Early Hebrew and Christian Ideas of Time and Eternity

ABSTRACT

Justin Marston

The intention of this paper is to investigate the views of the Jews and early Christians regarding the nature of time and eternity, and the relationship of God to these. This paper follows a view reflected in the present author's recent paper for the Journal, that contemporary interpretation of the Hebrew bible can shed light on the views of the people of that time. In this paper the LXX, targum and Vulgate will again be considered, and in addition word study will be carried out on words such as olam and aionios.

Midrash and Dead Sea literature as well as pseudographia and apocrypha will also be considered, as well as other Jewish figures such as Philo. From a Christian perspective a variety of early church father will be examined eg Clement, Origen, Augustine and Boethius. From these sources a complex picture of attitudes, explicit and implied, towards the ideas of time and eternity, can be built up.

When interpreting the Bible we also need to take into account our doctrine of God. The God of the Bible is the God of both revelation and creation. We therefore cannot ignore truth from extra-biblical sources when interpreting the Bible. The God of the Bible is the God of the Incarnation. God spoke to people in their own context. The Bible comes to us as God's word expressed in the words of particular human authors, using particular human languages and forms of literature.