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Post by jimmie on Mar 9, 2020 15:25:43 GMT -8
Often I hear/read that the Eastern concept of time is circular while the Western concept of time is linear. My current thought on this is that this teaching is False, and is an attempt to prove that West/Church has move away from the East/Judaism. While the West/Church has move certainly moved away from the East/Judaism this concept is not a valid reason as to how the move has occurred. East and West have both circular and linear concepts of time.
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Post by alon on Mar 9, 2020 16:08:32 GMT -8
Often I hear/read that the Eastern concept of time is circular while the Western concept of time is linear. My current thought on this is that this teaching is False, and is an attempt to prove that West/Church has move away from the East/Judaism. While the West/Church has move certainly moved away from the East/Judaism this concept is not a valid reason as to how the move has occurred. East and West have both circular and linear concepts of time. I think the point is how we primarily look at time. In the West, we tend to always plot events in time on a linear graph. Yet we also often quote "There is nothing new under the sun." So we know things tend to repeat, and when they do we extend out timeline and plot the new occurrences. In ancient Hebrew thought, time was a combination of circular and linear; to wit, a spiral. Viewed this way not only do events reoccur, but prophecy can be viewed as for more than one time and place. It is part of what makes the word of the Most High relevant to everyone, everywhere and every-when.Some may (and do) use these concepts incorrectly to prove their points. And yes, the ancient Hebrews would have had the idea of yesterday, today and tomorrow, as well as things happening again and again. Without those ideas how could one understand a spurilar concept? The combining of the circular and linear concepts to get spirular was ingenuous. But who really came up with this idea? We need only look back to creation to see the idea illustrated:Genesis 1:5b (ESV) And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Who divides the day like that? Morning to morning, or midnight to midnight makes more sense to us. Wake up, do our thing, sleep, the start again the next day. Circular. Or if not that then the day changes over while we sleep. So day to day, linear. But evening to evening? Only HaShem would do that, and in that plan I can see the idea of time as a spiral taking shape. Shabbat starts after the daylight portion of the preparation day, and one week rolls into the next. And so it repeats through all the generations of man.Dan C
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