Jewish Invention Myths: Linear Time

One of the weirder topics that keeps rearing its ugly head in the discussion of so-called ‘jewish invention’ is that of time and of time keeping. We’ve already seen that despite their loud claims to the contrary jews did not invent the seven day week, (1) the weekend, (2) and the leap year. (3)

Now I’ve discovered another ‘jewish invention’ claim this time from JINFO – on whose deliberate and systematic misrepresentation of the ‘jewish contribution to civilization’ in order to promote the idea of jewish supremacism I have commented on before – (4) who claim that ‘linear time’ is a ‘jewish invention’.

To wit:

‘The concept of linear (vs. cyclical) time, from which follows the possibilities of freedom, progress, and hope’ (5)

Now this is a weird claim to say the least because JINFO acts like this some kind of hugely important thing when it is in fact not and nor did the jews invent the concept.

First let’s get something out of the way in that the Greeks were not fans of the concept of linear time in a philosophic sense as they tended to argue that time was inherently cyclic or on some kind of continuum without a defined end (6) or more properly in my view: to the Greeks there was no true ‘end of time’.

This is actually quite correct since as it turns out modern physics has long rejected the linear concept of time in the concept of time having a definite known beginning and/or end, but rather time is simply a dimension of the universe in the same way that mass is.

As Ulla Sarmiento has explained:

‘Linear time means moving from the past into the future in a straight line, like dominoes knocking over dominoes. There is a sequence that moves in one direction. Humans think we can’t change the past or visit it, because we live according to linear time.

He said nonlinear time works like this: “Imagine if you could slow down time. Or time travel to the past. Or position yourself above the line and view the past, present, and future simultaneously.”

He explained:

It isn’t just one line, but a whole web of lines, all interconnected and branching with different pasts leading to different presents and different futures.

You can choose which alternate present to enter into. The future and past are not different than the left and right end of a table, which exist simultaneously. But whichever end you look at is the end you see.’ (7)

However, Europeans had certainly developed an ‘end of time’ concept within linear time, but within the more advanced understanding of cyclical time; so for example JINFO’s logic is that linear time is not the same as cyclical time, which is correct but it is also dishonest in that doesn’t stipulate that these concepts of cyclical time used by Europeans were in fact chunks of linear time within historical cycles of time.

What do I mean by this?

Well, let’s go back to Hesiod since in his ‘Works and Days’ he outlines there have been five ages of man – the Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron Ages – each with a defined beginning and each – except the current age (the Iron Age) – has had a defined end, but then after each defined ‘end of time’ a new age dawns having swept away the dying embers of the old and embraced the new situation and conditions.

The Norse mythic concept of Ragnarök is very similar to Hesiod’s conception of stretches of linear time within a cyclical system, which is why it is widely believed that this concept of cyclical time combined with a definite beginning and end for each age/epoch is an ancient European one dating all the way back to the Proto-Indo-European people/homeland in the fourth to the seventh millennium B.C. (8)

We thus see that the idea of linear time is far, far more ancient than anything in Judaism, but it is also worth noting that what JINFO is trying to do with this description is covertly smuggle in the idea that the idea of an ‘end of time’ apocalypse is a ‘jewish invention’ when it most clearly not, because this in itself is a later Christian idea not a jewish one and that Christian idea comes from the ‘Book of Revelation’ (or ‘Book of the Apocalypse’) which is usually dated to the end of the first century A.D. and to have been written by a Greek man who we call ‘John of Patmos’ after the Greek island off of the coast of Anatolia on which he is believed to have written it.

Now in Second Temple Judaism the concept of the Apocalypse was bound up with the victorious return of the Messiah and the (secular) rule of the jews over non-jews with Jerusalem as their capital – hence why they were so frequently upset with Jesus in the Gospel narratives – as Spencer Shaw explains as ‘Thinking Theologically’ when – in talking about these ‘apocalyptic’ narratives in Second Temple Judaism – he points out that:

‘6. The writers believed that they were living in the end times or that the end times were imminent. However, before the end comes, the righteous will face great tribulation. When the end comes, it will be a return to the pristine conditions which characterized the Garden of Eden.

7. Apocalyptic literature does not always agree about the agent of God’s deliverance in the end times. Sometimes it is God, other times it is an angel, and sometimes it is a messianic figure such as a Davidic king or the “son of man.” Whoever is believed to be the agent of God’s deliverance, the literature always looks forward to God’s intervention in world affairs to punish the wicked and reward the righteous.

8. The characteristics of the end are also not always agreed upon within apocalyptic literature. Some books look forward to a restoration of the Davidic kingdom, while others await a complete transformation of the cosmos into something like the “new heavens and new earth” of Isaiah (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22).’ (9)

As well as that:

‘One of the hallmarks of apocalypticism is the belief that people are living in the end times and that God will soon act in the world to punish the wicked and reward the righteous. Such a focus carried great significance for Jews living during the times leading up to the Maccabean revolt in 167 B.C.E. This was a dark time in Jewish history, thus creating within the Jewish people a need for hope that God was about to act to rid them of their evil oppressors.’ (10)

Shaw’s point here is that the jewish understanding of the apocalyptic is actually very similar to that of Hesiod and their concept of time was linear but also cyclical in a sense – since the apocalypse isn’t a true ‘end of time’ in the sense JINFO tries to imply but rather an ‘end of the age’ – while the true ‘beginning to end of times’ narrative comes not from Judaism but rather from the peculiar eschatology of Christianity with its belief in one Returned Messiah who will then cause time and space to truly end not just continue on in different form.

I would also add that the ideas of ‘freedom, progress and hope’ don’t spring from an understanding of linear time at all, but are rather independent of it: hence the Greek myth of Pandora - which is about the importance of hope - as well as the debate over the concept of freedom (Greek: ‘Eleutheria’ as well as to an extent ‘Parrhesia’) between Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as well as over the concept of progress itself! (11)

We can see here at JINFO is being typically dishonest in claiming these concepts flow from linear time when they were originally debated and understood by people (the Greeks) who preferred to view time as cyclic.

Thus we can see that linear time is not a jewish invention at all but rather a later Greek Christian one and that the jewish understanding of time – given that pretty much all jewish ideas on time, dating and the calendar originally come from the Babylonians/Assyrians – is not in fact original at all, but rather is simply an outgrowth of the first known concept of this kind from the Proto-Indo-Europeans thousands of years before!

References

(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-the-seven

(2) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-the-weekend

(3) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-the-leap-year

(4) See my comments in my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/why-jewish-achievement-lists-are and have documented in practice in the following article for example: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-the-fields-medal

(5) https://www.jinfo.org/

(6) https://bigthink.com/thinking/a-brief-history-of-linear-time/

(7) https://bigpicturequestions.com/what-is-linear-time-vs-nonlinear-time/

(8) J. P. Mallory, Douglas Adams, 1997, ‘Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture’, 1st Edition, Fitzroy Dearborn: London, pp. 182–183

(9) https://thinkingtheologically.org/2022/08/31/apocalypticism-in-second-temple-judaism-and-the-ministry-of-jesus/

(10) Ibid.

(11) See for example: Eric Robertson Dodds, 1973, ‘The Ancient Concept of Progress and Other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief’’, 1st Edition, Clarendon Press: Oxford, pp. 1-25