This reminded me of an old essay I had laying around on the difference between the “Greek” and “Hebrew” ways of thinking about time. I’ll post one section from it and I think you’ll see the relevance.
Time and History
“One result of this difference in the Greek and Hebrew concepts of space is a difference in their concepts of time. For Greeks, space is fundamental to time; in fact, in an Indo European model of what it means to be, time is traditionally modeled on space, namely, as a series of points that follow one another in a line. For Hebrews, however, time is fundamental, not space. In Indo-European languages, time is a straight line. We can stand on it gazing forward at the future, with the past behind us. These points and that gaze define the tenses of our verbs, as does our attitude toward time, summed up in Aristotle’s phrase, “time destroys”. In contrast, we might well sum the Hebrew attitude up in the phrase “time gives birth.”.
As part of their thinking about time, Indo-European (Greek) languages have three tenses describing the three relations possible to points on the timeline. In other words, these tenses reflect what we, standing in the present, can see: this moment, before this moment, and after this moment. On the other hand, Hebrew has essentially two tenses, corresponding to the completeness or incompleteness of the events that make up time, not to past, present, and future. Hebrew tenses refer to events: that which has been concluded and that which has not been concluded, or roughly the equivalent of the perfect and the imperfect tenses. Interestingly, when Hebrew does correlate seeing to time, it speaks of the past as before and the future behind.
The two tenses in Hebrew exist because, for Hebrew, the timeline is not paramount, nor can it be conceived as a circle, as is sometimes done to portray other non-Indo-European concepts of time. Instead, rhythm, ongoing related events rather than something seen, is the model for thinking about time. The rhythms of the seasons are one example, along with the rhythms of life and death and the rhythms of dance.
This difference between the Greek and Hebrew ways of thinking about time is illustrated by the different approaches to the New Year. For us it is the death of the old and the beginning of the new. However, for Hebrews it is the return of the beginning in a promise of what is coming. If we conceive time as a rhythm rather than a line, any one moment contains all previous moments and any coming moments, in much the same way that a rhythm consists of what has come before any point in the rhythm and what comes after it. We can conceive of spatial and, therefore, Indo-European temporal moments as discrete and independent. The existence of one particular moment of time can be considered apart from any other moment, just as any one point on a line can be separated from every other point on it. The moments of rhythm, however, are not discrete and remain part of the rhythm. They require (in fact, already include) the past and future in order to exist.
To illustrate, one beat of a drum is not part of a rhythm; a drum beat is part of a rhythm only in its relation to other beats. Moments in a rhythm are meaningful only in relation to what has come before and what will come after. Consequently, while for us space is what contains us, our lives, and everything about us, for Hebrews the “container” is time. For us, things and their qualities are metaphysically paramount; for Hebrews, events and their meanings are paramount.
When considering the past, this difference between Greek and Hebrew ways of thinking is telling. As latter-day Greeks, we think of the past as gone forever, and as we see in Augustine’s Confessions, the passing of time becomes a difficult problem for Western thinkers. The problem is especially acute for Christians, for if the past is gone once and for all, redemption and atonement are incomprehensible. The Greek Christian may think, “I have sinned. Nothing can change that, and any recompense, whether by me or by God himself, is a poor substitute for what should have happened in the first place.” In the Western mind, history is a series of nows that disappear forever, and, once gone, they cannot be changed or redone. The form of events is fixed forever by the passing of time.
In contrast, if we conceive time rhythmically, as the Hebrews do, then the past can change. The previous moment of the rhythm still occurred, but the past exists and has its meaning only in relation to the continuation of the rhythm, only in relation to the present and future of the rhythm. As I noted earlier, the relation of one drum beat to the previous and subsequent beats determine the rhythmic meaning of any beat of a drum. Thus a present beat determines the rhythmic meaning of a past beat as much as the beats that came before determine the rhythmic meaning of a present beat. In rhythm, causation runs backward as well as forward. Similarly, a rhythmic concept of time means that something that happens now can affect the being of something that occurred previously.
This difference between the Greek and Hebrew understanding of time may also explain the visual/aural difference between Greek and Hebrew thinking, or perhaps the visual/ aural difference explains the time one. Seeing occurs in space and immediately. Whatever I see, I see all at once, as a whole. Thus it is not surprising that Indo-European languages, which understand the world and its contents in terms of abstract space, understand time in terms of abstract points, the smallest unit of abstract space. It thus follows that this thinking understands what is ultimate as static. In contrast, hearing is essentially temporal. It is an event and is necessarily sequential. Consequently, Semitic languages, in which the continuing event is essential to time, understand space and things in terms of events rather than in visual terms. ”
Hebrew vs Greek Essay. I have to apologize upfront for the source. It’s actually from an appendix of an LDS/Mormon scripture study guide. The author is a Levinas scholar and professional philosopher. His main source is a book called Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek by Thorlief Bowman, but he’s also heavily drawing on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.
In it, he makes some pretty audacious claims about how ancient Greek people “thought” based off the structure of the Hebrew language that have since been called tenuous, unjustified leaps. I personally see the book and this essay as insight into the thinking of Emmanuel Levinas, one of my favorite existential phenomenological philosophers. So even if ancient Hebrews did not think this way, Emmanual Levinas did, and it may have insight into the phenomenology of the “ethical structure of subjectivity” as he described his philosophical project.
This reminded me of an old essay I had laying around on the difference between the “Greek” and “Hebrew” ways of thinking about time. I’ll post one section from it and I think you’ll see the relevance.
Time and History
“One result of this difference in the Greek and Hebrew concepts of space is a difference in their concepts of time. For Greeks, space is fundamental to time; in fact, in an Indo European model of what it means to be, time is traditionally modeled on space, namely, as a series of points that follow one another in a line. For Hebrews, however, time is fundamental, not space. In Indo-European languages, time is a straight line. We can stand on it gazing forward at the future, with the past behind us. These points and that gaze define the tenses of our verbs, as does our attitude toward time, summed up in Aristotle’s phrase, “time destroys”. In contrast, we might well sum the Hebrew attitude up in the phrase “time gives birth.”.
As part of their thinking about time, Indo-European (Greek) languages have three tenses describing the three relations possible to points on the timeline. In other words, these tenses reflect what we, standing in the present, can see: this moment, before this moment, and after this moment. On the other hand, Hebrew has essentially two tenses, corresponding to the completeness or incompleteness of the events that make up time, not to past, present, and future. Hebrew tenses refer to events: that which has been concluded and that which has not been concluded, or roughly the equivalent of the perfect and the imperfect tenses. Interestingly, when Hebrew does correlate seeing to time, it speaks of the past as before and the future behind.
The two tenses in Hebrew exist because, for Hebrew, the timeline is not paramount, nor can it be conceived as a circle, as is sometimes done to portray other non-Indo-European concepts of time. Instead, rhythm, ongoing related events rather than something seen, is the model for thinking about time. The rhythms of the seasons are one example, along with the rhythms of life and death and the rhythms of dance.
This difference between the Greek and Hebrew ways of thinking about time is illustrated by the different approaches to the New Year. For us it is the death of the old and the beginning of the new. However, for Hebrews it is the return of the beginning in a promise of what is coming. If we conceive time as a rhythm rather than a line, any one moment contains all previous moments and any coming moments, in much the same way that a rhythm consists of what has come before any point in the rhythm and what comes after it. We can conceive of spatial and, therefore, Indo-European temporal moments as discrete and independent. The existence of one particular moment of time can be considered apart from any other moment, just as any one point on a line can be separated from every other point on it. The moments of rhythm, however, are not discrete and remain part of the rhythm. They require (in fact, already include) the past and future in order to exist.
To illustrate, one beat of a drum is not part of a rhythm; a drum beat is part of a rhythm only in its relation to other beats. Moments in a rhythm are meaningful only in relation to what has come before and what will come after. Consequently, while for us space is what contains us, our lives, and everything about us, for Hebrews the “container” is time. For us, things and their qualities are metaphysically paramount; for Hebrews, events and their meanings are paramount.
When considering the past, this difference between Greek and Hebrew ways of thinking is telling. As latter-day Greeks, we think of the past as gone forever, and as we see in Augustine’s Confessions, the passing of time becomes a difficult problem for Western thinkers. The problem is especially acute for Christians, for if the past is gone once and for all, redemption and atonement are incomprehensible. The Greek Christian may think, “I have sinned. Nothing can change that, and any recompense, whether by me or by God himself, is a poor substitute for what should have happened in the first place.” In the Western mind, history is a series of nows that disappear forever, and, once gone, they cannot be changed or redone. The form of events is fixed forever by the passing of time.
In contrast, if we conceive time rhythmically, as the Hebrews do, then the past can change. The previous moment of the rhythm still occurred, but the past exists and has its meaning only in relation to the continuation of the rhythm, only in relation to the present and future of the rhythm. As I noted earlier, the relation of one drum beat to the previous and subsequent beats determine the rhythmic meaning of any beat of a drum. Thus a present beat determines the rhythmic meaning of a past beat as much as the beats that came before determine the rhythmic meaning of a present beat. In rhythm, causation runs backward as well as forward. Similarly, a rhythmic concept of time means that something that happens now can affect the being of something that occurred previously.
This difference between the Greek and Hebrew understanding of time may also explain the visual/aural difference between Greek and Hebrew thinking, or perhaps the visual/ aural difference explains the time one. Seeing occurs in space and immediately. Whatever I see, I see all at once, as a whole. Thus it is not surprising that Indo-European languages, which understand the world and its contents in terms of abstract space, understand time in terms of abstract points, the smallest unit of abstract space. It thus follows that this thinking understands what is ultimate as static. In contrast, hearing is essentially temporal. It is an event and is necessarily sequential. Consequently, Semitic languages, in which the continuing event is essential to time, understand space and things in terms of events rather than in visual terms. ”
Very interesting! I’d like to read the rest, too.
Hebrew vs Greek Essay. I have to apologize upfront for the source. It’s actually from an appendix of an LDS/Mormon scripture study guide. The author is a Levinas scholar and professional philosopher. His main source is a book called Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek by Thorlief Bowman, but he’s also heavily drawing on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.
https://www.amazon.com/Hebrew-Thought-Compared-Greek-Thorleif/dp/0393005348
In it, he makes some pretty audacious claims about how ancient Greek people “thought” based off the structure of the Hebrew language that have since been called tenuous, unjustified leaps. I personally see the book and this essay as insight into the thinking of Emmanuel Levinas, one of my favorite existential phenomenological philosophers. So even if ancient Hebrews did not think this way, Emmanual Levinas did, and it may have insight into the phenomenology of the “ethical structure of subjectivity” as he described his philosophical project.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbyk5pejqn4cph8/Faulconer%20Hebrew%20Greek.pdf?dl=0T
Thank you!
As would I.
I linked it above.
Thanks! This seems interesting.