emperor.

22:39
And he is the emperor. When Jesus is born.

22:42
Then we have Tiberius Caesar, Tiberius Caesar reigns from 14 to 37. If it's AD or CE, I don't. I don't put the letters and I just just put the numbers. OK. So from 14 to 37, Tiberius Caesar is the guy in charge. When Jesus is crucified, the person in charge when Pentecost happens. When Paul is covered.

23:03
Worded Caligula becomes the Caesar from 37 to 41 during the time of acts early on. Claudius is Caesar from 41 to 54 during Paul's journeys, and Nero becomes Caesar from 54 to 68 when polls on his third mission, and it's likely that he actually had Paul and Peter both.

23:24
Executed. Although we can't say exactly for sure to what degree hero was involved in that, we know that they were executed during his reign in Rome, so it makes sense that Caesar has something.

23:34
To do with it.

23:37
The Roman Empire was a massive, massive empire surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, so it included modern places like Spain and Morocco and Egypt and Turkey. You know, the whole Mediterranean region, and so these are all considered to be provinces whereas.

23:57
The Roman Empire proper is just Italy. OK, so Italy is the capital of the entire empire, and then everything else is a province that's ruled over by a governor.

24:11
The governor's job is to keep the peace.

24:13
And send the taxes. Make sense?

24:18
If the governor is having some sort of a war or a riot, or people are dying and not paying their taxes, you know, cause dead people don't pay taxes, right? So that's grounds for that, governor.

24:31
To get replaced.

24:33
So let's talk about the region of.

24:38
The New Testament, especially in the Gospels, we're looking at this region here, what we call today, Israel. But at that time it was not called Israel.

24:47
At that time it was called Gali Samaria and Judea.

24:52
Three different regions and this is where Jesus did his ministry. So in Galilee, the rulers in the times of the New Testament, at least the early days, were Herod the Great. From 37 BC to four BC, his son Herod Antipas, so Galilee, is up here. I should, I should make a note of that. This is the little Sea of Galilee up here.

25:14
Beautiful lake.

25:16
I don't know why they call it a. See it's freshwater. Anyhow, that's the region of Galilee. It's it's a very irrigated place. It's very green. Very nice. And so Herod the great is in charge. And then Herod Antipas and then Herod Agrippa. This guy is like George Foreman. He called all his kids Herod, and then they called all their kids Herod. Right. So we use this secondary name to distinguish them from each other.

25:37
Which hair are we talking about? Well, you've got Antipas and Agrippa the 1st, and there's a grip of the 2nd, and they're all like in the Bible. They're just called Herod. So it gets a little confusing, but they know which Herod they're talking about, because there's only, like one of them in charge at that particular time in that particular.

25:55
Fest, Galilee.

25:57
Than in Judea, we've got a lot more rulers because Judea initially is ruled over by Herod the Great. Herod the Great ruled over everything. But after he died he put his a different son in charge of Judea. Judea is down here. OK. Judea is the southern area. The Judean ruler also controlled.

26:17
Samaria.

26:18
So it's actually this whole region.

26:22
So the Herod Archelaus gets in power and you can see he only Rans from 4 BC to AD six. That's a 10 year span, this guy.

26:29
'S a total.

26:31
Failure. He's the worst of all the herods. He basically gets in a fight with the people, loses trust with them. They revolt against him. The Roman emperor says. Alright, bud.

26:42
You're done.

26:44
And he puts a Roman governor in charge. And so from.

26:47
Aster haired archaeus components onwards, it's going to be a Roman governor. It's not going to be a Herod. It's going to be a Roman governor. It's gonna be.

26:55
Direct ruled by Rome.

26:56
Itself. So if you're in Judea down here in the South, or if you're in Samaria, guess what. You have a Roman governor to answer to. But if you're up here in Galilee, you have a Herod. Herod.

27:07
And to pass to answer to and Jesus goes between those territories all the time and at his trial.

27:14
He's dealing with both. Herod Antipas is there, and so is Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. So these are all significant rulers. You can see. There were a lot of different Roman governors sent that ruled in the time of Christ. But this is the one that matters the most for us. Pontious pilot, who was the governor from 26 to 36.

27:35
So that's basically Jesus's entire ministry and his crucifiction and resurrection and the start of the book of acts. That's all in that time frame 26 to 36, Jesus is crucified around the year 30 between 30 and 33. Somewhere in there, people debate.

27:52
I don't have a dog in that fight. Paul talks about Herod Agrippa. The first he has an encounter with him, so he's a governor in that period.

28:02
All right on to Samaria. Samaria is under Judean jurisdiction, but it's really just this region in between Galilee, in the north and Judea in the South. The Samaritans.

28:15
Are a really interesting people. They first of all you have to understand about the Samaritans. They believe in just the first part of the Old Testament, just the Torah. They don't believe in the prophets and the writings. They just believe in the first five books and they think the Jews are wrong. They hate the Jews and the Jews hate the Samaritans.

28:35
There's a lot of conflict between the two of them. Now, here's something crazy. The Samaritans are still here.

28:43
They still exist in some area. You could go there to Nablus, which I've been to Nablus in, in Samaria, and they're they're still there and they still think that Jews are wrong and the Jews still think the Samaritans are wrong. You know, sort of like the the Jewish person looks, the Christian and says, why are you adding all these books to the Bible?

29:04
You know, cause like we, the Jew just has the Old Testament. The Christian has the Old Testament plus the New Testament.

29:10
It's the same thing with the Samaritan and the Jew. The Samaritan is saying to the Jew. Why are you adding all those extra books to the Bible? We already have the Torah. Why do you have all this other stuff? Right? It's the same kind of thing. Religious disagreements.

29:22
So here's something cool about the Samaritans. They have their own scrolls of the Old Testament of the the first five books. It's called the Samaritan Pentateuch. It survives to this day.

29:34
The Samaritans had a holy site called Mount Gerizim. Mount Gerizim is where the Israelites first came into the land, and Moses had them read out the blessings on Mount Gerizim, and they had a a shrine there. And so the the Samaritans said this has always been our holy site. We don't believe in Jerusalem. We don't believe Jerusalem is a holy site.

29:54
I think David was a wacko. We're not into the kings, you know? So they had a disagreement on the legitimacy of the temple that Solomon built. They don't like the temple. They're like, we already have. Mount Garrison. We we need a temple down there for. We don't need a temple.

30:08
In there. So in the time of Jesus, if you live up here in.

30:12
Galilee.

30:14
You want to come down to Jerusalem and when you get down to Jerusalem down here, that's where the temple is. And that's where you're going to offer sacrifice. And that's where you're going to give money.

30:25
And that's where you're going to worship.

30:27
You're supposed to travel down here. The fastest way to get down is to go straight through some area.

30:34
But the Samaritans don't like.

30:35
You.

30:36
So there's actually a time where Jesus and his disciples are travelling down to Jerusalem to attend one of the festivals.

30:42
And none of the Samaritans will let them stay.

30:44
In their villages.

30:46
And one of the disciples says to Jesus, Lord, should we call fire down from heaven to destroy these people and Jesus like? No. What's the matter you and you know, he just says just keep going to the next place. So you know, that's kind of a little bit of the background of the Samaritans.

31:04
Their manuscripts have survived.

31:06
They're very interesting. They're manuscripts. I'm going to zoom in a little bit so you can see their manuscripts. Like I mentioned in just the first five books of the Bible. And there are some kind of obvious corruptions. But there are other places where I think they offer a corrective to other later manuscripts. But what's fascinating about the Samaritan manuscripts is that they're not written in the kind of Hebrew scripts.

31:29
That people who read Hebrew today are familiar with. They're written in a paleo Hebrew script.

31:35
That, you know, even if you study Hebrew, you cannot read this. This is this is a different kind of alphabet that they. Well, I think it's the same alphabet, but a different kind of script that they.

31:45
Use to do it.

31:46
All right, let's move on to.

31:47
Jewish groups.

31:49
I want to cover 6 Jewish groups. Obviously I don't have enough time to go into any of them in much detail, but I just want to give you a thumbnail sketch of Sadducees Pharisees, Sanhedrin, scribes, revolutionaries, and John the Baptist movement. All right, first up, we've got our Sadducees.

32:07
They controlled the temple. The Sadducees were significant. They were powerful. They were aristocrats. They owned big houses. They knew the Governor of Rome, pontious pilot or whoever it happened to be depends on what time period we're talking about, and they had a working relationship with the Roman governor.

32:26
They also had control of the priesthood, like the chief priests and the high priests were all Sadducees during the time of Christ.

32:36
They agreed with the Samaritans that only the Torah was scripture and that the the prophets and the writings were not considered scripture. So that's kind of interesting over against the Pharisees.

32:47
And they didn't believe in resurrection or angels.

32:51
So that's the Sadducees, just a couple of words on them. Pharisees. Pharisees accepted the whole testament as legitimate. The Pharisees were the ones who eventually become the rabbis that developed into the Jews of today. OK, Rabbinic Judaism and so forth into the medieval.

33:08
Period. So the Pharisaic Judaism is the Judaism that survives and outperforms all the other forms of Judaism in the 1st century. But nobody knows that's going to happen. They're all competing for adherence and for influence throughout the time of the 1st century. So the Pharisees focused on obedience to Torah. They didn't.

33:28
Focus on the temple. The Sadducees controlled the temple and the sacrifices and the money.

33:33
The Pharisees focus on obedience.

33:36
Righteousness and the traditions of the elders.

33:41
The traditions of the elders is how you interpret the laws of Moses. The law of Moses says don't work on the Sabbath.

33:51
So does that mean you can't go anywhere?

33:54
Well, they had this idea of a Sabbath day's journey established by the elders, and the Pharisees are like, well, this is exactly how far our Sabbath day's journey is, and that's how far.

34:03
We're going to.

34:04
Go. So that's the Pharisees. They accepted the.

34:07
Law, the prophets and the writings.

34:09
And they had been very powerful in previous times, but by the time of Jesus, they were very influential among the people.

34:16
But not very influential among the government.

34:19
All right, then we have the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was a council. A law court that the Romans established. They established 5 councils throughout the land over 5 districts. The one that's relevant to us is the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem made decisions on important cases.

34:40
They had control over the police in the region of Jerusalem so they could arrest people. They could try people, they could whip people, punish them, find the.

34:51
And.

34:52
But they could not execute people.

34:54
Only the Roman governor could have approved an execution, so when it comes to the.

34:59
Time of Christ.

35:00
They have to work with the governor to say this guy, you should really kill this guy because they know they couldn't do it. They didn't have permission to do it. The Sanhedrin did not. All right. Then we have scribes. Scribes are people that copy.

35:15
The.

35:15
Level.

35:16
It sounds strange to us because, like, why wouldn't you just hit the print button or why wouldn't you just buy it online or whatever? Well, they they didn't have any of that technology, so they're hand copying and this is incredibly valuable. This is how the scriptures get into the different synagogues in the world as you have professionally transcribed, who are incredibly accurate.

35:36
It properly copying every single letter in a scroll.

35:41
And counting up all the words and all the letters, making sure everything is accurate.

35:46
In addition, because they were such great copiers, they knew the Bible. They were the experts on the law of Moses. And so if you had a dispute, a question about interpretation, you want to bring a scribe in because they know.

36:00
The book.

36:01
And the scribe is going to tell.

36:03
You what the book says.

36:05
Then we had revolutionaries.

36:07
This is also called the 4th philosophy and I'll let Josephus tell you about them. I I should mention that Josephus.

36:16
As a Jewish historian who wrote a book well, he wrote several books. But two important books are antiquities of the Jews and the Jewish War, Roman War, Jewish War, which generally the Jewish War of Rome. You can get this for yourself. It's not that expensive. It's all translated into English, which is really helpful. And Josephus.

36:35
It gives you all the gossip, all the gossip you'd ever want to know about the Roman rulers, about the aristocrats, about the, you know, this one did that. And this one did that. And he gets into all the court intrigue and whatnot. But he talks about the revolutionary.

36:51
And he says. But of the 4th sect of Jewish philosophy, Judah the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions, but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty. And say that God is to be their only ruler and Lord. They also do not value.

37:10
Dying any kind of death, nor indeed, do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends. Nor can any such fear make them call any man Lord.

37:20
So these revolutionaries, they start revolutions both before Jesus's ministry and after his ministry, and it could be that one of his followers, Simon, called the zealot, was one of these revolutionaries.

37:36
Alright, that's hard to say for sure, but just so you know, there are revolutionaries about and in the year 66 they get their revolution and they fight the entire Roman Empire head on in a military conflict.

37:52
Sadly, they lose, but it's an impressive group of people.

37:57
Then you have John's movement.

38:00
John, the we call him John the Baptist, right? That's what's called the Bible. I just call it John's movement. Here. He calls the people to repent. He baptizes them in the Jordan River. This is weird. There is no such thing as baptism in the Old Testament. There are ritual cleansings and stuff like that. But nothing.

38:16
Connected to morality, where you're repenting of your sins. So John is initiating this this unusual.

38:23
Movement and he has some things that make him strongly resemble the essence and have not talked about the essence yet. But the Essenes were another Jewish group that lived out in the desert regions in intentional communities and who had basically concluded that the temple system was too corrupt.

38:44
And they didn't want anything to do with it.

38:46
So they're living out in the desert and their aesthetics, or at least prone to asceticism, where they don't. You know, they're not embracing a lot of pleasures of life. You know, they're very focused on holiness. And so here comes John the Baptist, and he's he's wearing camel hair, and he's coming out of the desert and he's eating wild.

39:06
He's a scavenger, you know he's eating wild honey and locusts, and he's calling everyone to repentance to this moral purity. Kind of sounds like an essing to a lot of.

39:15
Dollars, but the idea is that John the Baptist was phenomenally successful.

39:22
It says in the gospels that all of Judea came out to be baptized by John and the Jordan.

39:28
People responded extremely well to decades later. Decades later, after John the Baptist is even beheaded and he's executed Paul is is hundreds of miles away in the in the city of Ephesus and he finds disciples of John the Baptist.

39:44
There.

39:45
And it's like, well, how did these guys get?

39:47
Year because he was that influential in his time. And of course, when Jesus gets his start, which we'll look at next time when Jesus gets his start, the first thing he does is he is sociated with John the Baptist. He connects him with his ministry and they have some interchange.

40:02
Let's look at it just a.

40:03
Few quick issues and then we'll be done.

40:06
In the time of Christ in the New Testament, what was important? Well, the temple was really important. There was actually a time where Jesus's disciples came up to him and say, isn't this incredible how great a job they've done renovating this temple? And Jesus says.

40:24
Not one stone is going to be left upon.

40:25
Another that won't be destroyed.

40:28
He prophesized the destruction of the unthinkable, unthinkable to do that, and yet it happened 3035 years after Christ. They actually destroyed the entire, and it's never been rebuilt. To this day, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, nobody's ever rebuilt the Jewish temple. Even if you go today, it's not there. There's no Jewish temple. There are two Muslim.

40:49
Mosques on the site where the Jewish temple used to be no Jewish.

40:52
Temple.

40:54
The Jews had struck a deal with Caesar to offer sacrifices on his behalf in the Roman religion, just like in the Greek religion. You offer sacrifices to all these different gods, and they wanted to sacrifice to Caesar, the Jews said.

41:12
We just.

41:13
Can we just do it? We'll. We'll. We'll do a sacrifice to our God for you. Is that good enough? And they said, yeah, it's good enough. We'll we'll take that. You know. So there was some negotiating that happened there. So they had to have a sacrifice on behalf of Caesar, but to God.

41:29
The Romans had built a fortress right next to the temple courtyard, so they had their soldiers overlooking this gathering space, so that if there was a riot that was going to break out, they had the.

41:40
Soldiers ready to go in.

41:42
And they also controlled the vestments for the high priests.

41:46
These are all spelled out in meticulous detail in the Book of Leviticus. What? Right down to his underwear. I'm not kidding. What the high priest is supposed to wear? These are sacred clothing that he would wear on the day of Atonement when he went into the Holy of Holies. You know who controlled that? The Roman governor.

42:06
So the high priest had to negotiate with the Roman governor to get the holy clothing to go into the holy place on the holy day. So you getting a sense of the time of Jesus, the tensions with Rome and the background of this whole Hasmonean battle, this revolution, successful revolution that happened, that they told stories about, and they're naming their kids.

42:27
After to call yourself the Messiah in the time of Christ was the same as to say, arrest me. You know what I mean? Because to be a Messiah, to be a king, to be a king is to defy.

42:40
The Roman Empire.

42:42
So that all plays into the Ministry of Christ's Taxes. Taxes were hugely controversial at the time of Christ. Should Jewish people pay taxes to Rome? Why should we pay taxes to Rome? They're the occupiers. This is God's land. He gave it to our forefathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacobs. You want me to pay taxes to these, these uncircumcised Gentile?

43:02
Pigs. You could just kind of hear the heat of that debate and then you had some Jews who said, you know what, you can't beat them. Join them. I'll collect the taxes for you.

43:13
And one of Jesus's disciples is an ex tax collector.

43:17
So there's a lot of tension going on with taxes, then Torah. How should you interpret the Torah? There are different schools of thought. There were two famous rabbis before the time of Christ called Hillel and Shamai.

43:30
The House of Hello said one thing about how to interpret this law. The House of Shammai said another thing about how to interpret this law, and they had their disciples, and then after the time of Christ there was a famous rabbi named Akiva and the House of Akiva interpreted it this other way. Well, Jesus is in the he's he's in the conversation with all the.

43:48
This.

43:49
He says well, this is how I think you should interpret it. A lot of his discussions are going back and forth. This is 1 interpretation. This is another. What does Rabbi Jesus say about this?

44:02
And then I'm, as I alluded to a lot unrest under Pontious pilot pilot was not a good governor. He caused several riots both before the time of Christ and afterwards, where he was just incredibly insensitive to Jewish sensibilities. At one point, he brought in all these standards with their.

44:22
The flags and the image of Caesar on them and all the Jews revolted. There were several riots.

44:27
And Jesus basically lived on the precipice of history.

44:31
He lived in a time where there was a revolutionary mindset. It didn't yet break out, but it caught at any moment. They didn't know it was going to take 30 more years.

44:40
Until the big war.

44:43
It was a politically charged time and claiming to be the Messiah was like lighting a match near a powder keg.

44:51
Let's review.

44:54
When the Greeks conquered the world, they made cities adopt their customs, culture, language and religion.

45:02
When Antiochus Epiphanes forcibly Hellenized Judah, it resulted in the Maccabean Revolution under Matthias and his sons.

45:11
After they won their independence, the Hasmonean dynasty ruled up until 63 BC, when Pompey annexed Judea into the Roman Empire.

45:21
Herod the Great and his descendants ruled over the region for many years, though in Judea the Romans directly ruled through governors.

45:29
During Jesus's ministry Herod Antipas ruled in Galilee and Pontius Pilate governed Judea and Samaria.

45:37
Sadducees partnered with the Roman government and controlled the temple. Pharisees focused on obedience to Torah and according to the tradition of the elders.

45:48
The Sanhedrin was a council in Jerusalem made of Sadducees and Pharisees that controlled the police force and ruled on legal issues. I didn't mention that, but the Pharisees were also part of the Saint Hedron.

45:59
Scribes copied Scripture and had expert knowledge of the law of Moses.

46:03
Jesus lived in a time of fragile peace. When Roman provocations threatened to light the match of Jewish revolution at any moment.

46:14
All right, so next time we'll look at the Gospels and we'll look at how Jesus navigated this world and what would he have to say to the powers that be and to the common people, and how did he minister to them as we continue in our class, how to.

46:27
Read the Bible for yourself.

46:34
Well, that brings this session to an end. What did you think? Come on over to restitutio.org and find episode 543 key background for reading the New Testament. Would love to see your questions and comments and feedback there.

46:50
On our last episode, how to read the Prophets, Melissa wrote in. Thank you for doing this series. As a former Catholic, I am loving the context that this provides. The structure and rhythm make it easy to.

47:04
Well, thanks, Melissa. I'm so glad to hear that this way of going through the Bible makes sense, to be honest. It's very much like the kind of class you would take in Bible college that they call a survey of the Old Testament or a survey of the New Testament. Now I'm doing both the Old Testament and the New Testament. So I'm just doing.

47:24
A survey of the whole Bible, but in the process I am trying to hit the key facts that you would need to know to be able to understand and read the Bible on your own.

47:35
And perhaps not getting too lost in the weeds when it comes to differences between each particular book. So I'm just going section by section, but I am hopeful that this class will equip you and I have heard feedback from folks who have been through this that have said to me that even though they've been reading the Bible for many years, there is still some new information.

47:55
Here that they just for whatever reason, didn't pick up as they were making their way through reading the Bible or learning from other sources. So I think there is a value to getting a systematic understanding of the totality of scripture.

48:10
And hopefully more than anything else, this will give you a taste for Scripture that you'll just want to read it, read it, read it, and develop a habit of reading and understanding the Bible on your own for the rest of your life. Because it's just so beneficial. It's just so it's like eating your vegetables except the vegetables taste good. I don't know. That metaphor just bombed.

48:31
So anyway, hopefully the structure and rhythm will continue to work for people and continue to help them to get through this material. I have a lot more material to get through, as you can imagine, cause we haven't even started the New Testament yet and hopefully you'll stick with me through this. I think it'll be worth your while if you do.

48:50
Also we got in a new review on Apple Podcasts.

48:59
Sam wrote in. I stumbled upon the Restitutio podcast many years ago and it has become an integral part of my weekly routine. As someone who craves intellectual stimulation and spiritual growth, this podcast delivers on both fronts.

49:14
The depth of research and thoughtful analysis in each episode is commendable. Whether it's exploring historical context, diving into biblical texts, or discussing theological nuances, the content is intellectually stimulating. I appreciate how the host, Sean Finnegan, presents diverse perspectives and encourages critical thinking.

49:35
Sean's passion for the subject matter shines through his eloquence, clarity, and genuine curiosity make every episode engaging. He doesn't shy away from challenging topics, and his respectful approach to differing viewpoints, saucers, a healthy dialogue.

49:51
From early Christian history to biblical interpretation, the Restitutio podcast covers a wide range of subjects. Whether you're a seasoned theologian or a curious seeker, there's something here for everyone I've learned about. Lesser known figures, explored controversial issues, and gained fresh insights into familiar passages.

50:12
The podcast community is warm, welcoming and intellectually curious. Shawn actively engages with listeners, responds to questions, and encourages respectful discussions. It feels like a virtual gathering of fellow truth seekers.

50:27
In a world saturated with shallow content, the Restitutio podcast stands out as a beacon of intellectual rigor, spiritual exploration, and community building. Whether you're a believer, skeptic, or somewhere in between, give it a listen. You won't be disappointed.

50:45
Well, thanks so much, Sam. About the nicest review we've probably ever gotten here. Restitutio at least certainly the most thorough. I'm certainly glad to hear that the podcast is connecting with people. And one of my goals with this podcast is to have consistency.

51:04
And to release it every week, which is kind of funny because last week I jumped the gun.

51:10
And accidentally posted on Monday instead of Thursday and then this week I got behind schedule and I'm posting this on a Friday instead of a Thursday, so there is a bit of a gap. But regardless, my goal each week is to have an episode each week, so if you look for example within any particular calendar year.

51:31
You'll always find at least 52 episodes, and I don't know if I'm always going to do that. You know, for the rest of my life or something. But that's just kind of what I settled in on ever since I started this. Maybe what was that 2015?

51:45
When I got restitutio going, so now it's 2024, so that's nine years and I don't think I've ever done a year with less than 52 episodes. I've done a few years where I got a little eager and would post multiple episodes in a week. Those days are, I think, definitely behind me now. I don't think that's likely to happen again.

52:06
But yeah, consistency is something that I think is really valuable and I hope I can be your companion on a weekly basis.

52:15
In the car while you exercise while you do chores around the house, whatever it is you do while you're listening to this episode, I hope it can benefit you and just so appreciate these notes like this one to encourage me because it is a lot of work and sometimes I do start to doubt myself and and question like why am I why am I putting all this working? What am I doing this?

52:37
So thank you for the encouragement. I really do appreciate it. And if you have been a long time listener to restitutio and haven't done it yet.

52:46
I would so appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts. I know a lot of people will give a rating. Five star ratings are really awesome, really helpful. I think our average is 4.9 for this podcast on Apple Podcast, but reviews are even better because it shows people that you cared enough to say something to write something. So.

53:06
Thanks to those of you who have done reviews, we've received a lot over the years. Dozens, you know, hopefully we can continue to receive them as time goes on.

53:14
Also, if this podcast is in your what top five podcast that you listen to on a weekly basis, please consider supporting us. People are in all kinds of different financial situations. Some people want to give a lot, some people are only able to give a little. Whatever your situation is, if if this podcast is really in.

53:34
Your top three.

53:35
Three or four or five that you listen to every week. Please consider giving a tax deductible donation to restitutio. You can do that at our website, restitutio.org. I'm not on Patreon. I'm not on sub stack. I'm not on a lot of these other more gimmicky platforms that people use. I just have a donate button on our website.

53:55
And people give through that and that really does help to cover costs and to help purchase research materials, which is kind of an ongoing need.

54:06
And thanks to those of you who are supporting us already, whether on a monthly recurring gifts or a one time gift. Certainly appreciate that as well. Well, that's going to be it for this week, next week we're going to delve into the Gospels. It's going to be awesome. I hope you can join me for that and I'll see you next time. In the meanwhile, just remember.

54:26
The truth has nothing to fear.