Book contents
- The Christian Invention of Time
- Greek Culture in the Roman World
- The Christian Invention of Time
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations of Ancient Sources
- Introduction
- Part I
- Chapter 1 God’s Time
- Chapter 2 The Time of Death
- Chapter 3 Telling Time
- Chapter 4 Waiting
- Chapter 5 Time and Time Again
- Chapter 6 Making Time Visible
- Chapter 7 At the Same Time
- Chapter 8 Timelessness and the Now
- Chapter 9 Life-times
- Chapter 10 The Rape of Time
- Part II
- Coda
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Subject Index
Chapter 3 - Telling Time
from Part I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2022
- The Christian Invention of Time
- Greek Culture in the Roman World
- The Christian Invention of Time
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations of Ancient Sources
- Introduction
- Part I
- Chapter 1 God’s Time
- Chapter 2 The Time of Death
- Chapter 3 Telling Time
- Chapter 4 Waiting
- Chapter 5 Time and Time Again
- Chapter 6 Making Time Visible
- Chapter 7 At the Same Time
- Chapter 8 Timelessness and the Now
- Chapter 9 Life-times
- Chapter 10 The Rape of Time
- Part II
- Coda
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Subject Index
Summary
The messianic religions of late antiquity are obsessed with getting the time right, to know the right time – both at the level of daily, weekly, monthly or annual rituals, and at the level of world history. Where the prophet Cassandra can say for herself, ‘the day has come’, the Gospels will insist that everyone must be anxiously aware that ‘the hour is coming and is now here’. The desire to be certain about one’s place in time produces an extended, competitive and argumentative scholarly literature, which is never simply about the correct calibration of time. Rabbinical writing, first of all, is exemplary of these temporal obsessions.
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- Information
- The Christian Invention of TimeTemporality and the Literature of Late Antiquity, pp. 64 - 84Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022