Wiki Page, [1211_LCENWRD_A63D] - ENCOUNTERING THE WORD IN THE WORLD: The Bible as the Memory of God's People

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The Bible as the Memory of God’s People

Pabillo,B. (1994). The Bible: 100% Divine 100% Human. Makati, Metro Manila: Salesiana Publisher, pages 33-55.

The Bible as the Memory of God’s People

Books are privileged memories of peoples. In books are preserved the events, persons and circumstances that formed a people and gave identity to them. By reading these books, the people become more aware of who they are and what they are for.

A people does not start its history writing books. It first experiences, then it remembers, and finally it puts its remembrances in books as lessons and reasons for life for the coming generations. The same is true of the Bible. In it are recorded remembered events that helped shaped the people of God. In general, then, there are three moments in writing down the books of the Bible:

1. the moment of lived experiences

2. the moment of remembering

3. the moment of writing.

Taken in themselves, the events narrated in the Bible seem to be trivial, or even meaningless. It is when they are seen together and with the eyes of faith and love that they become meaningful and very significant. Let me quote a story and its applications taken from the books of Etienne Charpentier, How to Read the Old Testament, to illustrate this point.

It was the ever of their golden wedding. When I arrived they were alone. Their children had already left. We spent the evening together, and it was marvelous.

I thought I knew these old friends well enough: simple people who had lived together for half a century, sharing joys and sorrows. That evening, however, I saw them with new eyes, because they showed me their ‘treasure’: a plain cardboard box held it all. Of course there were photographs, from the family wedding photograph, posed and very solemn, to snaps of a child’s smile or a holiday view. There were postcards, trite and conventional, some in pieces because he had carried them round in his uniform pocket all through the war. As I looked through them, the couple gave me a commentary and explained why they had kept them, and these common objects became sad or happy mementos of moments in their lives.

And it was their lives which took shape through their family papers. The family genealogy, a monotonous list of old-fashioned names, here became pride at belonging to a line, at having roots in a particular area. A lease was no longer a pretentious and minutely detailed document, but the final realization of a life-long dream of work and savings: they had their own house. Letters exchanged during their engagement (‘Hey, you mustn’t let him read that,’ the old man protested, delighted that it would show me the tenderness of their love) had been put next to prayers composed for the great moments of their life. Their marriage sermon lay next to rather a bad poem sent by a grandchild.

The evening went like a dream. I thought I knew these old friends well, and all of a sudden, with them and alongside them, I discovered the meaning of their life. All these papers and photographs were trivial, valueless. Yet for us they became priceless: they were no longer just objects, but the whole of a life, summed up and interpreted. Each one of these commonplace things had a place in a story of which it formed part of a fabric.

Now we must go back to some of the important points of this illustration.

This married couple showed me photographs and documents; these objects were interesting, not only in themselves, but above all because they were so to speak the life of the couple in concentrated form. Through them and by means of them, I was able to go to a little way into the world of my friends and share in their adventure of love.

Similarly, the various books of the Bible can often seem trite and uninteresting to us. But through them we shall discover the adventure of a people of believers, and will be able to enter into their world.

‘That’s our first love letter,’ my old friend said to me with a wicked smile. I read it in amazement: it was an algebra problem. At that time he and his future wife were still at school. Because she was away ill, he had been given the task of writing to her with the math homework. An ordinary enough letter, but it started something and it had been followed by others. Taken by itself, the letter would have been completely uninteresting; kept by chance and reread after their marriage, it had really become their first love letter.

So there are events which make no sense by themselves: they make some sense by becoming part of our history. At the moment when they are taken, photographs are not very interesting; looked at afterwards, they become important.

Thus, each event can carry within it a number of meanings which we may not see all at once; if however, it is important, we shall be led to think about it again, and by thinking about it, we shall discover its riches. The more one goes on, the richer the original event becomes.

Describing an event is not the same as giving an exact amount, like a photograph or what happened; it is rather like recreating this event and showing the meaning that it now has for us. And as we talk about it later, we discover yet other things. For example, a friend may tell us something; we don’t pay much attention, and then later, often a good deal later, we exclaim, ‘So that’s what he wanted to tell me …’ How are we going to describe the friend’s original statement – in terms of what he told us or in terms of how we now understand it? In other words, are we going to reproduce his exact words or add the meaning that he truly wanted to convey?

Unlike the Koran of the Muslims, the Bible is not a book fallen down from heaven or copied from a heavenly original. For the Muslims, the Koran is the exact copy of a book that exists in heaven. Because of this belief, they do not admit any translation of the Koran, nor do they submit it to critical, historical studies. Our Bible is different. It has no original in heaven. We know that it has been written by human authors – yes, inspired by God, but still by human authors. Moreover, it was written in varied literary types in a span of about a thousand years, reflecting different cultural and historical circumstances. To understand it properly then, we have to take account of the historical periods that produced it. This means that to understand the history of salvation traced out in the Bible we have to be familiar with the history from which it came out. We shall now embark into tracing the main lines of the history of salvation in the history of the people of Israel both to know the contents of the Sacred Book and the circumstances that gave birth to the composition of its various books.

From Abraham to Moses

The biblical account of the history of salvation starts with the stories of creation in Gen 1-2, the fall of mandkind (Gen 3-9) and the spread of mankind all over the world (Gen 10), the differentiated not only by their places of habitation but also by the languages spoken (Gen 11). All these accounts in the first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis are to be taken as setting the stage for the common adventure of God and mankind in history. The accounts found in these first chapters are more of theology in the form of stories rather than what had really taken place in history. The historical part of the Bible starts with Abraham, i.e., from Gen 12.

In the Bible we find Abraham as a wanderer. His family started out from Ur, then they settled in Haran, where Abram received the strange call to leave his kinspeople and move on to the land his God promised to give him. So he set out; his journey brought him to Canaan (Gen 12, 1-5). Although he had a stint in Egypt (Gen 12, 10-20), he finally came back and settled down in Canaan. If we trace the journey of Abraham we see that he practically traversed the whole length of the Fertile Crescent. How so? It is probable that Abram and his family were part of a wave of migrations of peoples that occurred in the 19th – 18th century B.C. So we can date Abram around 1800 B.C.

Abraham is known as the “Father of Faith”, not only because the people of faith directly as physically descended from him but also because his faith was truly remarkable and exemplary that it has become the model and the source of faith for all peoples. He was willing to leave the security of his family in Haran due to a voice of a God who beckoned him to land that he knew not. He believed the promises of God about a great posterity and possession of a land in spite of very unfavorable, and much more, very hopeless situations for the fulfillment of these promise. God promised him a great nation coming from his loins, yet he had no child from his wife Sarah, and both of them were so old, way beyond the age of childbearing. And to make matters more hopeless, Sarah was barren. He was promised a land, but when his wife Sarah died, he had nothing, He had to negotiate with the inhabitants of Canaan to buy a piece of land as a burial ground for his wife (cf. Gen 23). But despite all these, Abraham believed (cf. Heb11, 8-19). Hence he became the Father of all who believe.

From Abraham we have Isaac. Nothing much is said of him. He is little more than a transition figure. From Isaac the line is traced to Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. From him, 12 sons came; from them would later descend the 12 tribes of Israel. The time of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his sons known as the Patriarchal Age. It roughly covers the period from 1800 to 1600 B.C.

Of the sons of Jacob, it was Joseph who saved the family from famine by settling them in Egypt. Joseph then was - by a turn of fate or, as the Bible puts it, by the providential hand of God – a powerful governor of Egypt (Gen 41, 37 – 45). It was possible for Joseph to be a governor in that foreign land since Egypt was at that time ruled by the Hyksos (c.1750 – 1552 B.C.), a people of Semitic race, the same race as the Hebrews. When the Hyksos were overthrown by the Egyptians and new dynasty, this time Egyptian (the 18th dynasty of Ancient Egypt) took over, the favored-guest status of the Hebrews was gradually reduced to that semi-slaves. The people found themselves trapped in Egypt (Ex 1, 8-14). Pharaoh Rameses II (1290-1224 B.C) took advantage of them and exploited them. The Hebrews were recruited as free labor for the building of the city of Pi-Rameses (cf. Ex 1, 11). At the height of this oppression, “the Israelites, groaning in their slavery, cried out for help and from the depths of their slavery their cry came up to God. God heard their groaning; God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Joseph. God saw the Israelites and took note” (Ex 2, 23-25). He sent Moses who led the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the desert of Sinai to the threshold of the Promised Land. This happened between 1260 and 1220 B.C.

Moses led the people through the Exodus Experience. This was their miraculous and unexpected departure from Egypt. A very singular occurrence, it was the event that forged them into a nation. Before, they were a bunch of slaves, a potpourri of families. Through the crossing of the Red Sea, they underwent a common experience that became a bond that formed them into a people. The Exodus was their particular experience of Yahweh as liberator. To remember this event they established the Passover Feast, a memorial that they celebrate every year (Ex 12). This memorial celebration not only reminded the people of that event in the past but also made that event present to them. The response of the people to that saving event in which they participate every Passover Feast is their obedience to the Law given at Sinai (cf. Dt 5, 1-5). The Israelites are truly grateful for this Law because it shows them the way to properly respond to that saving action and to remain within the ambience of God’s other saving actions. The new relationship forged between God and His newly formed people is sealed in the Blood of the Covenant. Now the chosen people are also the covenanted people (cf. Ex. 24, 3-8). So all these events – Exodus, Passover, Law, Covenant – all key elements of the religion of Israel, are interrelated to each other and all connected with the great figure of Moses!

From Joshua to the Fall of Jerusalem

The leadership of the Israelites passed from Moses to Joshua, his right-hand man. Joshua led the people to cross the Jordan River to the Promised Land. Through conquest, negotiations and/or migrations, the Israelites gradually took over the land of Canaan. Joshua was the leader of the people from around 1220 to 1200 B.C. at about the same time that Israel was subjugating the land from the east by crossing the Jordan River, the Philistines, a prominent group among the so-called Sea Peoples who migrated along the Mediterranean costs of the Near East in the 13th and 12th centuries B.C., landed by the coast on the western part of Canaan and began establishing an enclave in the southwestern coast of the land At this time then, three groups of people were vying for the land of Canaan: the Canaanites, the original inhabitants, the Israelites, who arrived from the east; and the Philistines, who came from the sea.

Before Joshua died, he subdivided the land among the 12 tribes of Israel (Jos 13-21). Before he faded from the scene, Joshua gathered the people together with all the other peoples that attached themselves to Israel in a renewal of the covenant at Shechem (Jos 24)).

At his death, not one leader emerged among the people to govern them as one nation. Instead, each tribe took care of its own affairs. In the event of a crisis, such as confrontation with a common enemy, several tribes joined force, but after the need had been met they settled back each to its own affairs. The structure of the nation then was more of a federation of tribes than a state. They were held together only by their common traditions and belief in Yahweh as their saving God. This period, which ranged from 1200 to 1025 B.C., is called the Period of Judges because the judges came out as leaders of the people when they had to throw off the yoke of their enemies who from time to time subjugated them. The judges then were more of military leaders rather than our present-day understanding of judiciary officials.

The Israelites could manage to deal with the different groups of Canaanites for control over the land, but when they came face to face with the Philistines they were at loss. The Philistines possessed a superior technology – they were already at the Iron Age whereas the Israelites were still at the Bronze Age. Around 1030 B.C. Israel suffered her greatest humiliation at the hands of her mortal enemy. At the Battle of Aphek the Philistines captured the very Ark of Yahweh (1 Sam 4).

To get out of their sorry state, the people cried to have a king who would unite them and fight their battles (cf. 1 Sam 8, 19-20). Through Samuel, the last judge, God gave them a king. Saul reigned over them from about 1030 to 1010 B.C. Saul’s reign was a failure. He displeased Yahweh. After initial victories, he was defeated by the combined forces of the Philistines. In the decisive Battle of Gilboa, Saul and his sons met their death (1 Sam 31). David took over the crown. He was successful. He acted according to the heart of Yahweh. He led his people from victory to victory, not only against the Philistines but also against the neighboring kingdom, so that during his long reign of 40 years (1010-970 B.C.), he was able to carve out a mini empire that included all of the land of Palestine plus lands way beyond the Jordan to the east and near Mt. Hermon up north. It was also David’s feat to have conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites, hence it became known as the City of David (2 Sam 5, 6-9) He made it his capital. By a stroke of brilliance he settled the Ark of Yahweh in it (2 Sam 6), thus making the city Jerusalem the center of the political, administrative and religious life of the people of Israel. David as so pleasing to Yahweh that the promise was made to him: “Your dynasty and your sovereignty will ever stand firm before me and your throne be forever secure” (2Sam 7, 16).

David was able to pass on to his son, Solomon, a small empire whose borders were secure. Solomon therefore, was freed from the preoccupations of war. He directed his energy, resources and genius into making buildings, engaging in commerce and the pursuit of wisdom (cf. 1 Kgs 3-10). It was to Solomon’s credit that the Temple of Jerusalem was built (1 Kgs 6). Solomon also had the leisure to promote literary activities. During his reign (970-931 B.C), the first literary activities connected with the Bible took place: some psalms were preserved and composed, proverbs were collected, a part of the history of the people was put into writing (e.g., 2 Sam 9 – 1 Kgs. 2), and the Yahwistic account of the origins of the world and of Israel developed.

Paradoxically, Solomon’s achievements were the reasons for his downfall. His commercial and political contacts brought him to marry many wives, most of them probably for political reasons. His harem of 700 wives and 300 concubines introduced the worship of foreign gods in Israel. This alienated him from the favor the form of taxation and forced labor. This estranged him from his people. So at his death, a great discontent prevailed among the people. The lack of tact and sensitivity of his son and heir Rehoboam brought the kingdom into schism in 931 B.C. (cf. 1 Kgs 12). The Kingdom as split into two – the northern Kingdom of Israel with ten tribes under the kingship of the rebel Jeroboam and the southern Kingdom of Judah with two tribes (Judah and Simeon) remaining under Rehoboam. The political schism dragged along a religious schism. Sanctuaries at Dan and Bethel were set up so that the people of Jeroboam did not need to go anymore to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh. This sad state of affairs was never healed. Never again did the 12 tribes of Israel reunite into one kingdom.

Together with the rise if the monarchy at the time of Samuel was the rise of prophecy. In fact, some tag Samuel as the first prophet of the prophetical movement that was later to gain such force as to challenge the influence of the kings. At first, prophecy appeared in Israel in prophetical guilds popularly known as sons of the prophets or brotherhood of prophets. They were groups of people going about the land, giving out oracles while in ecstatic trances. But gradually, the movement produced individual prophets who stood their ground to remind the kings, civil and religious officials of the land and the people in general of their covenant with their God. The biblical prophets were the spokespersons of Yahweh to the people; they echoed the mind of God to His people. They were so staunch in their vocation and mission that we find them many times standing up against even kings, condemning them for their policies that were against the covenant. The prophets counterbalanced the power of the kings who behaved as though they were absolute monarchs, forgetting the fact that in Israel the real King is Yahweh; they were just representing the kingship of Yahweh to the people. As the prophets spoke, taught and pounded in those who were against the covenant, their disciples kept track of their words, remembered them and little by little wrote them down. As time went on, their words were collected and put into writing. This was the gradual building up of the prophetical books.

We already find prophets who advised and/or admonished the first kings of Israel. They were Samuel, Nathan, Gad and Ahijah. In the 10th century B.C., the powerful figure of the prophet Elijah entered the scene. His exploits are found in the Elijah Cycle of 1 Kgs. 17-21 and 2 Kgs 1-2. His mantle of authority fell on Elisha, who continued his ministry and influence (cf. The Elisha Cycle of 2 Kgs 2, 19-18, 15). After them the prophets whose works and words are recorded in the Bible are: Amos and Hosea who ministered in the northern kingdom, and Isaiah, Micah, Zephania, Habakkuk, Nahum and Jeremiah in the southern kingdom. All of them are Pre-exilic Prophets because they ministered before the Babylonian Exile.

During the time of the two kingdoms, the traditions of Israel developed and were nurtured by different groups. We already mentioned in passing the Yahwistic Tradition that developed in the court of Solomon. The so-called Elohistic Tradition evolved in the northern kingdom under the influence of the prophets, so did the Deuteronomistic Tradition. The Priestly Tradition on the other hand developed in the south among the priestly circles of Jerusalem. These different traditions preserved the memory of the people in both written and oral forms. Actually they dealt with the same subject matter - Israel and her relationship with God – but it was viewed differently by these various traditions because of their different biases and purposes that they served. We have by this time identified four traditions: the Yahwistic, with the bias of the royalty; the Elohistic and Deuteronomistic, both with bias of the prophets; and the Priestly, with the bias of the priests.

In 722 B.C., the Assyrian Empire engulfed Samaria. The City of Samaria, and with it the whole Kingdom of Israel, fell under Sargon II, king of Assyria. The inhabitants of Israel were exiled all over the vast Assyrian Empire which encompassed all the known East of that time (2 Kgs 17, 5-23). During this exile, the ten tribes of Israel were lost; they were assimilated by the nations where they were exiled. In their territory in Palestine, other conquered nations were installed. These other nations brought with them their own religions. The result of this amalgamation of beliefs was religious syncretism. This was the Yahwistic religion, a diluted one, being practiced in the territory of the north after the Fall of Samaria. The Samaritans originated from this situation (cf. 2 Kgs 17, 24 – 41).

Life continued in the southern Kingdom of Judah. At times the people were faithful to Yahweh; at other times were carried along by foreign religious influences and practices. This ambiguous state of fidelity to the covenant was constantly being attacked by the prophets. The last and greatest attempt to reform the religious and political life of the people was done by King Josiah. It was occasioned by the discovery of the book of Deuteronomy (probably only chs. 12-26) while they were repairing the Temple of Jerusalem. This document and its spirit became the basis of the reform so it is known as the Deuteronomic Reform (cf. 2 Kgs 22-23). The reform was extensive. It aimed to bring unity to the people under the slogan: One God, One People, One Temple. Other places of worship were torn down. Yahweh could only be worshipped in Jerusalem.

This religious reform was a sign of defiance against the political tutelage of Assyria because in those days religion and politics were so closely intertwined that to touch the religious order was to touch the political set-up. Unfortunately, the reform was short-lived. It ended with the premature and tragic death of King Josiah at the Battle of Megiddo in 609 B.C. The Kingdom of Judah slid back to its evil practices. According to the interpretations of the prophets, this brought about the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 586 B.C. The people of the southern kingdom were then exiled to Babylon (2 Kgs. 25).

Period of Exile in Babylon

This bitter experience of the exile forced the people to spell out their identity clearly. The danger that what happened to their brothers of the northern kingdom might also happen to them – that they be dispersed and assimilated by the other peoples – was indeed real. With the exile, Israel lost the external structures and institutions that held them together – the land, the city of Jerusalem, the Temple, the monarchy and the priesthood. Only prophecy accompanied them.

So they hanged on to what they had: traditions. They gathered, compiled and preserved these traditions by putting them into writing. It was during this process that the four great traditions of the people, the Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist and Priestly, were brought together. What came out was the Pentateuch – the first five books of the Bible, which from that time on became the foundational writing of Israel as a people. It was during the exile that the people began to gather around The Book to get inspiration and to be related to each other and to their God. A new mode of the religion of Israel was emerging: from a religion around the Temple practices to one around The Book and the service of the Word. The exile also made the Israelites question their relationship with Yahweh. Was Yahweh unfaithful? Was he untrue to His covenant to save His people? Was He weak to allow His people to be defeated? Or were they the ones, as a people, who were unfaithful? With the help of the prophets, they examined their history. They found that it was their infidelities all through their past that brought down upon them their present sorrowful state. So they wrote down their history in such a manner as to bring this fact out to remind them and their countrymen that their salvation even from this exile, was possible only if they reversed their unfaithful relationship with Yahweh. This history, also known as Deuteronomic History because it was influenced by the prophets of the Deuteronomistic Tradition, is found in the Books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings.

During the exile, the prophets accompanied the painful uprooting of the people. Ezekiel helped the priestly cause during the exile and fanned alive the hope of the restoration of the Temple and its worship after the tribulations of the exile. The prophet behind the writings of Deutero-Isaiah (Is 40-55) expressed the joyful expectation of the return from the exile. He pictured it to be a return as marvelous (or even more so) as the Exodus at the time of Moses. The Book of Lamentations on other hand, connected with the prophet Jeremiah, gave voice to the sorrows, humiliations and pains of Israel at the ruins of Jerusalem during the period of the exile. All these prophets voiced out the frustrations, pains and undying hopes of the people during this very trying period in their history.

Persian Period

The hopes that the prophets of the exile awakened in the people came true in 538 B.C. when King Cyrus of Persia, the conqueror of Babylon just the previous year, proclaimed an edict that allowed all the exiles of the former Babylonian Empire freedom to return to their homes (cf. Ezr 1). What a joy it must have sparked among the Jewish exiles! So they trekked back home to Palestine; not every one, though. A good number got so settled in Babylon that they opted to stay behind. From them came the large Jewish presence in Mesopotamia who, in later centuries, would prove so influential among the Diaspora Jews.

The initial joy of the return to Palestine was dampened by the great tasks that awaited the returnees: the rebuilding and repopulating of the City of Jerusalem, the restoration of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem, the ticklish issue of the people of the land who remained behind or came down from the northern part of the country at the time of the exile. Immediately, the returnees set to work building their own homes, tilling the soil and rebuilding the City of Jerusalem. But it took the prodding of the prophets Zechariah and Haggai for them to start working on rebuilding the Temple (cf. Hg 1, 1-11). After some five years of labor (520-515 B.C.)., the Temple of Jerusalem rose up, but it was nothing compared to the grandiose of Jerusalem could be erected. Nehemiah had to come back from the Persian court to have this done so that the city may be secure from sudden attacks (Neh 1, 11-1, 32). In his capacity as governor, Nehemiah prevented the Jews from being assimilated by the other surrounding peoples by prohibiting intermarriages (cf. Neh 13). He also promoted social justices among the Jews (cf. Neh 5).

While Nehemiah was busy organizing the political life of the people, Ezra, a scribe from Babylon, reformed the religious life of the nation by bringing and explaining the Torah or the Law of Moses to them (cf. Neh 8). The Torah or the Pentateuch took its final form in Babylon. Ezra’s effort was to make it The Book of the people. Through his efforts, Israel became a predominantly religious community heavily influenced by the book of the Torah. Thus, Judaism was born. Because of this, many consider Ezra as the Father of Judaism.

Prophets guided the people after the exile to help them become a true people of Yahweh. Besides Haggai and the Proto-Zechariah (Zech 1-8) who urged the people to rebuild the Temple,

the Trito-Isaiah (Is 56-66), Obadiah, Joel, Malachi and the Deutero-Zechariah (Zech 9-14) ministered to the people on their return from exil till about 330 B.C.

During the 229-year period (539-310 B.C.) when the Jews were politically under the Persians, many books of the Old Testament reached their definitive forms. The Pentateuch in its final form was brought by Ezra from Babylon around 400 B.C. The books of the Pre-exilic and Exilic prophets came to their final redaction (i.e., editing; arrangement in proper form for publication) towards the end of the Persian period. To the historical books composed during the exile (known as the Deuteronomic History) was added another set, this time viewing the history of the people from the eyes of the Levites and the priestly circles. They are the Books of 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah. This set, known as the Chronicle’s History, covers the longest account of Sacred History – from the creation to the restoration of the people from the exile. It interprets Israel’s history based on:

the Law as taken from the Pentateuch

the institutions of the cult and the priestly hierarchy in Jerusalem

the Messianic hopes of the people.

The Persian period also saw many collections of the wisdom heritage of the Israelites finally fixed into books: the Books of Proverbs. Job, Psalms and the Song of Songs. The literary genre of midrash became popular at this time. Midrash is a way of interpreting tradition and Scripture by means of stories told to edify and instruct the people. The midrashic literary works produced in this period were the Books of Tobit, Jonah and Ruth.

The Persian period is the most drab in the history of Israel – at least as far as our historical knowledge stands – because it was not marked by any significant event. Perhaps it was a very peaceful and settled era for them. Nonetheless, it was at this time that the literary works began years and centuries before finally took their final shape. Moreover, the religious community of the Jews was most prolific in recording their faith. Indeed, this period is the most productive and active in Israel’s history when we speak of the books of the Bible that were written.

Period of Hellenism

The tranquility of the Persian period was broken with the fall of the Persian Empire under the onslaught of the Greeks led by the able Alexander the Great. The decisive battle was fought at Issus in 333 B.C. The Persian defeat at Issus opened the door of the vast Persian Empire to Alexander. But he went far beyond, and ended his victorious campaigns at the edge of the Indus River of India. Within a span of 10 years (333-323 B.C), Alexander was master of the world from Greece to the gates of India. Unfortunately, his genius in the military campaigns was not translated to effective political control. He had not the opportunity to rule his vast empire. Death stepped in at Alexander’s young age of 33 in Babylon on his way back from his conquests. As he had no heirs, his generals divided his conquered lands among themselves.

Alexander did not only conquer military; he also set out to conquer the cultures of the East. He saw himself as the agent to civilize the world by introducing the Greek culture to all, which he believed to be far superior to all others. Thus, he started the process of Hellenization that is, making the world Greek. To do this, Alexander brought along with him not only soldiers and fighters but also teachers, philosophers, poets and artists. No wonder then that even after the Greek military might had waned, the world still remained Greek in language and culture.

When Alexander died, Palestine fell under the sphere of influence of the Lagides of Egypt. This was the family that stemmed from the Greek general Ptolemy 1 Soter who took over Egypt and the surrounding territories at the death of Alexander. The life of the people in Palestine did not change much under the Lagides. The new rulers followed the tolerant attitudes of the Persians towards the people under them. In fact, according to the Letter of Aristeas, it was Ptolemy II Philadelpus (285-246 B.C.) who ordered the Greek translation of the Law for the sake of the many Jews in Egypt, particularly in Alexandria, who no longer could read Hebrew. Whether the account of the Letter of Aristeas is true or not, we know that the Septuagint (commonly abbreviated LXX) translation came betwee 300 and 200 B.C. It was also sometime during this period that the books of Esther and Ecclesiastes were written.

In 200 B.C., Palestine was taken over by the Seleucids of Syria. The Seleucids came from the dynasty that Seleucus I Nicator (305-281 B.C.) put up. He was then the Greek general of Alexander the Great who carved his own empire based on Syria stretching to the East at the unexpected death of his master. Sometime around this period of transition, the Book of Ben Sirach in the form that we have it (in Greek) was written.

Things went out uneventfully for the Jews until Antiochus IV Epiphanes ascended the throne around 175 B.C. He had the vision of uniting his vast empire composed of different peoples under the banner of the Greek culture. So he imposed the Greek language, customs and religion to all. The result was the Great Persecution of the Jews (167-164 B.C). The Jews resisted this effort because for many of them this would result to infidelity to the Covenant, especially when it came to accepting the Greek gods. Many died on behalf of their Jewish faith rather than succumb to the program of their rulers.

The Great Persecution gave rise to the Jewish Revolt. It was started unpremeditatedly by the priest Mattathias (1 Mac 2, 15-28) but was really given teeth by his son Judas Maccabeus (166-160 B.C.). The revolt became so strong and so successful that by 164 B.C., the Jewish rebels were able to capture Jerusalem and to re-dedicate the Temple for the use of proper Jewish sacrifices to Yahweh, since the Greeks and their Hellenized Jewish allies even set up in the Temple of Yahweh an altar to Zeus. This purification of the Temple is celebrated by the Jews even up to now in their yearly feast of the Hanukkah.

During this Jewish persecution, the Book of the prophet Daniel was written, it belongs to the literary genre of the apocalyptic. A product of the apocalyptic movement popular between 200 B.C. ad A.D. 200, this genre envisioned a new world which would come out from the ashes of the present decaying order of things. God would bring about a new creation, a new world order. The present order was seen as so corrupt that it had to be done away with to give place to the new. In this view, the hardships of the present moment were nothing else but the throes of a dying evil world. So people were told not to be dismayed but simply to hand on for soon the world of justice and peace would come.

The apocalyptic genre was part of an underground literature of persecuted people. So they used a lot of symbols to avoid detection. Colors, numbers, animals, time frames were employed to refer to deeper meanings. Because of this characteristic, the apocalyptic writings can be, and have always been, easily misunderstood by people who are not aware of their symbolic codes. Another characteristic of the apocalyptic is that, just as the rest of Scriptures, it spoke of events of those time, not of some distant future.

In fact, if it mentioned what was to come to all, it alluded to the very near future of the time of its writing, because according to the apocalyptic belief, the future establishment of a new world order is just around the corner. The coming down of the New Kingdom is seen as very near indeed. If we keep this in mind, we will avoid strange interpretations of this type of literature, interpretations which apply it directly to our times, as if the writers were seeing our times and writing about them.

Besides the Book of Daniel, this Hellenistic period also produced the two Books of the Maccabees. In fact, many of the things that we know from the Scriptures about this period are taken from these two books. They describe to us not only the persecution of the Jews by the Greeks but also the struggle of the Jews under the Maccabees to free themselves from the oppressive measures of the Seleucids and how their struggle gradually led them to the creation of a semblance of a free Jewish nation, the first one since the time of the Babylonian Exile.

The Book of Judith was written around 100 B.C. It is a midrash depicting in the struggle of Judith against Holofernes, the struggle of the Jewish underdogs against the all-powerful Greeks. In this conflict, the heroine remained faithful to the Jewish practices, and was victorious. So it teaches that the Jews can triumph even if they remain faithful to the Laws of the Covenant; nay, more, precisely because of their fidelity to Yahweh.

Roman Period

In 142 B.C., Simon, another brother of Judas Maccabeus who became the leader of the Jews at the death of Jonathan, started to mint coins signifying the Jewish nation. It was a formal sign of the Jewish independence from the Greeks. But this independence did not last long. The squabbles among the Hasmoneans – the dynasty of the Maccabees – over the kingship and the high priesthood, the two most powerful positions in the land, invited the Romans to intervene. Rome by then was the powerful empire, and it imposed upon itself the task of keeping the world order. So in 63 B.C., the great Roman general Pompey entered Jerusalem, supposedly to settle the problem of leadership between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, the two brothers warring over the leadership of the Jewish nation. In reality however, when the Romans had set foot on the land, they did not leave anymore. On the course of time, Herod, the son of Antipater who was the chief minister of Hyrcanus, gained the confidence of the Romans. He came to Jerusalem in 39 B.C. with Roman backing. Two years later he was the effective leader of the small Jewish nation. Herod, whom history knows as Herod the Great, was a great builder. He built Caesarea Maritima which later become the Roman Administrative center in Palestine. In 20 B.C., he also started the ambitious project of enlarging the Temple in Jerusalem. He wanted to ingratiate himself to the Jews by this project. Despite this, the Jews never accepted his rule since he was half Jew and half Idumaen. Besides, he was not of the line of the Hasmoneans, and so was seen as an illegitimate leader in the eyes of many. To make matters worse, he was a Roman puppet. In any case, this rebuilding project of the Temple continued way up to the time of Jesus’ ministry (cf. Jn 2, 20), making the Temple of Jerusalem one of the architectural wonders of those times.

Around 50 B.C., the Book of Wisdom was written. Probably the last book of the Old Testament, it closes the Old Testament Canon. From this time till the writing of the first New Testament book in the early 50s AD, we have the so-called Inter-testamentary period. Christian revelation in Jesus Christ and through the early Apostolic Church took place in this period, although this revelation was written down later on.