Preface

PREFACE
IT is a reconstruction of the Manual of the History of New Testament Times which here appears under another title. I believe that this new title expresses more plainly and correctly than the old title the actual contents of the book. For in fact, whether in its former or present state, it does not profess to be more than a History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, to the exclusion of the state of the heathen world. I could not decide on admitting the latter, because the selection to be made must have been an arbitrary one.
The external framework of the book has undergone but little alteration in this new revision. Most of the paragraphs remain the same. The only additions are the section on the Priesthood and the Temple worship (§ 24), and the two paragraphs on the Palestino-Jewish and the Graeco-Jewish literature (§ 32 and 33), which replace the former section on the Apocalypse. Thus the number of paragraphs is only increased by two. Within this former framework, however, the book has certainly become almost a new one. Renewed consultation of authorities and continued occupation with the subject furnished so much fresh material, that a considerable increase of extent was unavoidable. The matter of this Second Division is threefold that of the first edition, although I have earnestly striven not to expand the form beyond the limits then observed. It is only in verbal citations from documentary authorities that I have allowed myself somewhat more liberty than in the former edition.
An apology is needed on my part for issuing the second half of the book before the first. This inversion of the natural order was not at first contemplated. I merely began operations on this second half because there was more to be done here than in the first, my purpose being to print both parts in one volume as before. The work, however, so grew under my hands as to render a division necessary. At the same time, the completion of the whole was consequently so delayed, that it seemed desirable to publish what was ready at once. This was the more possible because this half also forms a comparatively independent whole. While thus issuing this Second Division first, I can at the same time express the hope, that the First Division, which will not expand in the same proportion, may, with the needful index, follow it within the space of one year.
E. SCHÜRER
GIESSEN, Sept. 1885.