Post-Exile: Restoration Ch. 12

Histories

• Compare the same subject matter from DT History to deduce the particular focus of the Chronicler
• Ezra reads the Law – perhaps a first draft of the "Books of Moses" as we have them
• targums (sometimes cleaning up the text) & midrash ("to seek" a variety of rabbinical interpretations)
• responding to the question, "Who is a Jew?" – this is the beginning of the term jew as it applied to people from Judea (importance of ethnic purity}
• God controls history & creates all things

Afterlife

• from Sheol to heaven took many centuries of development
• only several small references in Hebrew Bible make clear reference to a belief in life after death
• key figures thought to ascend without dying because of scriptural interpretation: Enoch (Gen 5:22-24), Elijah (2 Kgs 2:11)
• Ezekiel's vision of a chariot ascending to heaven was taken to refer to mystical experiences "ascending" into God's realm

Orchestra of Voices Ch. 15

Raising questions

• Covenant: Noah, Abraham, Moses, David
• Creation: various kinds of creation, Sabbath,
• Revelation: often mediated through angels, prophecy, criteria for inclusion in canon of scripture

Hellenism

Greek empire – influence

• Alexander the Great – hegemony of culture – from India to Mediterranean
• commerce, literature, education, etc. done in Greek
• Greek Gods in the (rebuilt) temple in Jerusalem? (Antiochus IV)

Writings

• pesharim (intepretations) found at Qumran
• development of halakah & haggadah
• translations e.g. Septuagint & targums (Aramaic)

skeptical Wisdom tradition

• Capriciousness of God (Job) p. 430 ff.
• futility of human action (Ecclesiasticus) p. 428 ff.

Apocalyptic

• meaning "revelation", i.e. a secret revelation
• through an angel
• increasing use of pseud-epigrapha
• symbols dominate
• often a dualistic universe
• concern with the end times – eschatology
• Daniel 7-12 p. 437 ff.