All religions speak voluminously of God, a reality that, certainly in Judaism, is beyond direct human apprehension. The same can be said for doctrines of creation, or narratives that describe the founding events of that religion. That God descended upon a mountaintop and spoke to Moses and the children of Israel is classic myth. So is the doctrine that God revealed God's self in the person of Jesus of Nazareth in the first century of the Common Era, that this man was crucified for the sins of humankind, was resurrected on the third day, and will return to judge all humanity. To understand them as literal truths is to trivialize them.
Eschatology complements our thinking about creation.
They also provide the broad structure which Jews use to make sense of how everything came to be and how all things will eventually end. Creation and eschatology provide the frame which gives the portrait integrity. They are properly indispensable. This book has focused on only one of the many themes that compose Jewish eschatology, the one that deals with the ultimate destiny of the individual human being. We have seen that during its richest phase, in the Talmudic era, Judaism proffered two doctrines on this theme.