Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Hebrews 11:32-40, Sawn in two, dressed in skins
Time fails to tell of the judges, David, Samuel and the prophets, who conquered kingdoms and escaped the sword. Others were tortured and refused release to gain a better resurrection; they were mocked, flogged, chained, stoned, sawn in two, and wandered in skins and caves, people the world was not worthy of.
Hebrews 11:32-40, in every translation this tool compares.
Running out of room, the writer races through a list of judges, kings and prophets whose faith brought victories and rescues. He then turns to those whose faith brought no rescue at all, people who were tortured, imprisoned, killed and driven into the wilderness, too good for the world that rejected them. All of them were approved by God, yet none received the promise, because God meant them to reach completion together with the writer's own generation.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/martyrs\/","n":"Martyrs","s":"Jews remembered those who died rather than break God's law, above all the Maccabean martyrs tortured under Antiochus, and the prophets said to have been stoned or sawn in two. Their hope was the resurrection.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/prophets-rejected\/","n":"Prophets rejected and killed","s":"Israel's memory of prophets mocked, beaten and killed by their own people. By Jesus' day tradition had lengthened the list of martyred prophets.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/wilderness\/","n":"The wilderness","s":"The dry, empty country beyond the Jordan where John preached, Jesus was tested and a crowd was fed. It was hard ground, and it was where Israel's story with God began.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/roman-custody\/","n":"Prison, chains and Roman custody","s":"Roman prisons held people until trial or execution; they were not a punishment in themselves. How a prisoner was kept, in the stocks of an inner cell or lightly chained to one soldier, depended on his rank.","r":""}
Saying there is no time to tell while naming what one would tell was a standard rhetorical device (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes). The lions are Daniel's, the flames his three friends', and much of the language of 11:34 comes from 1 Maccabees, which Jews everywhere knew (Keener). Nearly all Jews knew the stories of the Maccabean martyrs, and the word for tortured comes from stretching on a wheel (the cultural backgrounds notes; Keener); Josephus says the faithful under Antiochus "were whipped with rods, and their bodies were torn to pieces, and were crucified, while they were still alive, and breathed" (Antiquities 12.5.4). Sawn in two fits a Jewish tradition about Isaiah, and some traditions had Jeremiah stoned (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes; the ESV Study Bible); Charles, introducing the Martyrdom of Isaiah, retells how Manasseh "caused Isaiah to be sawn asunder with a wood saw", and notes that Origen tied the story to this verse. Carson, Moo and Morris list 11:37 among the verses whose wording is hard to settle. Skins were prophets' clothing, and Elijah, David's band and the Maccabean fighters hid in caves (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Hebrews 11:32, 11:33, 11:34, 11:35-36, 11:37, 11:38 and 11:40
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Hebrews 11:32, 11:35, 11:36 and 11:37
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Hebrews 11:36, 11:37 and 11:38
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 12.5.4, trans. William Whiston
- R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2, The Martyrdom of Isaiah, Introduction, sections 1 and 2
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 17, Hebrews, Text
