Jensens survey of the old testament adam 323
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were subject to the rulers appointed over
them by Rome. The con icts and struggles
of the Jews of that day were mainly of the
heart, and the darkness and sin were
overwhelming. This is James Stalker’s
description of the Jewish world to which
Jesus came:
A nation enslaved; the upper
classes devoting themselves to
sel shness,
courtiership,
and
skepticism; the teachers and chief
professors of religion lost in mere
shows of ceremonialism, and
boasting themselves the favorites
of God, while their souls were
honeycombed with self-deception
and vice; the body of the people
misled by false ideals; and seething
at the bottom of society, a
neglected mass of unblushing and
unrestrained sin.15
When Jesus was born (5 B.C.) the political
situation was
generally
stable,
but
opposition to the Messiah’s coming was
quickly demonstrated by King Herod’s
reactions and decree. (Read Matthew 2:118.)
Exercise: 1. Read all of Matthew 2 and
make a note of different things that are
part of the New Testament setting that
you have studied so far. 2. Review all
you have learned about the Hebrew
Background of the New Testament. In
the next pages you will be studying the
important Greek Background.
2 . Greek
Background.
The
Greek
background of the New Testament is chie y
cultural, including such things as language
and philosophical perspective. Many of the
in uences of that Hellenistic culture were
very important, because they paved the way
for the world-wide proclamation of God’s
message of salvation in New Testament
times.
a. The Greek Bible. As noted earlier, the
need for a translation of the Hebrew Old
Testament into Greek arose because Greek
had become the new vernacular of the Jews
in Egypt. In fact Greek was by then the
lingua franca of the world, as a result of the
world conquests of Alexander the Great.
Alexandrian scholars translated the rst
ve books of the Law (Pentateuch) by 280
B.C., and by 180 B.C. all the books had been
translated. Over the next two centuries that
“modern version”
(later
called
the
Septuagint) of the Old Testament was
circulated around the Greek empire, so that
by the time of Jesus and the apostles it was
widely used.16 The Hebrew Old Testament
was still cherished by Jews as God’s Holy
Scriptures, and rightly so. Fix these things in
your mind as you study the accompanying
Chart 9.
