In the 4th Century B.C. the world was a disconnected collection of disparate city-state nations, separated by geography, language, culture, and history. In reality, apart from limited long-distance trading, the far eastern part of the world in India barely knew of their western counterparts situated around the Mediterranean and vice versa. At this time of disjointed humanity, a certain Macedonian prince rose to power in Greece.
The young prince seized his father's impressive military force at the age of twenty and began his lifelong campaign to conquer the world from one end to the other and to hold it under a single Greek banner. He had a deep conviction to unite all peoples under Greek culture and spent the whole of his life for this task. The prince was a remarkable general and tactician. At numerous skirmishes, the prince's forces were dramatically outnumbered yet, by his decisively genius tactics, his army was victorious. Moreover, he always rode his horse at the front of the battle, ensuring each of his dedicated soldiers that the prince would never put them into any danger that he himself would not be willing to accept.
As a result of his consistent willingness to set an intrepid example coupled with his constantly expert military strategies, his troops followed him with a worshipful fervor, believing their prince to be a descendant of the gods and heroes of old. The prince succeeded in conquering land from the Mediterranean beyond the Hindu Kush mountain range. Although the prince died mysteriously at the young age of 32, he was successful at making the Greek culture and language the standard in the world. A feat that was nothing short of revolutionary that set the world on its path for the next several hundred years. Because of his utter success, history has canonized him as great, Alexander the Great.
Understanding the significance of Alexander in reference to the Bible is a rich field manifold with grain relevant to biblical understanding. For the brevity of this conversation, reducing the mixture to two main points of importance is in order: the historical account following Alexander's death, and the cultural significance of Hellenization in the spread of the Gospel. The goal here is by no means exhaustive, just to offer a small sample of the usefulness of historical study to understanding the Bible better.
The history after Alexander's death is necessary information for properly understanding of the last part of the book of Daniel (Ch. 9-12). Following Alexander's mysterious death, the massive geographical area of his empire was divided into four satrap kingdoms by the general, Perdiccas: the Ptolemaic, the Seleucid, the Pergamum, and the Macedonian. Unless we recognize these four kingdoms, particularly the Ptolemaic, understanding Daniel's apocalyptic visions that close the book is made nearly impossible.
Secondly, the impact of Hellenization cannot be overstated. Simply understood, Hellenization is the spread and standardization of Greek culture and language because of the work of Alexander. This made Greek the language of commerce and trade, particularly across the Mediterranean world. As a result, the Gospel was able to be presented to many diverse cultures, from Spain to India. In fact, libraries of books have been written about the Gospel's dependance upon Hellenization for its spread.
While this dialogue has been information-laden but too-brief, the point has been to show the need of historical investigation for the purpose of shedding light on the Bible. Forming a solid historical basis is a necessary endeavor in interpretation, for if we do not understand the context of the Scripture we are examining, our interpretations will be equally uninformed and ungrounded in reality.
Luckily, we are not without help in this as there are a vast number of resources available to the modern interpreter to help us overcome the time and distance between ourselves and the Bible. L.P Hartley's saying is still appropriate today, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." In essence, we should strive to come to the Bible as the anthology of ancient documents it is. Let us then press on in discipline and diligence so as to better interpret the Word of God!
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