The Religious Background.

The Jewish people of our Lord’s day were intensely religious. Their history, as it

appears in the Old Testament had been written altogether from a religious viewpoint. Their

most brilliant heroes of the Intertestamental period were priests, who led the revolt against

foreign tyrants for religious reasons, and whose loyal followers were religious enthusiasts. In

the years of oppression and bloodshed during the administration of Antipater as governor and

the reign of Herod as king, many devout Jews, losing all hope that their nation would gain

political freedom gave themselves to a study of the prophecies in their Scriptures and fondly

indulged the hope of a coming Messiah-King. Their religious life was expressed in a system

known today as Judaism which had been developed during the Intertestamental period from

the Mosaic law and the prophets and the interpretative comments of the scribes.