The Presence of the Past, The Pastness of the Present: History, Time, and Paradigm in Rabbinic Judaism

A paradigmatic conception of marking time differs so radically from our own that reading Scripture in the way in which, for nearly the whole of its reception, it has been read proves exceedingly difficult. Our conception of history forms a barrier between us and the understanding of time that defined the Judaic and the Christian encounter with ancient Israel. Judaism recast this corpus of historical thinking, substituting paradigm or pattern for narrative sequence, by redefining the received notion of time altogether. This transformation of ancient Israel's Scripture from history to paradigm defines the conception of history of Rabbinic Judaism calling into question the notion that Judaism possessed a conception of history at all.