he had lost at the beginning. As to his family, he came to have seven sons and three beautiful daughters even in the old age of himself and that of his aged wife.—Job 42:10-15.

²⁵ Surely Jehovah proved to be the true God who can choose reliable witnesses to champion his Sovereign Godship on earth. Job was thus the vindicated champion of his day. Does this drama have prophetic fulfillment or application of interest for men of true wisdom in later times? Evidences in the affirmative will be presented in the succeeding articles.

Jesus, the “Object of Hostility,” Upholds Jehovah’s Godship

“Consider closely the one who has endured such contrary talk by sinners against their own interests.”—Heb. 12:3.

1. Why can Jesus be described in a preliminary way as the Greater Job?

THE name Job means “object of hostility.”a How accurately Job in his experiences of testing proved to be an object of hostility received from Satan and from his Babylonized religious companions! Now all this affair comes out to be a detailed prophetic drama with a preliminary fulfillment centering around the Greater Job, Jesus Christ. But before one can examine the many instructive evidences of this, it becomes necessary to make a brief historic survey of religious conditions that generated in Palestine and in the neighboring pagan world during the five centuries that preceded Jesus’ day. In all those five hundred years Satan was producing subtle religious forces and confusing doctrines that would put the promised “seed” to the severest test whenever he would make his appearance on the earth. (Gen. 3:15) As shall be seen, the perfect man Jesus was more than ready and able to be the Greater Job or “object of hostility.” So that the issue of Jehovah’s Sovereign Godship might be rightly vindicated, Jesus endured hostile contrary talk by sinners.—Heb. 12:3.

RELIGIOUS STAGE BEING SET FOR JESUS

2, 3. (a) How did there become two Jewish centers—one in Palestine and one in Babylon? (b) In what way was the Jewish religion spread abroad, and around what was it centered?

² From Biblical and secular history it is evident that only a minority of the Jews exiled in Babylon between 607 and 537 B.C.E. returned to Jerusalem in and after 537 B.C.E. to share in restoring true worship there and to rebuild the temple under Zerubbabel’s leadership. (Ezra 2:1, 2) Some years later Nehemiah aided by rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem (Neh. 7:1), and Ezra shared by staffing the restored temple with priests for full daily services. (Ezra 7:1-7) Ezra also led in the great work of making available for circulation many reliable copies of the sacred Hebrew Scriptures. The majority of the exiled Jews, however, chose to remain in Babylonia, where they were well fixed materially though dispersed in many communities of the country.b Those Jews remaining in Babylon perpetuated a form of the true religion of Abraham, Moses and the Prophets that might be termed “Hebraism.”

³ Onward from the fifth century B.C.E. many Jews from Babylonia and Palestine became businessmen involved in trading and commerce. With their families and relatives they settled in compact sections of large Gentile cities throughout Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, eventually all around the Mediterranean. This meant that Jewish quarters developed then, as today, in almost every part of the civilized world. These Jews brought with them their Hebraic religion, the habit of meeting for prayer and study without temple ritual or sacrifices. A plain assembly hall was the center of their religious life. At first this center was known as the Beth ha-Keneset (house of prayer) or the Beth ha-Midrash (house of study).c Later, due to Greek influence, such buildings came to be called by the Greek word synagogues.d

4. How extensive a Jewish world stage was being set for Jesus’ ministry?

⁴ In this way the Jews were taking their religion by “export” into the expanding Gentile world. In time these Jewish “colonies” outside Palestine vastly outnumbered in population the homeland Jews and became known as the Jews of the dispersion (diaspora), that is, the Jews “scattered about.” (Jas. 1:1) For centuries, the Jews were outstanding in conducting what amounted to a great missionary movement taking their religion to the Gentiles. “The synagogues attracted hundreds of thousands of converts,” writes Josephus, to make proselytes of them.e (Matt. 23:15) Once in three years pilgrimages were made by the Jewish and proselyte males to Jerusalem to attend the festivals.f Josephus reports that no less than 2,700,000 males gathered there for a passover.g Of this the Grecianized Jew, Philo, writes by calling Jerusalem the capital “not of one nation but of all nations.”h For these reasons we can appreciate the extent of the world stage that was being set for Jesus to serve as an “object of hostility.”

FLESHLY INFLUENCES OF HELLENISM

5, 6. (a) What was Hellenism? (b) How was it “exported” to Palestine? (c) To what fleshly influences were the Jews subjected, and was their religion affected?

⁵ Next, let us examine how all this pre-Christian religion of the Jews became contaminated by Oriental, Babylonish religious thinking, this being effected either directly through the Babylonish captivity of the Jews or more subtly through the Orientalized Greeks. The Greeks were anciently referred to as Hellenes, so their culture and way of religious life became called Hellenism. The many ancient Greek philosophers in fact were “prophets” of Hellenism, and their differing schools of thought amounted to various sects of pagan Hellenism. Hellenism in its many sects featured things of a pagan appeal to the “desire of the flesh” (1 John 2:16), such as art, music, the dance, physical culture, games, sensual ways of living, search for happiness in the flesh, materialism, immortality of the human soul and the worship of a pantheon or multitude of gods. When the Grecianized Alexander the Great conquered the then-ancient world, “instead of uprooting the population of the subject countries as Eastern conquerors had done, the Greeks took their own country to them.”i So, like the Jews, the Greeks exported their Hellenistic culture throughout the nations. For example, under this policy of Alexander and his successors a chain of ten Greek cities known as the Decapolis (ten cities) was built right in the midst of Judea. (Matt. 4:25; Mark 5:20; 7:31) This was done to break down Jewish solidarity. It brought about an atmosphere or worldly spirit that was temptingly charged with subtle Hellenistic influences. (1 Cor. 2:12) To the Jewish youths these cities were a showplace that featured athletic games, an appeal to the aesthetic senses, elegance, refinement and beauty of form.j So Greek manners, Greek words, Greek ideas were flooded into Palestine.

⁶ But all these Hellenistic forms of culture and religion had already become mingled with Oriental or Babylonish ways when Alexander had overrun all the Persian Empire.k “When [Hellenism] was mingled with Oriental ideas, it degenerated into an altogether bastard growth of sensuality and rationalism.”l Of both the Jews in Palestine and those in the dispersion it is observed that “gradually but surely the Jews began to assimilate the religious ideas of the people about them, and to look on the Scriptures under the influence of those ideas.”a So this meant that the earlier Hebraism now became further apostatized as the religion of Judaism with all its growing accretions of traditions and non-Biblical regulations. (Gal. 1:13; Mark 7:13) Next, let us evaluate the evidences showing that Judaism became Babylonized, then divided into sects by the time of Jesus.

JEWS ACCEPT BABYLONISH THINKING

7. By what term did the Babylonians come to refer to their god?

⁷ First note that in the matter of godship in Babylon, Marduk (Merodach) is referred to as “the senior of the gods, the most ancient,” the chief god of Babylon. (Jer. 50:2)b Marduk’s ancient background stems back to Nimrod. “Nimrod . . . the most admissible correspondence is with Marduk, chief god of Babylon, probably its historic founder, just as Asshur, the god of Assyria, appears . . . as the founder of the Assyr[ian] empire.”c Long before Isaiah’s time of the eighth century B.C.E. (Isa. 46:1), the custom had developed in Babylon of calling their great pagan god Marduk (Merodach) merely by the general title “Lord” or Baal as had the ancient pagan Canaanites. (Judg. 2:11-13) “Marduk . . . is the city-god of Babylon where his temple was called E-sagila . . . His proper name in the later periods was gradually displaced by the appellative Belu ‘lord,’ so that finally he was commonly spoken of as [by the title] Bel.”d—Jer. 51:44.

8. Were the Jews influenced by the above Babylonian practice of calling their god by a title?

⁸ It is a well-known fact that the Jews followed a similar custom after their Babylonian captivity by no longer referring to their God Jehovah by his proper personal name but by merely calling him by the title “Lord” (Adonai) exclusively. Actually, the Jewish sopherim in the Babylonized centuries before Jesus made 134 changes in the Hebrew Sacred text from Jehovah (יהוה) to Lord (אדני) to further this apostate or sibboleth custom.e Thus it is seen how slyly the Jews under Judaism were induced by Satan to hide the very name of their true God by following this sibboleth of a Babylonian practice to refer to one’s God merely by title. The warm, personal relationship was now being lost by no longer calling him Jehovah but substituting therefor an abstract title, Lord.

9, 10. (a) In what reverent way is it observed that the true worshipers of Jehovah used the term Lord when referring to Him? (b) What is noticed in the way Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged Jehovah’s Sovereign Godship?

⁹ From the days of Abraham to the Prophets whenever the ancient true worshipers of Jehovah referred to him as Lord (Adonai) they used in context the divine name itself.f Where they used Lord (Adonai or Adon) alone without “Jehovah” it was either in connection with his supremacy over other so-called pagan lords or gods (Deut. 10:17; Josh. 3:11, 13), or he alone is referred to as ha-adon, the true Lord.g Isaiah expressed the shibboleth or correct way: “O Jehovah our God, other masters [adoním] besides you have acted as owners of us [baalúnu]. By you only shall we make mention of your name.”—Isa. 26:13.

¹⁰ Additionally, it is apparent that the Babylonians, as did other pagans, never referred to their chief god by the exclusive expression meaning “the true god,” as did the genuine Hebrew worshipers of Jehovah by saying ha-elohim. When Nebuchadnezzar was forced to recognize the Godship of Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, as the true God, he never used the Hebrew expression ha-elohim but merely used the Aramaic expression elaha (determinative), god.—Dan. 3:28, 29.

11. Give further evidences of the Jews accepting Babylonish religious thinking.

¹¹ The Babylonian “notion of trinities of divine powers” came to the Jews through Egyptian influence.h Beliefs “in the immortality of the soul” came into Judaism from Babylon and Greece. “In the second century [B.C.E.] the Palestinian as well as the Alexandrian Jews accepted the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.”i This further led to the belief by the second century in “resurrection of the body” that, as they believed, enabled the soul to continue to reside immortally.j For example, the Apocryphal book called Wisdom of Solomon, written by a Jew before Jesus’ day, advances the teaching of the Greek philosopher Plato as to the separation of soul and body. (1:4; 9:15) It presents the Greek view of predestination where the pre-existing soul is said to enter the body. (8:19, 20) Future life does not come through the Messiah but through wisdom. (8:13) It teaches that man was created for incorruption and immortality. (2:23; 6:19; 12:1) The Greek thinking is presented that Hades is a place where unrighteous souls suffer (1:14; 2:1), and that the wise thing for man is to live a life of pleasure now.—2:7-9.

JEWISH SECTARIAN PRESSURE GROUPS

12-14. One at a time, describe three of the Jewish pressure groups.

¹² Judaism began to divide into several sects according to the accepting or rejecting of the various shady beliefs from the pagan world. These sects came to serve as pressure groups not only religiously but also politically. In this period the sect of the Sadducees developed. The Sadducees “included a large part of the priestly caste, and they inherited the outlook of the former Hellenists . . . They were essentially materialists; they did not share the Messianic hope of the people, and put their trust in reason; their self-reliance, their rigidity in enforcing the letter of the rabbinical law, and their denial of the resurrection reflect the spirit of the Stoic [a Greek school of philosophy].”k

¹³ The sect of the Essenes shared with the Hellenistic Puritans who followed Pythagoras in believing “not only the dualistic doctrine of body and soul, but the striving for bodily purity, the practice of ablutions, the rejection of blood offerings, the encouragement of celibacy [becoming in effect eunuchs].”l

¹⁴ The scribes formed what amounted to a sect or party. Early they were associated with the Hasidim (the pious ones). They were strict advocates of the Law of Moses, being its lawyers. They were largely antagonistic to the Greek language and Greek ideas.a

15-17. Give some interesting points as to three more of the Jewish pressure groups.

¹⁵ Still another sect, that of the Pharisees, came into existence during these pre-Christian times and were known among themselves as habherim, meaning “neighbors.” Their claiming to be neighbors “added to the power [the Pharisees] had through their influence with the people.”b Incidentally, when Jesus spoke to the Pharisees on one occasion, this adds point to his illustration about the “good Samaritan,” where he asked: “Who of these three seems to you to have made himself neighbor to the man that fell among the robbers?” (Luke 10:25-37) The Pharisees were strict observers of the many Jewish traditions that had been added to the law of Moses. They believed in angels and spirits and held to a “resurrection of the body.”c (Acts 23:6-8) That human souls are immortal and that the wicked suffer in a hades were also taught by them. Josephus testifies to this: “[The Pharisees] think that every soul is immortal; only the souls of good men will pass into another body, but the souls of the evil shall suffer everlasting punishment.”d

¹⁶ A further pressure group came to be called Herodians or the party followers of Herod. (Matt. 22:16) They were a party of nationalists who supported the political aims of the Herods in their rule under the Romans.e

¹⁷ A final pressure group came to be the Sanhedrin Court itself that acted as a whole. Its members were made up of the priests and leaders from these other sects and parties. Such is the complete lineup of the sectarian pressure groups that had formed by the time Jesus conducted his ministry.

THE GREATER JOB ON STAGE

18, 19. Present more striking similarities between Jesus and ancient Job.

¹⁸ A grander scale of fulfillment of the Job drama opened in Jesus’ day. Jesus himself became that Greater Job, the chief “object of hostility” as the name Job indicates. It is amazing the details that developed in Jesus’ earthly ministry that came to be in direct fulfillment, as in Job’s case, although not always in the same order. Furthermore, Jesus, being a perfect man with full knowledge, was in an advanced position to deal with the mounting pressures brought against him by the permitted hand of Satan and his Babylonized pressure groups. It is profitable to examine the striking evidences where Jesus masterfully upholds the Sovereign Godship of his Father, Jehovah.

¹⁹ When Jesus was anointed as King-designate by God’s spirit at the Jordan River in 29 C.E., he, in effect, held ownership to the entire earth with all its wealth and animals. Truly, Jesus Christ was legally far richer than ancient Job ever was. Jesus as a perfect man could have had perfect children even though he might have married an imperfect wife. Why? Because perfection is determined by the father and