Books Jesus Read

Afterword

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and death, Tobias and Sarah learn to practice hesed , covenant faithfulness. Like Hannah and King David before them, their personal prayers simultaneously sound the nation of Israel’s cry for the Lord’s deliverance. Explore NewTestament Background in Books Jesus Read As every serious student of the Bible knows, “a text without a context is a prooftext.” In other words, we misunderstand passages whose historical circumstances we fail to grasp. The events reported by the Apocrypha fill the gap between the Testaments by supplying historical context needed for interpreting later Old Testament books like Daniel, while providing essential background for the New Testament. This context relates to the restoration of God’s people after the exile, to the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple in 570 BC, and to its later corruption by Antiochus Epiphanes, as well as to the rise of expectation regarding the Messiah. See Continuing the Conversation below for more on this.