Episode 120 – Perfectly Quiet – The Intertestamental Period 6

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script:  

How can a grown man be born again?” Nicodemus asked. “He certainly cannot enter his mother's womb and be born a second time!” “I am telling you the truth,” replied Jesus, “that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. A person is born physically of human parents, but is born spiritually of the Spirit. Do not be surprised because I tell you that you must all be born again.”

The Gospel of John, chapter 3, verses 4 through 7, Good News Translation

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VK: Hello. I’m Victoria K. Welcome to another episode of Anchored by Truth. Today we are continuing our look at “The Intertestamental Period.” The intertestamental period is the 400 to 450 year period that elapsed between the close of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. It’s a very important period in overall Biblical history but we suspect it’s one of the least studied. I’m in the studio today with RD Fierro, author and Founder Crystal Sea Books. RD, why do you think the intertestamental period receives so little attention even from people who are faithful students of the Bible?

RD: Greeting to all the Anchored by Truth listeners. If you are joining us here today for the first time we’d like thank you and invite you to keep checking us out. If you’ve heard Anchored by Truth before, thank you for coming back. We know that your continuing interest in our show marks you as someone who is serious in knowing the Bible. Much of the material that we discuss on Anchored by Truth requires thought and concentration and we know that in today’s hectic world that’s not always easy to come by. 

VK: Amen. 

RD: Anyway, I think you’re right that the intertestamental period may be the period of Biblical history that receives the least attention today. The biggest reason it doesn’t is because no books were being added to the canon of scripture during that time – between the testaments. And even for those who accept the Apocrypha as canonical there was still a gap during which no new material was being added to scripture. Because we normally focus our time on scripture itself we tend not to think very much about what happened outside of scripture, especially since we’re talking about events that all occurred over 2,000 years ago.

VK: But you believe that those events that happened over 2,000 years ago are still important in our lives today. Why is that?

RD: Well, let me answer that question with a question. What is God’s will for every one of his children?

VK: That’s an easy one. God wants us all to be holy. 1 Peter 1:16 says “the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy because I am holy.’” I know a lot of people spend a lot of time wondering what God’s will is for their lives. Usually, they’re thinking about what to study in school, what job to take, or whether to get married. And those are important questions. But, when it comes down to it, the only goal that scripture states for all of our lives is for us to be holy.

RD: Very good answer. 

VK: Thank you.

RD: And the next question is how do we go about becoming holy?

VK: Well, I suppose two verses spring to mind. The Gospel of Mark, chapter 12 verses 30 and 31 where Jesus says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

RD: Again, that’s a very good answer. And I might add John 4:24. “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” In Mark Jesus is talking to someone who is referred to as a “scribe” or “a teacher of the law” – in other words a religious expert at the time. In Mark 12:28, the scribe has asked Jesus which of the commandments is the most important and, after reminding the scribe that there is only one God, Jesus replies with the commandment to love that God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. A lot of people today forget about the “mind” part. Then in John 4:24 Jesus in talking with the Samaritan woman at the well Jesus says that we must worship God in “spirit and in truth.” It would be hard to know the truth if we don’t use our minds.  The point of all this is that for us to be holy (which is God’s will for all of our lives) we have to use not only our hearts and strength, but also our minds. Well, one of the things we need to be doing with our minds is not only reading scripture but doing our best to understand what we are reading.

VK: So, your point is that there are many events that happened over 2,000 years ago that affected, or directly applied to, the content of our current Bibles. Some of those events occurred during the intertestamental period. So, if we don’t have some understanding of those periods historically we are automatically placing limits on our understanding of some parts of scripture.

RD: Right. I’m not saying we have to turn everyone into a Bible historian. I’m certainly not. But I am saying that as we progress through our Christian lives, in order to be obedient to Christ’s command to the scribe and the Samaritan woman, we need to grow in our understanding of not only the Bible, but also the times in which the Bible was set.

VK: And we need to do that because our times and cultures are quite different from the times and cultures that in which the Bible was written. The Bible tells us not be “unequally yoked” but very, very few modern Bible readers have ever had to put a yoke on themselves or an animal, for that matter. But we at least need to have a basic understanding of how yokes were used in Biblical times for us to see how that commandment should apply in our own lives.

RD: Once again, that’s a great illustration. 

VK: And again, thank you. So, one of the biggest reasons we have undertaken this series on the intertestamental period is to make it a little easier for our listeners,  who truly do want to improve their understanding of the Bible, achieve their goal. We’re doing the research and putting the research into a package that they can consume easily and share easily.

RD: Exactly right. Back to the verse from 1 Peter where Peter starts off the encouragement part of his letter by reminding his readers of Leviticus 11:44 and Leviticus 19:2. Peter is writing his letter to a widely separated group of believers – believers in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. Those are regions in modern day Turkey and they cover a lot of territory. Peter intends for his letter to be widely circulated. So, after some introductory comments Peter starts off by reminding his readers that God’s will for their lives, for all our lives, is for them to be holy. This is particularly important to remind them because Peter’s readers are being subjected to a great deal of persecution.

VK: Like many believers are today.

RD: Like many believers are today - and Peter doesn’t want them to give up their faith. Peter wants them, and us, to persevere. So, he starts off his encouragement by reminding them that God wants them to persistent in their efforts to be holy and he reminds them that the basis for this admonition is because God Himself is holy.

VK: But, in reminding his readers of God’s holiness, Peter is actually reminding them that God is on their side. He’s not trying to act as some sort of “conduct policeman.” What Peter is actually reminding his readers, is that God is on their side. God is so much on their side that God wants them to be clearly identified with Him through their lives and behavior. Right?

RD: Right. Peter is reminding his readers, and all of us, that God is very well aware of all the temptations and persecutions that come into their lives. But God doesn’t abandon them in those temptations and persecutions. God remains with His people and because God is with His people He knows how tempting it can be for us to give up “fighting the good fight.”

VK: There is no more foundational comfort for a Christian than Deuteronomy 4:31 where God tells us that He will never leave us or forsake us. 

RD: I agree. So, the foundation for God telling His people to “be holy” and to love Him will their hearts, souls, strength, and minds is that His people belong to Him and not to the world or the forces of the world. This, not coincidentally, is a lesson that we can see clearly from God’s supernatural preservation of His people during the 450 years of the intertestamental period.

VK: I like how you brought our discussion back to the intertestamental period we’ve been talking about.

RD: Thank you. I try. 

VK: What you’re saying is that the Jews in Palestine during the intertestamental period would have had every reason to be discouraged. They had just endured decades of exile from their homeland. Even after the exile ended and some returned home, they returned home to an impoverished and desolate set of cities, towns, and fields. Even back in their homeland they were surrounded by hostile actors who would happily have destroyed them if they could. When Nehemiah arrived to lead an effort to restore the walls of Jerusalem, the workers were constantly harassed. They were threatened so much they had to keep their weapons with them at all times. And even after they rebuilt the walls and the temple, neither had the grandeur they had known formally. The truth was it would have been very easy for the Jews of that time to give up and leave or at least give up what made them distinctive – their faith. But they didn’t give up their faith. And neither should we during times of trial.

RD: Exactly. But while the Jews had not given up their faith during the intertestamental period, as Jesus exchange with Nicodemus in our opening scripture illustrates errors had crept into the Jews understanding and practice of their faith. This was also illustrated by the exchange Jesus had with the Sadducees that we talked about in our last episode of Anchored by Truth.

VK: Last time we discussed the incident where the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus with the woman-married-to-seven-brothers question that is related in Matthew, chapter 22, verses 25 through 28 and in Mark, chapter 12 and Luke, chapter 20. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection so they had developed this trick question about a woman who was married to 7 different brothers in accordance with the Jewish requirement that a younger brother marry the widow of an older brother. The Sadducees tried to illustrate that believing in the resurrection created questions that were impossible to answer - like whose wife the widow would be after the resurrection.

RD: Right. But, of course, the Sadducees couldn’t trick Jesus. Instead Jesus pointed out that their own scriptures proved that the resurrection was real by quoting the scripture that described Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush. So, both the exchange with the Sadducees and Jesus’ exchange with Nicodemus showed that, even though the Jews had preserved their faith during the intertestamental period, errors had crept into their understanding of the content of their faith. In the case of the Sadducees they had begun to deny a fundamental doctrine of their faith – that there was life after death and that the life after death would be physical not merely spiritual.

VK: And we don’t really know why the Sadducees had come to reject the doctrine of the resurrection do we?

RD: Not precisely, no. But I think we can make some informed speculation. Let’s remember that the Sadducees and the Pharisees were kind of like political parties that had arisen during the intertestamental period. For over 200 years during the intertestamental period Palestine had been ruled by one group of Greeks or another. The Greeks actively promoted their language, culture, and ideas in the territories they controlled. This process was called “Hellenization.” Well, one of the ideas that pervaded Greek philosophy was the idea that the immaterial part of human beings, the spirit or soul, was far superior to the fleshly part. The Greeks largely thought of the spirit as good and the body as evil. So, to the Greeks the spirit needed to be liberated from the body and for some they thought of death as accomplishing this liberation.

VK: The notion that the spirit is good but the body is evil is completely foreign to the Christian faith, isn’t it. When God had finished His creative activity on the 6th day he pronounced everything He had created “very good.” So, this pronouncement included both man’s body and spirit. Christianity and Judaism regard human beings as body-spirit unities with both parts having been originally created good. Right?

RD: Right. And the Christian hope of resurrection is a physical resurrection just as Jesus was physically resurrected after he had been in the tomb. Jesus walked around, interacted with His disciples, ate and cooked food, and invited Thomas to touch His body to cure his doubts. The Christian faith believes in a physical resurrection though not in bodies that have been corrupted by sin, but in glorified, physical bodies like the one Jesus obviously possessed after He walked out of the tomb. Well, during the intertestamental period the Sadducees may have been heavily influenced by the Greeks ideas that were circulating in Palestine as a result of the Hellenization. The Sadducees as a party seemed to have been much more willing to embrace the process of Hellenization than the Pharisees like Nicodemus.

VK: The Pharisees seem to have been the party within Israel that resisted Hellenization. The Pharisees seemed to have been far more interested in preserving their original culture and religion. As such, the Pharisees embraced the entire body of what we call the Old Testament as scripture whereas the Sadducees only believed that the first five books of the Old Testament were authoritative. So, after the intertestamental period when Jesus was conducting His earthly ministry the Pharisees did believe in the resurrection. But based on the exchange between Nicodemus and Jesus apparently some errors had crept into their understanding also. It’s just that their errors were different from the errors of the Sadducees.

RD: Yes. The Sadducees were wrong about the existence of life after death, especially physical life. Since they didn’t believe in the resurrection at all they had no interest or questions in how such a resurrection could be accomplished. The Pharisees, such as Nicodemus, did believe in the resurrection but apparently even a Pharisee as knowledgeable as Nicodemus had questions. In particular, Nicodemus seems to have wondered about the means by which the resurrection would be achieved. Nicodemus seemed to have a good understanding of the ends but not the means. So, wisely, he brought his questions to Jesus because as Nicodemus acknowledged at the beginning of their interview Nicodemus knew Jesus had come from God. 

VK: So, we get some great lessons from this exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus. First, we learn that even people who are respected leaders and mature in their faith can still have questions and that’s ok. It’s okay to have questions and when we do it makes sense to go find people we think can help us find answers. We also learn that God is willing to provide us with teachers if we are sincere in wanting to grow in our understanding. Throughout church history there have been skilled teachers and preachers who have thought carefully about matters that are of concern to all of us. Thankfully, they have left behind an abundance of resources that are available to us today. So, even though we can’t go physically to Jesus we can go to a source of revelation more complete than Nicodemus had. Nicodemus had ready access to the Old Testament but we have ready access to both the Old and the New Testaments.

RD:  Those are both valuable observations. But we get learn even more when we contrast Jesus’ exchange with Nicodemus and His exchange with the Sadducees.

VK: Like what?

RD:  Nicodemus was an honest questioner. He had some sincere questions about certain things that were part of his faith. But when Nicodemus approached Jesus he made no attempt to trick Jesus. The Sadducees did attempt to trick Jesus. The Sadducees had just as much information about Jesus as Nicodemus did, but rather than availing themselves of the opportunity to learn from him they attempted to defend their flawed understanding. They tried to trick Jesus with their supposedly-impossible-question. They probably used that question regularly in their debates with the Pharisees about whether the resurrection was real. It probably worked with the Pharisees but it didn’t work with Jesus. So, a lesson we learn when we compare the two encounters is that we need to recognize opportunities to learn from skilled and knowledgeable believers when they arrive. And we need to be honest about our questions and open to their teaching.

VK: But we do need to be discerning about who we accept as teachers. We need to be sure that people we look to for help in growing in our faith are people who are solidly grounded in the understanding of the Bible. We need to be sure their desire is to elevate the Bible rather than their own ideas.

RD:  Yes. That’s a good caveat to keep in mind. Another lesson we pick up when we compare Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus as opposed to his encounter with the tricky Sadducees is to see how Jesus responded. With the Sadducees Jesus first corrected their misunderstanding but then he added what I would characterize as a mild rebuke. But he didn’t go any further. But with Nicodemus, who was both open and teachable, Jesus went beyond just trying to answer a question or explain a basic point regarding the content of his faith. 

VK: Well in John’s account of the encounter John doesn’t really record Nicodemus asking Jesus a question before Jesus told him that he had to be born again.

RD:  That’s true. So, we’re not sure whether there was a preliminary discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus before Jesus told Nicodemus that he had to be born again. As a reporter John tends to focus on the material which is most relevant to John’s basic purpose of demonstrating that Jesus is the son of God. So, it’s possible that Nicodemus asked a question which John didn’t bother reporting or it’s possible that Jesus already knew what Nicodemus wanted to ask.  

VK: Jesus was a prophet, after all. In fact, Jesus was the greatest prophet of all time. He constantly displayed the ability to know things about the people he was talking to without having been told. The encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well comes to mind.

RD:  Exactly. Nicodemus may have asked a question or the two may have had an initial discussion which John doesn’t bother to report or Jesus may have just known what was bothering Nicodemus. It’s quite possible that Nicodemus, a Pharisee who believed in the resurrection – and who had had lots of debates through the years with the Sadducees on the resurrection – just wanted to be sure he understood the subject of life after death clearly. A lot of people today have similar questions. At any rate, Jesus did not just go about addressing the basic question he went on to provide Nicodemus with additional information – likely information Nicodemus didn’t even know he needed but which has been a cornerstone of the Christian faith.  

VK: You’re thinking of John 3:16 – possibly the most well-known verse out of the entire Bible. “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” (King James Version with slight edits)

RD:  Right. In response to Nicodemus’ honest question or question Jesus proceeds to give us one of the most famous expositions in the Bible. Jesus assures Nicodemus that not only is the resurrection real but that he was face-to-face with the instrument by which God would accomplish resurrection for everyone who believed. Jesus goes on in his discussion to a verse (18) which is less well-known but just as important. “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.” (New Living Translation) Jesus ratifies that there will be a resurrection but notes that the resurrection will include a separation between the believers and unbelievers. I’m sure that must have been both comforting and distressing to Nicodemus.

VK: Comforting because it reassured Nicodemus of the security of his individual destination. After years, or perhaps decades, of being told by the Sadducees that there was no such thing as the resurrection Nicodemus would have been comforted to know that he had been right all along. But he would have been distressed to know that many of his colleagues and perhaps friends were in eternal danger because he knew they did not believe that Jesus had been sent from God the way he did. I think that’s a sentiment many of us today would share.

RD:  Exactly. And so this goes back to the reason it’s a good idea for us to have some understanding of what life was like in Israel while Jesus was performing His earthly ministry. Debates had raged for decades on questions that are basic and essential to our faith. It can help us immensely to not see Nicodemus and the others Jesus encountered, pro or con, as real people with lives and histories just like ours. They had concerns just like we do and we share many of those concerns 2,000 years later – like how to help our friends avoid eternal judgment. Improving our understanding of scripture and how Jesus ministered during his life is invaluable to helping our friends.

VK: Amen. This sounds like a great time for a prayer. Jesus’ ministry while He was on this earth was all about saving those who are lost spiritually. The need for doing that continues today. So, today let’s listen to a prayer for our nation – knowing that God continues to want to provide His light to any and all who are genuinely open to receiving answers to sincere questions:

---- PRAYER FOR THE NATION (MARCUS).

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 (Bible Quote from the New International Version)

Daniel, chapter 8, verses 5 through 8 and 20 and 21, New International Version