NEW

TESTAMENT

TIMES

BY

Merrill C. Tenney

Dean of the Graduate School, Wheaton College
Wheaton, Illinois

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

© Copyright 1965 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-18099.

ISBN 0-8028-0418-7

Paperback edition first published 1988

Book design and layout
and picture editing by Cornelius Lambregtse
Maps by Francis K. Lake

Preface

The revelation of God in the New Testament was imparted through men who lived in a definite locale of time and space, and who spoke in the imagery and circumstances of their own era. While the truth and application of the message are unquestionably eternal and unchanging, the correct interpretation depends largely upon a proper comprehension of its historical setting.

Because the authors lived within the milieu they described, they took for granted that their contemporaries would understand it, too, and consequently did not attempt to explain many details which would be quite patent to their readers. To us of the twentieth century the facts which they assumed to be obvious and hence unnecessary to explain are obscure. We can comprehend the historical context of these writings only by careful research and reconstruction of the environment from which they emanated.

Such a reconstruction can never be fully satisfying since it is impossible to project ourselves mentally into the world of two millenniums ago and since the available sources of information are at best desultory and incomplete. On the other hand, some sort of attempt is essential if the characters and events of the New Testament are to be viewed in their proper historical perspective.

The following treatise does not purport to provide a full account of all events that took place from the opening of the Hellenistic period in which the Jewish antecedents of Christianity were shaped until the established Christian movement of the time of Hadrian. At best the presentation must perforce be compressed and skeletal. It does endeavor to show the social forces and cultural trends that affected the world into which Christ came and to identify the successive political regimes within which the action of the New Testament took place. This book is not intended primarily to deal with the literary or theological content of the New Testament (for which see the author’s New Testament Survey), but to provide a better background for correlating its historical allusions, and thus facilitating its interpretation.

The numerous sources to which the author is indebted for information are listed in the bibliography. Acknowledgments of timely assistance are due to the Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company and its editors, at whose request the work has been undertaken; to the author’s secretary, Miss Margaret Heindl, who diligently copied the original manuscript; and most of all to his wife, Helen J. Tenney, whose editorial acumen and counsel aided incalculably in its production.

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