Intertestamental Period - Part II

For those of you who did not get to read my entry last Tuesday about the Intertestamental period, here it is, look for Tuesday June 18 entry.

I went again today, here are my brief notes:

Greek period

- alex great conquer to introduce greek ideas, hellenization
- spread greek language
- died, 5 qenerals take ovr land
dan 8:8 (4 horns)
- eccles. Many scholar say solomon did not write. B/c written in hebrew used 700 yrs after solomon
- aramaic not in sol. Time
- but att. In begin. Says son of David
- daniel & rev apocalyptic

I mixed in some abbreviations, so I don’t have to write as much on my Palm, if you care to know what some are, then e-mail me through my Comments to Jon-C link.

So I’ll try and explain some of it now. Alexander the Great became King when he was 20. He was tutored by Aristotle as a child. So he sought to spread Greek ideas, culture and everything about Greece to all countries, and this was called Hellenization. He conqured vast amounts of land within 3 years and took over Persia (a powerhouse back then). When he died, his five generals fought over the land, and they ended up splitting it. Four of them decided to conquer one of them in the middle, and Ptolemy ended up taking over Palestine.

20 The two-horned ram that you saw represents the kings of Media and Persia. 21 The shaggy goat is the king of Greece, and the large horn between his eyes is the first king. 22 The four horns that replaced the one that was broken off represent four kingdoms that will emerge from his nation but will not have the same power.
Daniel 8:20-22

So there is a lot of symbolism there. Two horns represents Medes and Persians. Male goat is Greece, the horn on the goat is Alexander the Great. It goes something like that. And four Kingdoms of course is the four generals. This is on this handout I got.

Then we talked about the book of Ecclesiastes, who is has been attributed to that King Solomon wrote this. However from what I hear, many scholars do not believe Solomon wrote this. This is because the book is originally written (first copy known) in late Hebrew and with Aramaic words. Both these dialects were of a later generation than Solomon. However, there are others who believe that people translated his writing into a more modern version of Hebrew, which grew with time, which accounts for the later version of Hebrew. Also, it is written at the beginning of the book:

1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
Ecclesiastes 1:1

Now, like I mentioned last week, many times even though it mentions son of David, sayings like these could also mean later generations of David. This does not mean exactly David’s son, but just someone later. But my question is, for those scholars who do not believe it’s Solomon, than whom?

There were a lot of Apocalyptic Literature out in this time. There were a lot fo books named “The book of Noah”, or “The book of Enoch”, who are great people in the bible, but obviously not around during this era, they existed even before Abraham. So these are some things that don’t make sense. Maybe the author felt their names would sell better?

Current Events Today:

- Union garbage workers to go on strike tmrw afternoon if no agreement made by then
- South Korea loses to Germany 1-0.
- Rosie O’Donnell, off tv and back to stand-up comedy, known as the sweet girl makes fun of Michael Jackson and Bill Clinton.
- Yasser Arafat does not think Bush wants him out.
- G-8 Summit in Calgary this week