The field of New Testament study is more extensive than the brief period of Christ’s ministry, death and resurrection. It must reach at least as far forward as the period during which the New Testament canon was stabilized (c. A.D. 140-200), and if one is to understand the political and religious situation into which Christ was born, it must reach backwards at least to 167 B.C., the beginning of the Maccabean wars. The span of this book therefore starts with Judaism tightly shut in upon itself and ends with Christianity separated off from Judaism and propagated far and wide throughout the Roman Empire.