New Testament Times-And Now

Abstract

FRIENDS have expressed surprise that this subject should be presented before the American Oriental Society. New Testament papers rarely appear on our programs, names of prominent New Testament scholars are conspicuously missing from our membership lists. The books of the New Covenant are written in Hellenistic Greek of the Koine, for parallels in language and thought we examine contemporary Greek literature or papyri. Sources for a history of New Testament times must be found in works. All this is true but is far from being the whole truth. In certain respects, the history of New Testament times is a part of history; it is the very essence of that later ancient oriental history we tend to ignore. Too often ancient oriental history is assumed to end with the great empires of the older Near East: Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, the Hebrews, with Achaemenid Persia as a possible appendix. With Alexander oriental history as such is supposed to give place to Greek and Roman history until suddenly oriental history begins once more with the Muslims. Our present attitude is explained by the history of history itself. Our day has seen the interest of classical historians shift from the Age of Pericles and the Roman Republic to the Hellenistic and Roman empires. Through their devoted labors, we are presented with a picture of the Graeco-Roman Orient which is sufficiently Greek and Roman but only in slight degree oriental, while Parthia and the Sasanids can barely be detected. If our picture is badly out of focus, we can blame only ourselves. Yet we have our excuse, we must first work up material from the older Orient which has twice at least doubled since we began our studies in order to paint the wider background. We must begin our history with the new world of the Persians, we may not stop until.we have reached the new world of the Muslims. Only by so wide a conception of our task may we hope to understand New Testament times.