All of the Words in the Book
This word cloud shows all of the words in The Bridge to the New Testament. The size of each word corresponds directly to how many occurrences there are of that word.
When I wrote the book, I thought the primary topics would be in relation to the Jews--the Jewish people, the Jewish Temple, the Jewish city (Jerusalem), the Jewish rulers (the Ptolemies, Seleucids, Maccabees, Hasmoneans, and Herodians). I was a little surprised to see the predominate word in the book was Roman. Of course, Roman, being an adjective, applied to many different things--Roman people, Roman Empire, Roman Republic, Roman rule, Roman conquests, Roman emperors, etc. And it certainly shows that the predominate influence on the entire region leading up to the New Testament was Rome.
Take a minute and see if you can find some of the other words of the inter-testament. Can you find Maccabee(s), Hasmonean(s), Seleucid(s), Judea, Temple, Cleopatra, Herod, or Caesar? What would you say are the second and third most populous words? Can you see that many of the Seleucid rulers were named Antiochus and that many of the Egyptian rulers were named Ptolemy?
