The Intertestamental Period

Good evening, I Want you to look around and just remember that every class starts full and every class ends basically like this. And I don't know if that's because It's just heavy or if it's because people lose interest.

I don't know what it is. But every class begins, you know up to 20 or so people sometimes we've had even 30 people. Pack the class and we always end with around 12. And so We have tonight nine, so Plus me.

We'll go ten at least get us in double digits. So if you include if you include me, but I am thankful that you are here tonight. It's the last class in our survey of the Old Testament. We're going to be looking at the Intertestamental period that is the period between Malachi and Matthew that historical period.

Where we do not have any inspired texts that address that there are many non Inspired texts or what? We would simply say historical works that take place during that time the Maccabees and others. And so it's not as if we have no information, but what we do have is not what we would say Scripture so we just make that distinction.

What is and what is not scripture? So With that in mind, I want to ask this question Have you ever wondered why when you read the Bible from the Old Testament to the New Testament. There are entire groups of people in the new that are never mentioned in the old.

Like for instance the Pharisees you never read about the Pharisees in the Old Testament or the Sadducees. But when you begin to read the Gospels, it's assumed that you know who these people are. It doesn't explain them.

It doesn't give a historical account it simply says the Pharisees and the Sadducees and I mentioned some other ones as well such as the Herodians which were a political party and When we leave off the Old Testament history The Persians are in power.

But when we arrive in the Gospels the Romans are in power and so obviously in that 400 year period of time there were a lot of religious and political changes and We will not be addressing all of them.

And I will go ahead and tell you you may ask a question tonight. But I don't know the answer to because there is a lot that can happen in 400 years our nation. It's not even 400 years old. And if somebody were to ask me a question about the history of America I don't know that I can give a perfect answer every time.

So if you ask me something, I don't know the answer I'll just say I don't know but the things I do know we're going to try to address tonight things that I think are important. Such as the rise in certain religious and political sects.

I want to quote somebody that you might find autumn a quote Louie Giglio. I just like this quote. He's Interesting guy, but this is a quote he Gave about this period. He said we go from Malachi to Matthew in one page of our scriptures.

But that one piece of paper that separates the Old Testament from the New Testament represents 400 years of history. 400 years where there wasn't a prophet. 400 years where God's voice wasn't heard and That silence was broken with the cry of a baby on Christmas night.

Just thought that was kind of poetic kind of nice. You know God spoke through Malachi and then he was quiet for 400 years from a historical perspective. What other time do we say God was relatively? Quiet that was also about 400 years.

No, the exile wasn't 400 years. That's right, that's right after the time of Joshua we have a 400 year period before the rise of Moses. So it's interesting that there's two periods of history that both have about a 400 year span that both ended with a vast giving of God's revelation.

Because at the end of the 400 year period of slavery in Egypt God gives a vast revelation the law of Moses and then after the 400 years between Malachi Matthew There's a vast revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so it's just an interesting Parallel historically of two major events which were superseded by or preceded rather by a 400 or so year period of relative silence. All right. So we're going to ask this question tonight.

What happened between Malachi and Matthew the period between the last book Written in the Old Testament and the first words of the New Testament are sometimes called the silent years. Because as we just said it is believed that God gave no prophetic revelation during that time.

Now Between the last writings of the Old Testament and the appearance of Christ several major developments set the stage for the gospel story. The political religious and social atmosphere of Palestine Changed significantly during this time.

And this lesson is going to focus on those Changes. So here's our outline if you want to take your if you want to write that line down. Outline is going to be we're going to look first at the political changes then we're going to look at the religious changes and then we're going to look at points of interest and Interpretive challenges.

We try to do that as well. Now I want to also mention one other thing. This lesson may not be as long as some of the other lessons go. We'll do you know what we have and then we'll we'll draw to a close.

But there is going to be an extra portion at the end where we talk about the paper if you are planning today. Or if you're planning to earn a certificate for this class, then we are going to assign to you tonight your paper Requirements, so just keep that in mind if you are not doing a paper.

You don't necessarily have to stay for that part. But I would encourage you to because I do in case you ever want to do it future I give you some insight into how that works. All right. Let's look first at the political changes.

Israel was under the control of the Persian Empire from 532 to 332 BC. The Persians allowed the Jews to practice their religion with little interference. They were even allowed to rebuild and worship at the temple.

We see this in 2nd Chronicles chapter 36 Versus 22 and 23 and Ezra chapter 1 verses 1 to 4 this period included the last 100 or so years of the Old Testament period and about the first hundred years of the intertestamental period.

This relatively peaceful and content time was just the calm before the storm. Because as we'll see this second your second note here Alexander the Great defeated Darius or Darius of Persia bringing Greek rulership to the world.

Alexander was a student of a man named Aristotle you probably heard the name Aristotle he was a philosopher a Greek philosopher and he was Alexander the Great was educated by Aristotle and he was so well educated in Greek philosophy and Politics by him and he required that that culture be promoted in every land that he conquered.

You ever wonder why the New Testament is written in Greek and not Hebrew. It's because the Greeks had Conquered the world and there was a type of language that became known as Koine. The word koine in Greek means common so the common language of The people and it was the language of commerce during the time of Christ would have been the Greek language the koine language.

There is a great video if anybody's interested. There's a great video called all things are better in koine. It was put together by a group of seminary students who were taking a Greek class and they just happened to be musicians and They do a very funny skit called all things are better in koine.

And they talk about why everybody should learn Greek so that they can study their Bibles better. But it's a great little video if you're interested in looking that up so Alexander required the Greek culture and language to be promoted in every land that he conquered and As a result the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek becoming becoming what was known as the Septuagint.

The Septuagint this is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Now this is an important work. Why why is this an important works? I'm going to tell me what makes the Septuagint so important. Well explain a little more tell me what you're saying.

Well, yes, that's what it is for sure that that's absolutely true. But I'm digging a little deeper and asking what makes that significant. Why is that important Cory? Potentially but that's not quite what I'm looking for that that that's true, but not quite what I'm looking for.

Yes. Yes, still not quite what I'm looking for. All those things are true. I'm looking for something very specific. Yeah. Yeah I'll just give you the answer because I feel like I'm fishing for something.

I'm not getting it's the Bible that many New Testament books reference and we know this based upon their quotations of the Old Testament many of Paul's books when they quotes the Old Testament is quoting directly from the Septuagint translation and Even in Acts we see sometimes references to the Septuagint translation.

So we would say the Septuagint was the was the Bible of much of the early church, especially the Greek speaking Jews and the Gentiles who also would have spoken Greek remember in Acts chapter 8 The first deacons were assigned because of what the Hellenists which were the Greek speaking Jews.

Were not receiving the rations of daily food that they were supposed to receive. And so there was a division in the church the division was between the Hellenists and the Hebrews. The Hellenists were the Greek speaking Jews and the Hellenists were the Hebrew speaking Jews and there was a divide within The church and so the Apostle stepped in and made a difference.

But the point I'm making is there were Greek speaking Jews and there were Gentiles. What Bible would they have been using because they didn't have a New Testament yet. They would have been using the Septuagint.

So this Bible was the Bible of the early church now. It also has another very important Historical point the Septuagint was written about 200 years prior to Christ so about 200 years BC. Give or take it stands Really as the oldest witness to what the Old Testament says.

Because our oldest Hebrew manuscripts are nowhere near that old. The oldest Hebrew manuscripts that we possess today are well after the time of Christ. The Masoretic text is what is usually we talk about the our Bibles are based on the Masoretic Hebrew text is much later.

It's because copies of the Hebrew Bible were not maintained and kept they were they were destroyed when new ones were created. And so we don't have witnesses that go back that old. Like we do with the Greek we actually have older versions of Greek New Testament than we do of Hebrew Old Testament.

Now this was in fact Case in point. Why were the Dead Sea Scrolls so important the Dead Sea Scrolls when they were discovered in Qumran? What made them so valuable. They were witnesses that went back over a thousand years to the Hebrew text because at that time our earliest Manuscripts were somewhere around 900 these went back to a hundred years before Christ.

And so they took the they took the manuscript tradition of the Hebrew text back a thousand years. This is very important historically when we get to how we got the Bible and why we trust what the Bible says.

So all this is important so like I said the Septuagint bears witness to what the Hebrew wrote because it's obviously a translation of the Hebrew and It precedes our oldest Hebrew manuscripts. That's why the Septuagint has such an important place in the history of the church.

It bears witness to the to the Tenacity of the text that hasn't been lost or corrupted. Yes Book so it's the Holy Bible Holy Book. That's right, that's why if you ever see a Spanish Bible, it's called the Santa Biblia.

Means Holy Bible or Holy Book. Biblia the R word Bible comes from the word Biblia. Yep.

So that came from the Greek, right?

Yeah, Biblos is Biblos is a is a is a Greek word. And I don't know what it is. But yeah, there would be a Hebrew word there would been the words the word for scriptures like in Greek. There's the word graph a which means writings or scriptures.

The Tanakh is the three is is the the Torah the net of him and the Ketubim that's a that's an acronym for the collection of books. Well, each each collection of those three like the Torah's the five books of Moses the the net of being the prophets and the writings and.

Yeah, I remember the day we all just decided we're gonna put these.

Yes, yeah.

Because you know the Torah specifically was used for certain things at certain times. There are readings that were done from the Torah readings that were done from the prophets. But we know that that threefold division was used at least at the time of Christ because Christ mentions it in Luke 24.

I believe so I may be wrong about that, but I'm pretty sure they do or the scriptures. They may just say the scriptures. All right, so getting back to the Under the second line here Alexander the Great defeated Darius of Persia.

Alexander did. Alexander allowed the Jews religious freedom though. He strongly promoted Greek lifestyle. This was not a good turn of events for Israel since Greek culture was very worldly humanistic and ungodly Greek culture was a threat to their religion and So I'm going to read to you now from Josephus now if you're familiar with Josephus.

He was a historian in the first century and he writes about Alexander sparing Jerusalem. Now this is Couple of paragraphs that take a minute to read this but I want you to read what he wrote. Josephus recounts how Alexander's troops Surrounded the city and readied themselves for attack.

Suddenly the city gates swung open and out came the high priest with his entourage. Josephus writes this quote for Alexander when he saw the multitude at a distance in white garments while the priesthood clothed with fine linen and high priests and Purple and scarlet clothing with his miter on his head having the golden plate wherein the name of God was engraved he approached by himself and adored that name and first saluted the high priest whereupon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised that what Alexander had done and Supposed him disordered in his mind however, Parmenoi Alone went up to him and asked him how it came to pass that when all others adored him.

He should adore the high priest of Jews. Quote to whom he replied. I did not adore him. But the God who hath honored him with his priesthood for I saw this very person in a dream in this very clothing When I was at Dias of Macedonia who exhorted me to make no delay But boldly to pass over the sea for that he would conduct my army and would give me the Dominion over the Persians.

Whence now seeing this person in it and remembering that vision I believe that I bring this army under the divine conduct and When the book of Daniel was showed him wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians.

He supposed that himself was the person intended and as he was then glad he bade them ask what favors they asked of him. Whereupon the high priest desired that they might pay no tribute on the seventh year and he granted all of their desires.

Now that is a quote from the Antiquities of the Jews book 11 Chapter 8 part 5. All right, so just to give you a little history now. Obviously, this is something that was believed and was written. Did it happen exactly as Josephus wrote it?

We don't know. He is he's not an eyewitness. He's writing from History he's writing from what was probably Jewish tradition and belief. But wouldn't that be an amazing sight to see Alexander the Great the man who is Conquering the known world to come to Jerusalem and to have the high priest walk out in his regalia and to have Alexander the Great honor the God of Scripture.

I mean a wonderful truth if it is and I'm not saying it's not or it is I'd say I. We can't say with certainty because it's not scripture, but it's an interesting historical note all the same. After Alexander died Judea was ruled by a series of successors culminating in a man named Antiochus Epiphanes.

Antiochus did far more than refuse religious freedom to the Jews and around 167 BC he overthrew the rightful line of the priesthood. He desecrated the temple. He defiled it with unclean animals and a pagan altar.

We see this referenced in Mark chapter 13 talks about the desolate abomination of desolation. Well, it's it's referencing that event. How do we know what. Well, let me double-check that look up mark 13 14, I believe this is because I don't have that passage.

I want to make sure I'm not misspeaking here mark 13 14. Okay the point that this term abomination of desolation Was used to reference that event. However, Jesus is talking about something yet to come.

So I'm not saying this is the fullness of that event. They're what we call the immediate and the not yet the now and the not yet there are times where there's multiple filaments and there times where there are greater fulfillments in the future and Christ I think is talking about in that passage something that's going to happen and when the when Jerusalem falls in 8070 because he's talking to them about something that's not yet occurred, but the abomination of desolation is also referenced as the time when Antiochus brought in the statue of Zeus and set it up in the temple and it was the Maccabees who went in and took that back and took down took the head of the statue off.

Yeah cutting off the head of Zeus was kind of a Well, it was it was it was yeah, yeah, it was it was it was to show that Zeus was not the god of that temple. Yeah, all right. Eventually Jewish resistance to Antiochus here.

Let me pull up the next page eventually Jewish resistance. Antiochus under the Maccabees restored the rightful priest and rescued the temple. The period that followed this was still one of war violence and infighting and then around 63 BC Pompey of Rome conquered Palestine putting all of Judea under the control of the Caesars.

So we go from Greek control to Roman control in around 63 BC. This eventually leads to Herod being made king of Judea by the Roman Emperor and the Senate now Herod was a Idumean. I talked about this I think last week the Edomites were also known as the Idumeans.

Herod was an Idumean and he was chosen to be the king and He was set up by Rome basically he was a he was a Puppet regime. Yeah now think about what's what happens next. Because this is the nation that would tax and control the Jews eventually be the one that God uses to bring about the crucifixion and We see in Jerusalem now in that area Judea.

We see a mixture of Romans Greeks and Jews. So think back to all the times you read in the gospel Where it talks about a Roman soldier came to Jesus or a Greek speaking person came to Jesus or the Greeks, you know.

Think about when in John 12 when when when the Greeks are brought to Jesus and he says if I'd be lifted up I would draw all men unto myself all there being all kinds of men because it's not just he's not just here to save the Hebrews so there's a lot of political things that are bringing together all of these different groups into this one area at one time and There's a common language which is the Greek language there's a political power the Romans which is a Fulfillment of the prophecy which was given by Daniel again referencing back to Daniel's prophecy because remember in Daniel's prophecy it was what the Babylonians and then the Medes and the Persians with Medo-Persians and then it was the Greeks and Then it was the Romans.

And the Romans were in charge when Christ came. All right. So this takes us from the time of Malachi to the time of Matthew from a political perspective now on to the religious changes. During the span of the Greek and Roman occupations two important political and religious groups emerged in Palestine the Pharisees.

Were the religious conservatives this group added to the law of Moses through oral tradition and Eventually considered their own laws to be even greater than the law of Moses. Though they probably wouldn't say that but you remember what Jesus said of them you teach as Commandments the traditions of men they had taken their traditions and elevated them to the point of Law.

Now, what other group does that now takes their traditions and elevates them to the point of law? Oh Frank I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go with Jay because he's correct. The Roman Catholics make what did you say for that?

I'm sorry Matt. Yeah, yeah, the Roman Catholics make no bones about the fact that they believe that tradition and scripture are on the same level because they believe that tradition is is is inspired like scripture and tradition has the same authority and.

So they have things like for instance, why does a Roman Catholic pray the Rosary? That's not in the Bible. In fact, there are things in the Bible that we would say clearly contradict the Rosary such as Matthew chapter 6.

Which says you're not praying pain repetition and you're sitting there literally going Hail Mary full of grace Lord is with me pray for sinners now the power of our death, you know, you're going through this repetition.

Every time you get to a certain color bead you're doing that prayer. And then when you get to a different color bead you say our Father at art in heaven. How would be that name that kingdom come, you know, you do a 50 Hail Mary's and 15 our fathers and you you know.

You've given penance for whatever you've done. That's a tradition. That's not in scripture. But it's held by the Roman Catholics as if it were law. Well, the same thing was done with the Pharisees they added to the law of God and They made their tradition to be Essentially equivalent or greater than the law of God.

While Christ teaching often agreed with the Pharisees he railed against their hollow legalism and their lack of compassion. There were times when Jesus said the Pharisees are right, but their heart is wrong.

What did he call them whitewashed Sepulchers right which is basically I don't know if you've ever been to the Jacksonville National Cemetery. I go there very regularly. I'll be there this Friday at the Jacksonville National Cemetery if you stand At the front and you look out there is a sea of white of white tombstones in there and they're kept Bright white they are kept clean and the whole place is gorgeous.

But ultimately all of those white tombstones are marking posts for dead bodies their corpses, that's right and Jesus said you yourselves are like whitewash sepulchers, you're like you're outside you look great, but inside you're full of dead men's bones and that was Christ's reference to the Pharisees.

Now there was another group known as the Sadducees. The Sadducees would might might be described as the religious liberal movement and by that I'll give you a few ideas as to why they were. They represented the aristocrats and the more wealthy.

They wielded power through the Supreme Court like Sanhedrin, which you probably read in the Bible about the Sanhedrin. They rejected most of the Old Testament except for the law of Moses. They did not believe in the resurrection and They were generally shadows of the Greeks whom they greatly admired.

Much of their philosophy and teaching Was from the worldly perspective of the Greeks rather than from the scriptures. They did not believe. Basically, they were anti-supernaturalists. Which is interesting when you think about today because the Pharisees and the Sadducees really can Can be described, you know to to Frank's point as The conservative right and the liberal left.

Right, they they have they they bear a lot of political power. They have a lot of religious influence. But on the one side you have the the conservatives who are willing to add to the law. Demand things that the scripture doesn't demand.

We see that and Then you have those on the other side which are willing to To jettison or deny foundational truths. So there's both sides described in the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Now The rush of events that set the stage for Christ had a profound impact on the Jewish people.

Both Jews and pagans from other nations were becoming dissatisfied with religion. The pagans were beginning to question the validity of polytheism. Romans and Greeks were drawn from their mythologies towards the Hebrew scriptures now easily readable in Greek and Latin.

We've mentioned that earlier the Bible now available being to them in Greek. They could now read it and it could influence them. Thank Cora. You mentioned that right? They can now read it. The Jews however were despondent because once again, they were a conquered oppressed and polluted people.

You ever wonder why the Jews are so hostile toward the Gentiles during the time of Christ. You know as as as as much as we might have trouble with some of their attitude. They were an oppressed people.

Imagine if well, let's say let's say We don't we're a peninsula. So Florida is not a good example. I was gonna say imagine if somebody invaded, Florida, the only people who invade Florida would be the Georgians.

Well, I was Another nation. Let's say let's say Canada invaded North Dakota. First of all, it never went. But if they invaded right and the North Dakotans. Not even sure that's how you say that Were oppressed by the Canadians, you know, they made him they made him be polite, you know.

They made him they made him fly the flag with the maple leaf, you know. Yeah made him have a mounted army or Smokies or whatever the Canadian mounted. Yeah. My point is there's a reason why the Jews were.

They had a bad opinion of the Romans. Because they were oppressed and they were again under the occupation of an outside power these were the people of God as so they Understood themselves to be and yet they were still being oppressed.

Hope was running low fears were high and faith was Almost non-existent. They were convinced That now the only thing that could save them was the Messiah. The New Testament tells us how that hope came.

Not only for the Jews, but for the entire world. Christ fulfillment of prophecy was anticipated and recognized by many who sought him out. The stories of the Roman Centurion the wise men the Pharisee Nicodemus show how Jesus was recognized as the Messiah by those who lived in his day.

And the 400 years of silence were broken by the greatest story ever told the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we see the Importance of this moment what Paul calls the fullness of time. You know, what does it say in Galatians when the fullness of time had come.

God sent forth his son born of a woman born? Under the law that he might redeem those who are under the law and give them redemption an adoption of sons right. Here we have that moment in time this moment this place this Convergence of all of these things major political change major religious change.

All of these things have happened to bring about this one major event in human history, and that's the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It pulls it all together in this moment that Paul calls the fullness Of time.

All right. Let's look a few points of interest and interpretive challenges. The first one is Daniel's prophecies. Daniel gives the rise and fall of all four empires in his writings. I mentioned this a little while ago.

Daniel had prophesied without fail the rise of each Empire and even coming the coming of Antiochus Epiphanes Daniel. Daniel chapter 2 verses 36 to 45 interprets Nebuchadnezzar's dream about the statue and Daniel 7 and 8 gives the vision of the four beasts which also coincide with the four the four elements used in the statue Daniel 7 and 8 the chapter 7 and 8.

Oh 2 36 to 45. That's the Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Mm-hmm. Yep. Some have concluded and I mentioned this when we talked about the book of Daniel a few weeks ago. Some have concluded that Daniel must have been written after the events because it's so accurate this however denies as Its worldview that a God Exists who can prophesy the future.

We believe that so there's no reason why we have to doubt that Daniel wrote these things. So we have Daniel's prophecies is number one. The second thing is the writings of the Essene community now, I've already made reference to these who.

Well, I mean back up. I don't want to ask that question. I'll ask this question. I mentioned earlier the Dead Sea Scrolls. I mentioned Qumran. Qumran is the area that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. They were found in a cave and.

They're by the way, we think of Dead Sea Scrolls as being like the like this. They're not they're this big. They're the the pots that they that they found them in were Massive. They're big scrolls. They're not these they're not they didn't have little micro scrolls.

They're big big writing the the the current Isaiah scroll is in a is in a museum over in Jerusalem and. The Essene community are those who it is believed to have been the ones who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls in the way and Essene is Essene community, I'm sorry.

Oh. No, I didn't. I missed out here. Yeah, it was. Yeah, the Essene community Is the is the community that it's believed in. Of course nobody knows for sure. But it is the community that they believe wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Yes. Well define authentic. I Promise I'm not being pedantic. What do you mean by authentic? Yeah, see. Yeah, they're not they're not saying they're originals. The Essene community was a community of scribes.

By the way, you've heard of scribes. What is a scribe. Scribe is a person who writes for a living and at that time they didn't have Copy Macs or you know her office Depot they had scribes and so if you wanted something written down you would take it to a scriptorium and the scriptorium would be where the scribes would work and they were usually experts because they wrote all the time they and and and and knew these things and.

When we talk about authenticity and the reason why I was asking that is because we talk about authenticity. We can date. From a historical perspective when something is written based on a few what are called external markers such as.

Where something is found as far as in the layers of ground that things are dug up. That's that's part part of how we determine that and we can also Base it on the materials that are used like for instance the early New Testament manuscripts.

The earliest New Testament manuscripts were written on something called papyri. Papyri was an early form of paper. Later manuscripts were written on vellum and leather which is animal skins and then. So if we find a papyri manuscript, we know when that material was used.

Therefore we can it helps us in the dating process of putting it within a range. Okay, we know papyri was used at this particular time and how papyri was made at this particular time based upon other historical evidence.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Yeah, it's been a while I don't remember I don't remember when they were found. I don't have today. Yeah, I was in it was in 1900. Yeah, but based upon the the Very very rigorous dating methods that they went to they have dated them sometime around a hundred BC.

I'm not sure which one Bobby's talking about so I'm not I don't know there have been other texts found like the Nag Hammadi texts the Nag Hammadi texts are the Gnostic texts. I'm not sure what he's talking about.

Well, they I'll tell you what a really interesting find that happened within the last few years was there was a mask that was found. That was a burial mask and it was a burial mask that was made of a paper mache material and Sort of like what you would you know, they make paper mache.

They take paper and they use glue and make forms out of it. Well, they had formed a burial mask and this this was unearthed and as they began to peel the Through a very strict process of trying not to destroy as they began to peel apart the mass.

They they realized had writing on it. So they began to Interpret and read what was on and comes to find out it was a gospel of Mark. That had been used as a as this form and if they are able to take that apart.

That will be the oldest extant manuscript of Mark that we possess. So it's just an interesting these things so there they are being found all the time. I'm not sure if that's one Bobby's referring to they're being found, you know as more and more archaeology is done.

More more things are being found, right? So getting back to the question of authenticity dating methods materials being used even even handwriting. Think like for instance, there's two forms of Hebrew.

You probably know this as a Jewish person or you're not Jewish. But your family's Jewish. I guess you are. You're Jewish you're of Jewish lands, that's what I'm there's old Hebrew and there's Newer Hebrew, right and so when you look at the two, they don't look the same.

So if you if a text was found that we had the right materials and the right use of the letters you could Date it through those internal methods to a certain period in time. That makes sense. So that's how they authenticate as well as other ways, but primarily through those internal dating methods.

All right kind of got me off track a little bit that's okay, that's a very good question. That's a good topic to deal with when I when I go through how we got the Bible understanding historical. Textual transmission and that's what that is transmission of the text is important.

So the the Essene community. Were a religious group that lived in an area called Qumran near the Dead Sea. They were very religious very strict they refued to the other Jews as lawbreakers. Actually, they called him covenant breakers.

So they considered themselves. They were the IFB of their day. That's my that's my rib to the IP. IP is independent fundamentalist Baptist. Everybody else is wrong. Yeah, or we can say the hypercalvinist.

They did same thing. No, those would come come much later those those terms but the some people believe John the Baptist actually was influenced by the Essene community because of his His separation from the community and living outside the community that he had been influenced by the Essenes.

There's no evidence of that. It's all conjecture. We know that John's reason for doing what he did was because God had called him to be the forerunner of the Messiah. We don't have to we don't have to key in any external for him.

But did he ever meet the Essenes likely? We don't know. But they had a monastery basically that they lived in and. And I have the date here. I didn't know I had it the day here in 1946 their library was discovered now become known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

These scrolls are found in many caves and large clay pots near the area, which the Essene community lived. I've actually seen the ruins not there. I've never been over there but I've seen the ruins and pictures in archaeology class that I attended in some seminary where it actually shows the the foundations of what was once their their Monastery and it shows how the different rooms were and one of the areas was a baptismal room.