Transience, Transcendence, and Timelessness: Insights from Early Jewish Literature

Transience and death are central concerns for many people. Indeed, the fear of death and the attempts to counter it have underscored the worldview of human cultures and civilisations since time immemorial. However, in order to fear death, we must be human. Only humans seem to focus on their transient state because they are constantly aware of their impending deaths.As Robert Burton once suggested, perhaps the “fear of death is worse than death.”

Religion has had a highly influential impact on the human understanding of death. In this context, inter alia, biblical texts have expounded the notion that death is not to be feared because of a divine promise of a transcendent, paradisical and timeless existence beyond the grave. Anthropologists such as Bronisław Malinowski have gone as far as to suggest that religion only originated as a direct consequence of belief systems that were designed specifically to reduce and/or overcome this universal fear of death.

Accordingly, Transience, Transcendence and Timelessness: Insights into Early Jewish Literature proposes to explore the mortality of humans and their hope for future life from an ancient Jewish perspective.