Creation, covenant, and the beginnings of Judaism
Subtitle: reconceiving historical time in the Second Temple period
By: by Ari Mermelstein
Series: Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism -- volume 168; Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism -- v. 168.
Publisher: Brill
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Leiden; Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 216
ISBN-13: 9789004281059; 9789004281653
Subjects: Origin; Bible; Judaism; Geschichtsschreibung; Frühjudentum; Criticism, interpretation; Literatur; Post-exilic period (Judaism); Time; Apocryphal books (Old Testament); History
Description: This study examines the relationship between time and history in Second Temple literature. Numerous sources from that period express a belief that Jewish history began with an act of covenant formation and proceeded in linear fashion until the exile, an event which severed the present from the past. The authors of Ben Sira, Jubilees, the Animal Apocalypse, and 4 Ezra responded to this theological challenge by claiming instead that Jewish history began at creation. Between creation and the inevitable redemption, history did not assume the shape of a line but of a circle. These authors restored continuity across history by reducing historical events to a series of static, repeating patterns that linked one period to the next in uninterrupted fashion until the end-time.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-208) and index.

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Table of contents: title: 1. The relationship between time and history in Second Temple literature; title: 2. Wisdom of Ben Sira: Jewish history as the unfolding of creation; title: 3 Wisdom of Ben Sira: timelessness in support of the Temple-State; title: 4. The Book of Jubilees: timeless dimensions of a covenantal relationship; title: 5. The animal Apocalypse: the timeless symbols of history; title: 6. Fourth Ezra: time and history as theological critique; title: 7. Synthesis and conclusions.