One more item before we dive into the list of key passages for the study of eschatology: Hebrew cultural expressions.
For example, it’s an old established principle that Hebrew literature is all about the drama. They didn’t consider hyperbole as deceptive. Everyone in the audience recognized the hyperbole for what it was and no one was deceived. It’s just how they talked.
Thus, at times you’ll read statements about “all” in places where we would waffle saying “most”. Even in English, we might say “everyone knows” something, when it’s more precisely a simple matter of common knowledge. For us, the facts are the thing. For the Hebrews, it was a matter of the moral theme. Where are your commitments? Where does your faith reside?
A major element that completely befuddles most Americans is the frequent Hebrew casual neglect of chronological order. Proper formal Hebrew narrative is often quite nonconsecutive in relating events. The moral import is given far greater weight.
We know that Genesis 1 in is not in chronological order, but is in moral logical order. Notice that light comes before the luminaries that give light. It’s more important to establish the fundamental pattern of seven days than to give you a literal “First Week” in time and space. It’s about “light” as moral truth, the distinction between good and evil, not a materialistic question of source and product.
John’s Gospel is not in chronological order; some portions of Matthew isn’t either — to include Jesus’ message in chapters 24-25. The Book of Revelation is a pattern, not a chronology. We are pretty sure the Book of Judges is not in proper consecutive order, and it’s a whole lot easier to read Daniel 9 if you aren’t expecting it to be a consecutive sequence of events. Why do you suppose Mark makes it a point to state that this or that event follows another so his Roman readers can make sense of it? Romans had very low appreciation for Hebrew neglect of chronology.
Please note that this is particularly true of anything where God is speaking. There are times when He caters to a human sense of chronology and it shows. But most of the time, He’s demanding that we rise to a less childish level and grasp how He views things. It’s not that He has no sense of time and chronology, but it doesn’t affect Him. He intrudes into history wherever and whenever it suits Him; it’s all one thing to Him.
I’ve said this before: The Hebrew sense of time is more about fruit coming ripe than following a schedule. Their smallest increment of time was the hour, and it was quite often used in a non-literal sense in the first place. And the term “forty days (and nights)”? It was more often not literal than literal. It was meant to convey “a little over a month”. Numerical precision was seldom of any significance in a Hebrew mind.
While we cannot internalize an eternal perspective, we can grasp something of the nature of it. Our instinct for sequential chronology is going to blind us to what God says. Any word of prophecy is far more concerned with how you react than what you might know. The whole point is to move your soul to a better place where divine covering is stronger and your witness to divine justice is much more clear.
When you study eschatology, bring with you a understanding of the Hebrew lack of interest in factual precision, and far greater interest in moral precision.
