This book helps the reader understood better what went on in Jerusalem so many years ago that influences modern politics and culture both in the east and in the west. Kent Brown and Richard Holzapfel, both professors of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, explain in detail the fall of the kingdom of Judah-remember the Babylonian captivity-to the birth of Christ. Despite being so small, Jerusalem and Judea remained a breadbasket and a cultural influence to the Babylonians, the Persians, the Seleucid Greeks and the Romans.
Since the prophets Lehi and Jeremiah prophesied the fall of Jerusalem around 600 BC until the establishment of a Jewish state in AD 1948, there is only a brief window of time that the Jews were able to rule themselves. The Maccabean revolution was a landmark event for Jewish history-from the political nature of the office of high priest to doctrinal changes in the Sadducees' rhetoric.
But this book is not just about history. Have you ever wondered what the Dead Sea Scrolls were all about? How about the apocrypha, or the great Diaspora? Knowing what the sociopolitical conditions were in Jerusalem has helped me understand the New Testament much better-the spiritual interpretation becomes even richer.
Israel