The Historical Situation
Read SandayHastBD II. 604-609. On the Land, its physical characteristics, its political divisions, its climate, its roads, and its varying civilization, SmithHGHL is unsurpassed. Its identifications of disputed localities are cautions. Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, and Thomson, The Land and the Book, give fuller detail concerning particular localities, but no such general view as Smith.
On Political conditions, SchürerJPTX I. i. and ii. is the fullest and most trustworthy treatise. More concise essays are Oscar Holtzmann, Nt. Zeitgeschichte (1895), 57-118; S. Mathews, History of NT Times in Palestine (1899), 1-158; Riggs, Maccabean and Roman Periods of Jewish History (1900), especially §§ 206-234, 257-267, 276-282. On the Religious Life and Parties in Palestine, SchürerJPTX II. i. and ii.; O. Holtzmann, NtZeitg, 136-177; Mathews, NT Times, see index; Riggs, Mac. and Rom. Periods, §§ 235-256; Muirhead, The Times of Christ (1898), 69-150. In addition Wellhausen, Die Pharisdäer und die Sadducäer (1874); on the Essenes, Conybeare in HastBD I. 767-772, also Lightfoot, Colossians, 80-98, 347-419; Wellhausen, Isr. u. jüd. Geschichte3 (1897), 258-262; on the Samaritans, A. Cowley, in Expos. V. i. 161-174; Jew. Quar. Rev. VIII. (1896) 562-575.
On the Messianic hope, SchürerJPTX II. ii. 126-187; BaldSJ 3-122; Muirhead, Times of Xt., 112-150; Briggs, Messiah of the Gospels (1894), 1-40; WendtTJ I. 33-84; Mathews, NT Times, 159-169; Riggs, Mac. and Rom. Periods, §§ 251-256.
On the language of Palestine see Arnold Meyer, Jesu Muttersprache (1896); DalmanWJ I. 1-57; SchürerJPTX II. i. 8-10, 47-51; Neubauer, Studia Biblica, I. 39-74.
On Jewish literature dating near the times of Jesus see SchürerJPTX II. iii.; BaldSJ. 3-122; EdersLJM I. 31-39; Deane, Pseudepigrapha (1891); Thomson, Books which influenced our Lord, etc. (1891); and special editions, such as Alexandre, Sibylline Oracles (1869); Deane, The Wisdom of Solomon (1881); Charles, The Book of Enoch (1893), The Apocalypse of Baruch (1896), The Assumption of Moses (1897), and The Book of Jubilees (1895); Charles and Morfill, The Secrets of Enoch (1896); Ryle and James, The Psalms of the Pharisees [Psalms of Solomon] (1891); Bensly and James, Fourth Esdras (1895); Charles, EnBib I. 213-250; HastBD I. 109f.; Porter, HastBD I. 110-123; James, EnBib I. 249-261.