help with social science

I am doing a discussion board reply. I need to reply to two discussion post. Each reply must be at least 250 words.

First discussion

According to Gundry, “Under the persians there began the ‘intertestamental period--four hundred silent years’.  Alexander the Great - He came from Greece-Macedonia and conquered the Middle East by inflicting successive defeats on the Persians at the battles of Granicus, Issus, and Arbela.  Alexander was the beginning of all political and historical figures. He was known as a great leader and won many wars and battles to uphold his throne.  He was one of the most prominent figures of the intertestamental period.”  (Gundry, 2012)  Hellinism had spread for some time through the Greek trade and Alexander’s conquests provided impetus before.  The Greek language became the common trade and diplomatic language.  He founded seventy cities and modeled them after the Greek style.  Alexander and his soldiers married orienatal women and the culture was then mixed.  Alexander died at the age of thirty-three.” (Gundry, 2012)  

Diadochi - “When Alexander died, the generals (‘called Diadochi’) divided the empire into four parts.  Two of the parts became important for New Testament historical background, the Ptolemaic and the Seleucid.  The Ptolemaic (Egypt).  Cleopatra was the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty.  The Seleucid (Syria).  When Roman general Pompey made Syria a province, the Empire came to an end.  When the Ptolemies dominated Palestine, consisting mainly of Jews, Jewish scholars began to translate the Hebrew Old Testament into a Greek version called the Septuagint.  The Seleucids attempt to gain Palestine, both by invasion and by marriage alliance.  Success came with the defeat of Egypt by Antiochus III.”

Octavian a/k/a Augustus “defeated Julius Ceasar’s rivals of Antony and his queen ‘Cleopatra’ off the coast of Actium, Greece and became the first emperor or Rome.  Rome passed from a period of expansion to relative peace.  Judea broke the peace with major revolts that the Romans crushed.  Augustus set up a provincial system of government designed to keep proconsuls from administering foreign territories for their own aggrandizement.  Two kinds of provinces, senatorial and imperial.  There were eight Roman Emperors from Augustus to Domitian.”

Last, but not least, Herod the Great “who ruled from 37 to 4 B.C.  His father, having risen to power and favor with the Romans, pushed him into a military and political career.    He tried to impress the Jews with his beautification of the temple in Jerusalem.  Even though he tried to beautify the temple, he still did not share their faith and because of this, the Jews was against him and his ways.  His ways was not of good intentions.  He was “scheming, jealous and cruel” and killed one of his own wives and three of his sons.  (Gundry)  Because he was efficient and very clever at politics, made him a prominent figure in this period.  Had it not been for his cruelty and manipulation, he would not have been the effective person he was during this period.  

Reference

Gundry, R.H., (2012), “A Survey of The New Testament”, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI

Discussion 2

The first name that seems important during the intertestamentary period is that of Alexander the Great. The reason that he becomes important in the process of hermeneutics and exegesis is that he conquered much of the Middle East to the point that God’s chosen people were in exile and exposed to Hellenistic culture. The bearing that this has upon the Bible teachings is that God’s people lost their language of Hebrew and we find the first translation of the Bible from Hebrew to Greek. Many Jewish people who had been Hellenized after generations of exile could only understand Greek[1].

After Alexander’s death and the land was divided into four parts, we talk about the two parts that produced the Ptolemys and the Seleucids. The first is part of Egypt while the latter is part of Syria. After 122 years of peace under the Ptolemys we are introduced to Ptolemy Philadelphia who according to tradition was responsible for allowing 72 Jewish scholars to translate the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. This book is called Septuagint as in the seventy. According to Gundry the Pentateuch was translated first, giving credit to Egyptian Jews rather than Palestinian Jews[2].

Our text further indicates that the Jews fared well under the Ptolemys, even though there was constant fighting with the Egyptian Jews on the left, the Seleucids on the right and the Palestinians in the middle. In 198 BC Antiochus III defeated Egypt where two factions developed. One was pro-Egypt and the other pro-Syria. Antiochus Epiphanes, around 175 BC places Jason of the House of Onias in charge of Jerusalem and he built up the city as a Greek style city-state complete with nude gymnasiums and race track events that opened with pagan invocations. This gave rise to the Hasideans or pious Jews who resented the hiding of circumcision to exercise in the nude; they resented the Greek style of dress and pagan worship, as well as the Hellenistic festivals[3].

Then the Hellenized Jew, Menelaus, convinced Antiochus Epiphanes that he could collect more taxes, he was put in Jason’s place of being in charge of Jerusalem. He was considered as having bought the seat of a high priest. This offended the pious Jews because Menelaus was not thought of as descending from the line of Aaronic priesthood, but merely as a political appointee masquerading as a priest. Further along we find a royal agent of Antiochus trying to get an elderly priest by the name of Mattathias to teach pagan sacrifice. Mattathias refused, killed his oppressors and moved his sons to the mountains. By 167 BC we have a full Maccabean Revolt, whereby Judas Maccabeus, “the hammer” leads guerilla warfare until the Syrians are defeated. They were able to expel the Syrian troops from Jerusalem and reinstate religious freedom[4].

After 105 years of Hasmonean dynasties after the tradition of the Maccabees, the people fell into in-fighting giving rise to splits among the religious minded Hasideans. They evolved into Pharisees and Essenes. The aristocratic, politically minded supporters of the Hasmonean priest-kings evolved into Sadducees. The most prominent segments of Jewish cultural divisions arose during the ‘silent years’[5].