Time, religion and history / William Gallois.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gallois, William, 1971-

Series:

History: concepts, theories and practice

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Time.

Time--Religious aspects.

Physical Description:

ix, 293 pages ; 24 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Harlow, England ; New York : Pearson Longman, 2007.

Summary:

Time. In the modern world we feel that our very being is dominated by it, from the smallest of decisions, such as when we eat lunch, to the great events of our lives. And yet we fail to question time, its significance and complexity. We fall back on the assumption that time is natural and unchanging; in short that it just 'is'. This blindness is especially marked in history; the very discipline which one would expects to offer conceptual and comparative studies of time. In this pioneering new study William Gallois answers those questions that will open our eyes to time. What is time? How does our sense of time lead us to approach the world? How did the peoples of the past view time?

The book offers the first detailed comparative historical study of the centrality of time in human cultures. In setting out the ways in which ideas of time developed in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and the Australian Dreamtime, Gallois explores the manner in which such conceptions led people both to live in ways very different to our contemporary world and to make very different kinds of 'histories'. The book goes on to argue that modern scientific descriptions of time, such as Einstein's as Christianity, than they do to our 'common-sense' notions of time which are centred on progress through a past, present and future. In making such connections, Gallois shows us the beauty of the time-cultures of the past and explains how our sense of time lies at the very heart of being human.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Introduction - The enigma of being-in-time 1

Epistemology 4

Religion and history: the enigma of being-in-time 7

Structure 10

Chapter 2 The varieties of time 13

On progress 27

Chapter 3 Theorizing time 32

Modernism 35

Ricoeur 40

Deeds Ermarth 45

Robert Young 47

Chapter 4 In the beginning...Jewish contestations of time 51

Reading the Bible 52

Reading the Old Testament 56

I Context 59

The Jews as a nation 59

Monotheism? 64

God and man 67

God and time 69

Questions of agency and omniscience 71

Time and nature 72

Job on time 77

III Cultures of time 82

Measuring and celebrating time 82

Life, death and the end 84

Ecclesiastes 87

IV Histories 92

Historical modes 92

Jewish linearity and Greek cycles 97

Chapter 5 The new times of Christianity 102

Reading the New Testament 103

Temporal grammar 106

Christianity and Jewish time 110

Moltmann and the Trinity 114

Ritual and time 116

Prophecy 118

Miracles and the resurrection 121

The end of time 126

History-writing in the Gospels 135

Paul's history 139

Metaphors and dreams 144

Chapter 6 On dreaming time 148

Anthropologizing Australians 150

The history people: classical Australian culture and time 153

Seeing time 159

Caterpillar dreaming 164

Chapter 7 The Islamic synthesis 168

Islam and time 170

Islamic history 180

Andalusi time: the conquest 183

Andalusi time: the Umayyads 185

Andalusi time: the Alhamhra 188

Andalusi time: 1492 191

Andalusi time: today 193

Chapter 8 Time and untime - Buddhism 197

Gotama's invocation to his priests 199

Meditation on time 199

Six early questions for the empirical historian 202

Buddhist historiography 202

The second jewel: the dharma 204

Karma 206

Nirvana 207

The Theravada 208

The Mahayana 209

Zen 211

An accidental Buddhist history 214

Selves and selflessness 214

The Buddhist dialectic 216

The dry-landscape garden of Ryogen-in 218

Conclusion: principles of Buddhist time 219

Chapter 9 Modern times 221

Reformation and enlightenment 222

After Islam's enlightenment 225

Disciples 228

God reviewed 231

The new science 237.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [261]-284) and index.

ISBN:

9780582784529

0582784522

OCLC:

137313195