The Makers and Teachers of Judaism: From the Fall of Jerusalem to the Death of Herod the Great
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
The period represented by this volume is in many ways the most complex and confusing in Israel’s history. The record is that not of the life of a nation but of the scattered remnants of a race. It was inevitable that, under the influence of their varied environment, the survivors of the Jewish race should develop very different beliefs and characteristics. The result is that many different currents of thought and shades of belief are reflected in the literature of this period. While the period following the destruction of Jerusalem was a reflective and retrospective age in which the teaching of the earlier priests and prophets gained wide acceptance, it was also a creative era. Fully half of the literature of the Old Testament—and all of the important writings of the Apocrypha—come from these tragic five centuries.
This period represents the culmination and fruition of the divine influences at work in Israel’s early history. It was during this period that Judaism was born and attained its full development, that Israel accepted the absolute rule of the written law, and that the scribes succeeded the earlier prophets and sages. Out of the heat and conflict of the Maccabean struggle, the parties of the Pharisees and Sadducees sprang into existence and won their commanding place in the life of Judaism. Hence, this period is the natural historical introduction to the study of the birth—and early development—of Christianity. It is also the link that binds the revelation found in the Old Testament to that in the New. Contents include:
- The Exile and Revival of the Judean Community
- The Greek and Maccabean Age
- The Rule of Rome
From the indefatigable pen of Professor Kent comes this fourth volume of his Historical Bible, covering the period of the Persian, Greek, and Maccabean ages, or the rule of Rome down to the reign of Herod. Each section is prefaced by well-written and illuminating paragraphs dealing with the historical situation. The information is all useful and necessary, and unencumbered by learned lumber. There could not possible be a better study than these volumes for busy men who desire exact information about biblical times and literature, but who have no time for technical processes and discussions.
—Homiletic Review
Charles Foster Kent (1867–1925) was born in Palmyra, New York, and educated at Yale, Yale Divinity School, and the University of Berlin. After working as an instructor at the University of Chicago and a professor of biblical literature and history at Brown University, he became Woolsey Professor of Biblical Literature at Yale University in 1901. He was a prolific author and editor, and his works include The Wise Men of Ancient Israel and Their Proverbs, Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament, Israel’s Laws and Legal Precedents, and Israel’s Historical and Biographical Narratives.