This volume addresses a long-standing gap in the evangelical curriculum. In his introduction Athas argues that “it is vital that we bridge the testaments so that we may … see with greater clarity just what it means to claim that, when the fulness of time came, God sent his son” (p. 13). However, his approach to this period raises foundational questions.

Before embarking on his subject, Athas supplies a helpful series of tables setting out a timeline of events, lists of rulers, and dates (pp. xxix–xliii). The book is divided into four parts covering the Persian, Hellenistic, Hasmonean, and Roman eras, bringing together material found in more specialized works.

Athas challenges the idea that prophecy ceased during this period. He understands prophecy to cover the full range of voices, whether true or false. He treats the canonical prophets as “active spokesmen on the deity’s behalf who might give essence and shape to the divine word,” rather than being “mere conduits,” “postmen” (p. 523). This concern moves him to translate names as they would have been heard, resulting in translations such as Ptolemy Thunderbolt and Fatso Ptolemy.

Athas approaches prophecy on the basis of a tendentious paradigm requiring all prophecy to operate as ex eventu commentary. Where the canonical context of a pericope contradicts this paradigm, he supplies an imaginary narrative to relocate it. He imagines a host of “anonymous prophets” whose writings were later attached to those of “named prophets from the past” (p. 9). Those who might reject this narrative are associated with the “fundamentalism” of “ultraconservative” Pharisees, indulging in “hyper-literal interpretations of scrolls” (pp. 9, 22) and a “fetishistic commitment to hyper-literalism and a puritanical concern for God’s sovereignty over history” (p. 523).

His narrative of the history of prophecy is a work of imaginative fiction lacking any evidence beyond the consensus of contemporary critical thinking. He associates isolated pericopes with specific events with exclusive precision, leaving little room for prophecy as counsel relevant to multiple circumstances. For example, Isaiah 41:22–29 and 44:9–20 are identified as a response to Nabonidus’s use of idols (pp. 26, 34). Similarly, he suggests that Jaddua is the implied author of Zechariah 11:1–17 (pp. 96–98, 104, 112), writing in response to the Tennes Revolt (341–345 BC).

This passion overflows into his treatment of wisdom literature. He understands the Ecclesiastes reference to what is “under the sun” as speaking of life “under the Ptolemies” (p. 246). He categorizes the Song of Songs and the book of Daniel as “Resistance Literature” that addresses life under Antiochus IV Epiphanes (pp. 340–48). Furthermore, he views the figure of Solomon in Song of Songs to be “a cipher for Antiochus IV” (p. 341).

He claims that God used myth to communicate truth until God’s people encountered Persian Zoroastrianism, which only became problematic late in the Second Temple period (p. 186). These were “primitive and nascent” concepts “representing a more childlike stage of theological revelation … perfectly suited to a primitive and conceptually nascent environment” (p. 40). Therefore, he argues that Genesis 1 had to be composed during the Persian era (p. 39).

He also attempts to justify pseudepigraphy as an appropriate mode of divine revelation, arguing that it contains no element of deception (pp. 188–89), contrary to the views of scholars such as Bart D. Ehrman in Forgery and Counterforgery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), especially pp. 70–74.

Athas traces the struggles between the Samaritans and the Jews, as well as the rivalry between the royal house of David and the priests for dominance within the Jewish community. He claims that the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel reached their final form and canonical status during the governorship of Nehemiah (pp. 53–54). During the Tennes Revolt (351–345 BC), there were attempts to unite Israel under Samaritan rule (pp. 96–98, 104–8). This situation prompted scribes to preserve “the prophetic and Davidic traditions” (p. 108) and bring “them to bear on the present through redaction and recontextualization” (p. 120). Athas sees “the first concerted framing of a messianic eschatology” (p. 121) as occurring at this time (p. 122 n. 38).

He perpetuates Roland de Vaux’s (L’archéologie et les manuscrits de la mer Morte, The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, revised ed. [London: Oxford University Press, 1973], p. 85) anachronistic analogy of the Essenes as “monastic” (pp. 20, 401), even referring to them as practicing “hermetic monasticism” (p. 403; for an alternative account, see David R. Jackson, Enochic Judaism: Three Defining Paradigm Exemplars, LSTS 49 [London: T&T Clark, 2004], pp. 168–70). However, this characterization is inaccurate since the Essenes married and lived in communities dispersed throughout the Jewish diaspora (see 1QSa 1:6–9, cited on p. 518).

He claims that the doctrine of eschatological resurrection and judgement evolved in response to the persecutions of Antiochus IV (p. 348). Athas locates the rise of apocalyptic literature in this period and describes it as a “mindset, which combined Greek philosophical categories with traditional biblical thought” (p. 366) and a “type of literary political cartooning” (p. 348).

Athas has given us a detailed narrative of the events of this period. He has, in places, produced some rigorous attempts at the resolution of problems within the ancient sources. This is a major work delivered at an accessible level covering a neglected and essential field of study. He rightly challenges the idea that God was silent during this period (see 1 Cor 14:31). The ahistorical treatment of any canonical text abstracts God’s personal words to us from real life. This is particularly observable in presentations to children, a consequential agenda worthy of further consideration. While there are serious issues of concern here, we owe Athas a debt of thanks for rebuking and challenging our lack of attention to the story of God’s redemptive work during these critical centuries.