The development of eschatology in the inter-testamental period
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Abstract
[The former conception of the Bible has been changed
radically by the acceptance of the modern scientific
point of view that regards history in an evolutionary
sense. That older belief in the once perfect state of
man that was marred by the sin of Adam; and that from
Adam’s day since, man’s state has been growing steadily
worse, is not held with much seriousness in many places
now. The idea of individual responsibility has come to
be more fully applied. We now regard each individual
as a free agent, burdened in indirect ways by the faults
of others, but in no sense condemned by thought in which
he had no part in producing.
The passing of this older conception has had some
Influence on the thought of the periods just preceding,
the opening of the Christian Era. Our Fathers regarded these years as the darkest of all the dark ones. The world had gotten to its lowest point; the process of
sinking had gone on until the very base strings of the
chords of iniquity had been struck; man could go no longer now; God then sent Christ, His Son, as the world’s Redeemer. But when we regard, the work of God in its totality, we find a different meaning in those words,
"To the fullness of time;" and see that God through the men of old and the prophets was preparing the way that He might speak through His Son in these latter days.
In accord with this general idea, one now looks for a progressive revelation that God has been making; and suspect that the period from the close of the Old Testament Canon to the opening of the New Testament is not entirely unfruitful of religious development. What that development shall consist of, remains to to discovered.
Yet it may not be too presumptions to state
here that Jesus begins His ministry of teaching, preaching, and healing with no very strong consciousness of an abrupt break with the past. His references are to "Those of older times" "The law and the prophets," — assuming a continuity that was apparent even in those days. For to be a leader, one in any age must have his contacts with those he hopes to lead. So we may be assured that the world's greatest Teacher and Leader in
religion would hot be betrayed into the futility of a
complete break with the thought, life, and beliefs current in His time. Accordingly, an effort will be made in this discussion to gather up some of those connections found in the teachings concerning the last things.
We shall try to get the thread as presented in the closing pages of Old Testament Canon, and trace then in the process of their passing on or enlargement up to the time of the opening of the New Testament Canon.]
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