Everything in changes. In the years before Roman rule, Palestine changed frequently. Find out what these changes were and how they affected New Testament society. The centuries leading up to Jesus’ birth were not politically stable in the area known as Palestine. The Jewish people who returned to Judah… Read More
When the Jews returned to their homeland after the exile things changed. Find out about the factors that influenced the Jews after they returned to Judea. In Babylon The Bible provides little information about the years in the sixth century B.C. when many of the Israelite people lived in exile… Read More
Find out what different faith traditions in Western Christianity say about the Deuterocanonical books and what role these books play in the Old Testament canon. The term “apocrypha” is Greek for “hidden or secret (things).” When Jerome translated the Scriptures into Latin in the late fourth century, he noted… Read More
Alexandria was a major center of learning and Jewish scholarship. Read more about this ancient city and its influence on the Hellenized world. At the height of the Roman Empire, Alexandria in Egypt was the largest city in the empire after Rome. Its population of close to one million… Read More
First century Judaism revolved around the temple. So did the Sadducees. Read about what these Jewish leaders believed and why they eventually disappeared. This group’s name may come from Zadok, the high priest of Israel at the time of King David. The Sadducees may have also been descendants… Read More
The Hasmoneans began a revolt that changed the shape of Palestine between the New and Old Testaments. Read more about this influential family. “Maccabees,” the family nickname of the Jewish dynasty that ruled Judea from the time of the Maccabean Revolt (167 B.C.) until the Roman conquest of Palestine… Read More
