Between the Testaments

"Between the Testaments" (also called the intertestamental period or Second Temple period) designates the roughly 400 years separating the close of the OT canon (c. 400 B.C., the time of Malachi) from the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus (c. 27–30 A.D.) — a period of theological development and political upheaval that is essential background for understanding the NT. The period is subdivided by major political transitions: Persian rule (to 333 B.C.), Greek/Hellenistic rule under Alexander and the Diadochi (333–168 B.C.), the Maccabean revolt and Hasmonean kingdom (168–63 B.C.), and Roman rule from Pompey's conquest (63 B.C.) onward. The religious literature of the period (Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus) reveals a Judaism diversified into Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, and other groups, each with distinctive theological emphases. Key theological developments include: a heightened angelology and demonology; apocalyptic thought and eschatological expectation; messianic hopes; the synagogue as the center of Jewish life; the Oral Torah's development; and heightened expectation for divine intervention. The NT's frequent references to Jewish interpretive traditions, sectarian debates, and eschatological language are comprehensible only against this intertestamental background.