Era 11 of 13
Between the Testaments
(Daniel 8, 11 foretell this period)
Persian, Greek, and Roman rule over Judea; no new Scripture is written.
How the dates are set: From about 410 BC, shortly after Ussher’s date for Malachi (about 416 BC), to Christ’s birth in autumn 5 BC. The start date is approximate. Ussher’s dates in this era mostly agree with conventional ones. For the Maccabean years (167–142 BC) the conventional dates are plotted; Ussher’s run one year earlier and are given in the event notes.
Events 21
- Alexander the Great conquers the Persian Empire 334–330 BC
Alexander of Macedon crossed into Asia with a small army and, in three great battles, brought down the Persian Empire, as Daniel's vision of the ram and the goat had foretold. - Alexander spares Jerusalem 332 BC
According to Josephus, the high priest Jaddua went out to meet Alexander in his robes; the conqueror bowed, worshiped at the temple, and was shown Daniel's prophecy of a Greek king. - Alexander dies at Babylon, aged 32 323 BC
At the height of his power, planning still more conquests, Alexander fell ill and died at Babylon. He left no adult heir, and his generals began to fight over his empire. - Alexander's empire splits into four kingdoms 301 BC
After twenty years of war among Alexander's generals, the battle of Ipsus left four kingdoms: Cassander in Macedonia, Lysimachus in Thrace and Asia Minor, Seleucus in Syria and the east, and Ptolemy in Egypt. - The Septuagint: the Scriptures translated into Greek 277 BC
Jewish scholars in Alexandria translated the Law of Moses into Greek, the common language that Alexander's conquests had spread. Completed later with the rest of the Old Testament, it became the Bible of the early church. - Judea passes from Egypt to Syria 198 BC
Antiochus III, the Seleucid “king of the north,” defeated Ptolemy's army at Panium near the source of the Jordan, and Judea changed hands after a century of Egyptian rule. - Antiochus IV Epiphanes seizes the Seleucid throne 175 BC
Antiochus IV, a younger son of Antiochus the Great, took the throne ahead of the rightful heir and set out to make his kingdom Greek in religion and culture, while Jerusalem's own priests competed for his favor. - Rome turns Antiochus back from Egypt 168 BC
As Antiochus closed in on Alexandria, a Roman envoy drew a circle in the sand around him and demanded an answer before he stepped out of it. Humiliated, Antiochus withdrew and took out his fury on Jerusalem. - Mattathias and his sons rise in revolt 167 BC
Ordered to sacrifice to idols at Modein, the priest Mattathias refused, struck down a Jew who stepped forward to do it, and fled to the hills with his five sons. His son Judas, called Maccabeus, led a guerrilla war that defeated army after army. - Eleazar and a mother with seven sons die for the Law 167 BC
The Jews remembered martyrs who chose torture and death rather than eat pork or deny God, among them the aged scribe Eleazar and a mother who watched her seven sons die, each confessing hope in the resurrection. - Antiochus desecrates the temple 167 BC
Antiochus outlawed the Law of Moses. On the 15th of Chislev an altar to the Greek god Zeus was set up on the altar of burnt offering, and ten days later pagan sacrifices were offered in the temple. - Antiochus IV dies in Persia 164 BC
Antiochus died of a sudden illness while campaigning in the east, after a failed attempt to rob a temple in Elymais. No enemy struck him down; he was “broken without human hands.” - Judas Maccabeus rededicates the temple: the first Hanukkah 164 BC
Judas retook Jerusalem, pulled down the defiled altar, built a new one, and rededicated the temple on the 25th of Chislev, three years to the day after the pagan sacrifices began. The eight-day celebration became the Feast of Dedication, or Hanukkah. - Simon wins independence for Judea 142 BC
After Judas and then Jonathan fell, their brother Simon threw off Seleucid rule. The people made him high priest, commander, and ruler, and for eighty years Judea was independent under his descendants, the Hasmoneans. - John Hyrcanus destroys the Samaritan temple 130 BC
Simon's son John Hyrcanus conquered Shechem and destroyed the rival Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim, deepening the bitterness between Jews and Samaritans that runs through the Gospels. - The Great Isaiah Scroll is copied 125 BC
A scribe copied the whole book of Isaiah onto a leather scroll 24 feet long. Hidden in a cave by the Dead Sea and found in 1947, it is the oldest complete book of the Bible known, a thousand years older than the oldest Hebrew manuscripts known before it. - John Hyrcanus breaks with the Pharisees 108 BC
By the time of John Hyrcanus, the parties that fill the pages of the Gospels had formed. When a Pharisee insulted him at a banquet, Hyrcanus broke with the Pharisees and joined the Sadducees. - Pompey takes Jerusalem; Judea falls under Rome 63 BC
Called in to settle a civil war between two Hasmonean brothers, the Roman general Pompey besieged the temple, took it on a fast day, and walked into the Most Holy Place. Judea became subject to Rome. - Herod the Great rules as king of Judea 37–4 BC
Herod, an Idumean whose family had risen under the Hasmoneans, was named king of Judea by the Roman Senate and, with a Roman army, took Jerusalem three years later. He reigned 34 years as a brilliant builder and a ruthless, suspicious tyrant. - Augustus becomes Rome's first emperor 27 BC
Octavian, Julius Caesar's adopted heir, won Rome's civil wars and was given the title Augustus by the Senate. Under him the Mediterranean world entered two centuries of relative peace, the world into which Jesus was born. - Herod begins rebuilding the temple 17 BC
Herod rebuilt Zerubbabel's modest temple on a grand scale and doubled the size of the temple mount. The sanctuary itself took a year and a half, but work on the courts went on for more than eighty years.
People alive in these years 3
Mary, mother of JesusJesusJohn the Baptist
Kings and rulers 2
Open the interactive timelineStart with Alexander the Great conquers the Persian Empire