Aspects of Time in Jewish and Christian Exegesis

This collection of articles investigates notions of time in ancient Jewish and Christian Bible interpretation, a genre which is not intrinsically connected with the calculation of time, but enters the debates about time as part of a broader negotiation of religious boundaries. An international team of researchers uncovers the dynamics of competing notions of time and the cultural embeddedness of each.

The following debates about diverging notions of time are discussed as test cases of constructing religious and exegetical boundaries: eternity of time as wholly other, conceived by Plato and reinterpreted by the Jewish exegete Philo; day one of the creation between ideal and measurable time, interpreted differently by Philo and Philoponus, a Christian exegete; cyclical time in the world conflagration as debated among pagan philosophers, Hellenistic and rabbinic Jews as well as Christian exegetes; the contrast between God’s timelessness and human embeddedness in measurable time as seen by Platonic and Christian authors; and finally, the conflict between messianic and historical time, which prompted lively encounters not only between Jews and Christians, but also among the various members of each group.