The intertestamental period was the period between the Old and New Testaments. It began with the end of the book of Malachi and ended with the ministry of John the Baptist. The intertestamental period is also known as the 400 years of silence; the Jews believed prophecy ceased at the beginning of this time. While prophecy may have ceased, Israel was anything but silent during this time, being conquered and reconquered numerous times. During this time, however, there were several developments in Jewish thought. Groups like the Pharisees and Sadducees rose to prominence in this period.
The intertestamental period lasted roughly 400 years—from 420 BC to John the Baptist’s ministry starting around 20 AD. It roughly coincides with the Second Temple Period of Israel. This is the period when the temple was rebuilt after the exile to the period when it was destroyed in 70 AD. This is one of the rockiest periods in Israel’s history. It resulted in them being overcome and overcoming many of the main powers of the day.
The intertestamental period would make a great epic TV series. Many empires conquered and reconquered Israel in this era. These include Alexander the Great’s Greek Empire, who shaped the culture for the entire period. Greek was the language of business in the intertestamental period. During this time, the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek. This translation, known as the Septuagint (which means 70 writers), was the dominant translation of the Bible in the New Testament era as well. It is the translation that the New Testament writers quote when they quote Scripture.
The shift from Hebrew or Aramaic to Greek drew more attention to the Jewish faith from people outside the Jewish culture. These people were known as God-fearers and played a significant role in the early church. They heard about Judaism and its teachings through the synagogue (another major development in the intertestamental period). As Jews moved throughout the Greek and Roman world, they brought their ideas and communities with them in the form of the synagogue or place of assembly.
Many books written during this time developed the theology that influenced people in Jesus’ day. These include the books of 1 and 2 Maccabees, which detail a revolution in Jerusalem in 168 BC. The Maccabean revolution is one of the crisis points that point to a pattern that continued into Jesus’ day, up through 70 AD. Gamaliel alludes to the Maccabean revolution in Acts 5:34-39. It instigated a new pattern of rising against the power structures of the day. Most Jews in Jesus’ day were clamoring for the Messiah to kick out the Roman oppressors.
The Maccabean revolt began after the king of the ruling Seleucid Empire, an empire founded after Alexander the Great’s death, did something that shocked the Jews. He entered the temple and sacrificed a pig upon the altar in the Holy of Holies, desecrating the space. Needless to say, the Jews didn’t receive this well. As a result, Judas “The Hammer” Maccabaeus (Maccabaeus means hammer) led a revolution and established his independent kingdom in Israel. He needed to join forces with various Jewish leaders to overpower the Seleucids. When his revolution succeeded, the Hasmonean dynasty began.
The Pharisees and Sadducees, the theologian groups most commonly mentioned in the Gospel accounts, developed after Judas Maccabeus established the Hasmonean dynasty. The Pharisees didn’t have much appreciation for the Hasmonean dynasty because the kings were not of the line of David. Consequently, the Hasmoneans joined forces with the Sadducees. That’s why the Sadducees held great positions of power in Jesus’ day, and were known as the more progressive upper-class group. By Jesus’ time, two other powerful groups—the Essenes who lived separate from society in the desert, and the Zealots who wanted to overthrew Rome—also existed.
After the Seleucids were driven out, the Jews needed to rededicate the temple—cleansing it of the impurities Antiochus Epiphanes had imposed upon it. During this time, the Jews lit a menorah to rededicate the temple. There was only enough oil for one night, but miraculously the menorah stayed lit for all eight nights needed to rededicate the temple. This became known as the feast of dedication (John 10:22-23), or Hanukkah as it’s known today.
The Hasmonean dynasty ended when Rome invaded. The Romans installed a puppet kingdom with an Edomite named Herod as its face. Herod desperately wanted to win the favor of the Jews because he saw what happened to Antiochus Epiphanes disrespected their traditions. Herod went the other route and did whatever he could to get into the good graces of the Jews. The main way he did this was by expanding the temple.
Other books were also written during the intertestamental period, similar to later Jewish Rabbinic literature. One of these is the book of the Jubilees, the earliest surviving commentary on the book of Genesis. It set the pace for other commentaries in the next thousand years of Judaism and began a Jewish commentary tradition known as the Midrash.
The book of Baruch, written during this time, was likely a response to Antiochus Epiphanes defiling the temple. It used historical language to fool the authorities of the day into thinking it was talking about the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. In reality, it was speaking of the Seleucid king’s heinous acts and how the people should respond to them.
The Old Testament Period ended when the final words of the prophets were recorded. There is no clear reason why the period ended. Oceans of ink have been written debating this issue.
All that can be said for sure is God changed how he communicated with his people. There was also a change in the hearts of the people. After the exile, there was a renewed zeal among the people of Israel to keep the Torah because the Jews didn’t want to go back into exile. They had access to the Torah, the Writings, and the Prophets (Known in Hebrew as the Tanakh). There was a renewed hunger to study and to keep the Torah (which is where groups like the Pharisees came from).
The New Testament Period ended with the death of John the Apostle. John was the last direct disciple of Jesus to die and passed away around 100 AD. Tradition says he died at age 93, having witnessed the destruction of Herod’s temple and the flight of the believers and the Jews in the area.
The temple’s destruction came after several revolts by Jewish leaders rebelling against Roman leaders, specifically offenses like new taxes and using temple funds for Roman projects. By 70 AD, Jerusalem was controlled by the Zealots, the radical rebel group that Jesus’ disciple Simon belonged to for a period. The Romans retook Jerusalem by laying siege to it, then tore down its temple and walls, forcing the Jews to leave.
The Romans sacking Jerusalem and the New Testament period ending had several key consequences for Christianity. More people would write books claiming to be divinely inspired (gospel accounts falsely attributed to different disciples). Still, all orthodox Christian groups agree that the canon closed after John wrote Revelation. The next generation (theologians like John’s student Polycarp) would provide new explanations and commentary on Scripture, but Scripture itself was complete. Furthermore, with Judea’s capital sacked and the Jews scattered to other countries, Christianity would become more associated with Gentiles than Jews. In its first few decades, outsiders often saw Christianity as a sect of Judaism. With Judea destroyed as a nation, people increasingly saw Christianity as a religion separate from its Jewish roots.
One of the big takeaways from the intertestamental period is to be faithful when it feels like God is silent. The Jews in this time were persecuted and went through some very difficult things. Still, they endured. They even ruled their nation for a time until the Romans came in. The city had been rebuilt, but only to a fraction of its former glory (Ezra 3:12). Therefore, the Jews awaited the day when the Messiah would come and drive out the authorities and power structures keeping them from worshipping God in the way they wanted to. These were the expectations placed on Jesus by his disciples and the Jewish authorities of the day.
It also shows how to respond when God is silent. The Jews of this period are admirable for their commitment to studying the Torah and their zeal to follow it. They recognized that there was a change in the way God communicated. They responded by studying what he had given them. That is what believers should do as well, commit to studying the Scriptures because they are God’s primary way of communicating with his people.
Photo Credit: Getty Images/ZU_09
Ben Reichert works with college students in New Zealand. He graduated from Iowa State in 2019 with degrees in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, and agronomy. He is passionate about church history, theology, and having people walk with Jesus. When not working or writing you can find him running or hiking in the beautiful New Zealand Bush.
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