Chapter 3: Time and Space
Section B: The Israelite Conception of Time
Part 1: The Time of Heavenly Luminaries
Subpart c: Time-rhythms rather than Time-cycles or Time-lines
We can be sure that humans and even animals sense the rhythms of time; it’s the one thing wired in to the natural world — heartbeats, respiration, mealtimes, sleep and wake times, etc., right on up to the length of our lives.
Boman doesn’t quite say it like this, but for the Hebrew it’s not an image of circles and lines, but more like a restricted view portal of reality, that what came before and what comes after is not certain. Western minds imagine vast circles and are convinced that it’s all stable and reliable in itself. The span of time is so huge that we need not worry that the circles will be broken or even bent (thus, the “normalcy bias”).
Our science confidently asserts that the world is billions of years old. The physical reality appears to have matured by slow processes for countless ages, running by knowable laws of matter. For the Hebrew, God can and does change reality on a whim. Thus, reality is a dubious thing. For them, there was no proof that reality didn’t just pop into place sometime in the past, and burst on the scene already in a mature condition. And there was a very potent sense that it would all end without warning for no other reason than God is through with it.
But what Boman does say in a couple of pages is pretty much the same thing. Instead of circles that continue on their natural course to its end, Hebrews see that God has decided to bring around a fresh start. Thus, a cycle is start to start, not end to end.
Subpart d: Duration and Instant
These cycles of time flow into larger cycles, all centered on the lunar rhythm and the lunar year. It’s not mathematically precise; it’s experientially consistent. It’s centered on the 7-day cycle of Creation, and a lunar month is four of them. Their reckoning was adjusted now and then to make up for the lack of precision.
Boman is all over the place explaining that for the Hebrew, the smallest segment of time is not a moment, not a point on the line or circle. Rather, it’s regarded as a beat in the rhythm — a heartbeat, the twitch of an eyelid, etc. It’s something you feel, not something you observe from the outside. There is also a broad recognition of things that are sudden, unnoticed until it’s upon you. The eyes open wide and the jaw drops; that’s about as fast as anything a Hebrew might recognize.
