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God and Time: An Essay on the Bible’s Cyclical View of History

ABSTRACT On the basis of an anthropological reading of a number of representative biblical passages—Deuteronomy 26, Judges 3, Daniel 2, and Revelation 20-21—it is suggested that the evidence fits best the notion of cyclical, repetitive history. Within the biblical cycle, the phase of transition, the “liminal” or “threshold period” from the (shorter) bad, to the (longer) good and golden age carries special importance. Rivaling views of the biblical notion of time—biblical history as the linear “history of salvation” (Heilsgeschichte), and biblical existentialism with its emphasis on making a decision “now”—reflect either late-ancient or twentieth-century mentalities, rather than the archaic mentality of the Bible (and that of Hesiod’s Works and Days).