When
reading the New Testament it can be difficult to understand everything that you
read because we are some 2,000 years removed from the culture of the first
century. Even passages we think we understand might not actually be saying what
we imagine them to be saying. That's where background materials come in.
Background materials help to explain the culture and historical setting like
events and people so we better understand the New Testament.
Usually
doing background study involves looking in bible dictionaries and encyclopedias
as well as commentaries and even technical journal articles. But all of that is
time consuming and not everyone has access to all those resources. Enter
"The World Of Jesus: Making Sense of the People and Places of Jesus' Day"
By Dr. William H. Marty. This book is 185 pages full of information to help
someone better understand the New Testament. Now let me say that this is not a
exhaustive book, as if you couldn't tell from the amount of pages, but it is
very well written and organized and it will help orient a person so that their
reading and studying of the New Testament is much more fruitful.
The
book is made up of eight chapter with and Introduction and a Conclusion.
There's also nice little glossary in the back for a quick definition on words and
people you might not know (Always helpful).
The
introduction lays out the format of the book as well as a brief retelling of
the events from Abraham to the end of the Old Testament. This was a great
little summary to, again, orient us as we prepare to look at the periods
surrounding the first century. Chapter 1 deals with the Persian Period and
discusses the reason for the exile. It also discusses the Temple as well as the
city of Jerusalem. Chapter 2 introduces us to Alexander the Great and the Hellenization (which was the historical spread of ancient Greek culture,
including the language) of the Jewish
people and others who were conquered by Alexander the Great. Chapter 3 covers
the Maccabean revolt. Chapter 4 discusses the Hasmonean period. Chapters 5 and
6 deal with the Roman Period and Herod the Great. Chapter 7 deals with the
early church period and finally chapter 8 details some of the different
religious groups around in the first century like the Pharisees and Sadducees. And
the conclusion is a wonderful recap of what was discussed in detail throughout
the book.
This book was a pleasure
to read and I highly recommend it to everyone. Whether you have access to all
those background materials like dictionaries and such or weather you don't this
book would make a wonderful addition to your library.
I should say that the
only thing that I didn't like about this book were the shaded pages that were
scattered throughout the book. While they gave a lot of great information they interrupted
the flow of the main text and I would have rather seen them at the end of the
chapters or the information incorporated better into the body of the main text.
But that's being nitpicky.
Disclosure of Material: I received this book free from Bethany House Publishers book review program, which requires an honest, though
not necessarily positive, review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I
am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal
Trade Commission’s CFR Title 16, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of
Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
