timetable 400 years between old testament and new testament chart

This desecration resulted in an uprising by Judas Maccabeus of the priestly line of Aaron, and in 165 B.C. He and his successor, Antiochus Epiphanes, persecuted the Jews and sold the priesthood, and in 171 B.C. Jewish law and the priesthood remained more or less intact until Antiochus the Great of Syria captured Israel in 204 B.C. That translation, the Septuagint, came into widespread use (and is quoted frequently in the New Testament). The Jews generally were treated well throughout those reigns, and they adopted the Greek language and many of the Greek customs and manners, and in Egypt the Old Testament was translated into Greek.

In 333 B.C., Israel fell to the Greeks, and in 323 B.C. In short, the Jews were not honoring God. The Jewish people were mistreating their wives, marrying pagans and not tithing, and the priests were neglecting the temple and not teaching the people the ways of God. Nevertheless, Malachi’s warning was not without cause. Both the Law and the priesthood of Aaron’s line had been restored, and the Jews had given up their worship of idols. The Medo-Persian Empire still ruled Israel, and the temple had been rebuilt. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse' (Malachi 4:5-6) and ended with the coming of John the Baptist, the Messiah’s forerunner.Īt the time of Malachi’s warning, about 430 B.C., the Jews had returned to Israel from the Babylonian captivity (as merchants, not shepherds). The 400 years of silence began with the warning that closed the Old Testament: “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. The 400 years of silence refers to the time between the Old Testament and New Testament, during which, so far as we know, God did not speak-no Scripture was written.

Timetable 400 years between old testament and new testament chart