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{en} Religious Development Between the Old and The New Testaments (1914) is a book by Robert Henry Charles.

Abstract

In this groundbreaking work, Charles draws upon pseudepigrapha, and a bit of the apocrypha, to argue that the two centuries prior to the advent of Christianity were not a ‘time of silence’ in regards to religious development, but rather one of the most progressive and formative periods in all of Israel’s history. Religious ideas do not emerge in a vacuum. Throughout the work, Charles highlights the wide gap between theological conceptions in the OT and the NT and then traces how several of these conceptions — such as a blessed future life for the individual, man’s forgiveness of his neighbor, and an earthly messianic figure possessing universal dominion in the kingdom of God — develop within the apocalyptic literature composed between those two testaments.

In Charles' view, Second Temple Judaism saw the parallel birth of two religious traditions--"legalistic pharisaism" was the "parent of Talmudic Judaism" while "apocalyptic pharisaism" was the "parent of Christianity." While perpetuating some of the stereotypes of his time in his derogatory view of "legalistic Judaism" vs. Christianity, Charles demonstrated how essential the knowledge of pseudepigraphal and apocryphal literature was for both the NT scholar and the scholar of Rabbinic Judaism. – Deborah Forger, University of Michigan

Editions

Published in London, England: Williams & Norgate, 1914. First American ed. in New York: Henry Holt and Co, 1914. First Canadian Ed. in Toronto: W. Briggs, 1914. Reprinted in London, England: Williams & Norgate, 1977.

Translations

• 舊新約間之宗敎 = Religious Development between the Old and the New Testaments (1926 Charles / Throop, Huang), book (Chinese ed.)

Contents

• Introduction
• I. Prophecy and Apocalyptic
• II. The Kingdom of God in Apocalyptic Literature
• III. The Messiah in Prophecy and Apocalyptic
• IV. The Rise and Development in Israel of the Doctrine of a Blessed Future Life
• V. Man’s Forgiveness of his Neighbour— A Study in Religious Development
• VI. Reinterpretation and Comprehension
• VII. The Literature— The Old Testament Apocrypha
• VII The Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament
• Index of Subjects

External Links

• Google Books