Creation, covenant, and the beginnings of Judaism

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.