🔇  What Happened in the 400 Years Before Yeshua?

(From ~400 BC to 1 AD)

🛑 No New Hebrew Prophets
After the prophet Malachi (~400 BC), no more direct messages from YHWH (God) were recorded.

📜The voice of YHWH went silent. The people were left with what had already been given:
The Torah (Law), Nevi’im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings).

🛡️ The Hebrew Scriptures Were Protected — Not Added To
The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) was complete by this time.

✨The faithful scribes (Soferim) worked hard to preserve and copy the sacred scrolls.
No new books were added.
Everything sacred was still written in Hebrew or Aramaic — never Greek.

🏛️ What Else Happened in History?
Persian Rule (to ~330 BC)
The Jews lived under the Persian Empire, with some freedom to practice their faith.

Greek Rule (330–160s BC)
Alexander the Great conquered the region. Greek culture and language (Hellenism) began spreading fast.

Some Jews began mixing with Greek ideas — this is where false doctrines started to creep in.

Greek writings and stories appeared — but were not part of the Hebrew Bible.

Maccabean Revolt (~167–160 BC)
When Greek rulers defiled the Temple, Hebrew fighters (the Maccabees) rose up.

They won back the Temple and rededicated it — this is the origin of Hanukkah.

Stories about these events were written later — like 1 & 2 Maccabees — but they were never accepted as Scripture by the Hebrew community.

Roman Rule (63 BC onward)
Rome took over, and by the time Yeshua was born, Herod the Great ruled over Judea as a puppet king for Rome.

⚠️ What Was Being Written During This Time?
Greek-influenced books like:

Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, 1 & 2 Maccabees, etc.

These were often written in Greek, not Hebrew.

The Hebrew people never accepted them as Scripture.

These books were added later by the Roman Church, not the Hebrew people of God.