The Christian vision of linear time has shaped the West. It's counterfeits have wreaked havoc. When we lose Christian theology, but retain linear time, we open the door to utopianism.
Eitan Bar writes that Judaism does have a circular understanding of time as well: from a FB post on August 27
"the biblical Jewish mindset sees time unfolding in cycles, patterns, and seasons. It's more like a spiral than a straight road, with each turn or age building on the last toward eventual restoration.
This is evident in the rhythms of Shabbat, the annual feasts, and the prophetic tradition, where themes like judgment, exile, and redemption reappear generation after generation. These aren’t one-time events but recurring themes that shape the journey of both individuals and nations. In this framework, judgment is not the final word — it is a stage in a larger redemptive process. The "Jewish Hell," then, was never understood as eternal conscious torment, but as a temporary and corrective phase within a much larger cycle of return, renewal, and healing.
Ancient Jewish readers didn’t see time — or divine justice — as frozen in finality. Instead, they anticipated God’s mercy to eventually break through every cycle of darkness. This perspective challenges the idea of a never-ending hell and opens the door to a far more hopeful and restorative view of God’s justice."
Agree with the overall message here. Was wandering what you think of claims of zoroastrian influence on this development. Some scholars think this eschatological view became more clear cut after considerable time under Persian rule and wasn't made explicit before this time. At best it could be implied it was there but there seems to be a strong case that the Zoroastrian PoV helped to at least solidify and bring confidence to this point of view. 200 years is a longtime. From my PoV It had to have some impact and therefore deserves some credit. Maybe co-credit. Thoughts?
This is similar to Father Stanley Jakis writing on the cyclical civilizations versus Christian linearity (Science and Creation; Road of Science and the Ways to God). A much repeated motto of the eugenic evolutionists of fin de siecle was "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", asserting that evolution of species over time (note, not falsifiable by science) recapitulates the development of life from it's beginning in the womb. This might seem to foretell utopia unless one considers that organisms like humans actually *decay* over time, so that our civilizations progressive timeline seems shattered for a final stage of dementia.
Luckily, we have the "still point" (as ts Eliot would put it) of anno domini to underline that that the graph of mankind (in *this* world) peaked two thousand years ago.
Eitan Bar writes that Judaism does have a circular understanding of time as well: from a FB post on August 27
"the biblical Jewish mindset sees time unfolding in cycles, patterns, and seasons. It's more like a spiral than a straight road, with each turn or age building on the last toward eventual restoration.
This is evident in the rhythms of Shabbat, the annual feasts, and the prophetic tradition, where themes like judgment, exile, and redemption reappear generation after generation. These aren’t one-time events but recurring themes that shape the journey of both individuals and nations. In this framework, judgment is not the final word — it is a stage in a larger redemptive process. The "Jewish Hell," then, was never understood as eternal conscious torment, but as a temporary and corrective phase within a much larger cycle of return, renewal, and healing.
Ancient Jewish readers didn’t see time — or divine justice — as frozen in finality. Instead, they anticipated God’s mercy to eventually break through every cycle of darkness. This perspective challenges the idea of a never-ending hell and opens the door to a far more hopeful and restorative view of God’s justice."
Agree with the overall message here. Was wandering what you think of claims of zoroastrian influence on this development. Some scholars think this eschatological view became more clear cut after considerable time under Persian rule and wasn't made explicit before this time. At best it could be implied it was there but there seems to be a strong case that the Zoroastrian PoV helped to at least solidify and bring confidence to this point of view. 200 years is a longtime. From my PoV It had to have some impact and therefore deserves some credit. Maybe co-credit. Thoughts?
This is similar to Father Stanley Jakis writing on the cyclical civilizations versus Christian linearity (Science and Creation; Road of Science and the Ways to God). A much repeated motto of the eugenic evolutionists of fin de siecle was "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", asserting that evolution of species over time (note, not falsifiable by science) recapitulates the development of life from it's beginning in the womb. This might seem to foretell utopia unless one considers that organisms like humans actually *decay* over time, so that our civilizations progressive timeline seems shattered for a final stage of dementia.
Luckily, we have the "still point" (as ts Eliot would put it) of anno domini to underline that that the graph of mankind (in *this* world) peaked two thousand years ago.