One of the biggest differences between the Eastern thought of Hinduism and Buddhism and the Western thought of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is the concept of time. Monotheistic religions tend to view time as linear, with a beginning and end, and often have difficulty imagining another way of thinking . It just seems obvious that everything started at some tim in the past and will end some time in the future. How else but as a straight line could time be imagined? Even our vocabulary assures us that "time marches on" as we conceive our "timelines."
In religions arising out of Eastern thought, however, time is circular or cyclical, repeating itself endlessly. A good exercise to free oneself from Western thinking is simply to ask, "if time and space began with the Big Bang, what happened before that?" Or : "If space is expanding, what is it expanding into?" (These quotations both begin with an assumption of linear time but move the mind into a different dimension of thinking. The scientists answer to both questions, but the way, is "nothing") It is difficult to imagine, but for most of humankind's existence linear thinking was not even an option.
One theory currently afloat suggests that God may not be a human invention, but time is. Because we are born, grow old, and die, we think in terms of the passing of time. But those who study such things say that time may be simply a human way of measuring minuscule sections of eternity. Eternity, by the way, has nothing to do with time. Eternity is not, after all, a long, long time. It's is forever. What all this means according to scientific theorists like Julian Barbour is that, from a strictly theoretical standpoint, the word God, understood at the very least to mean eternity, may well be a more accurate word than time for describing reality.
Which his roughly what the Hindu rishis have been saying for centuries.
Once you have a beginning and end, however, the mind immediately jumps to how the end will come - and to what happens next. The study of these things is called eschatology. When visions of the end were experienced and written down, usually in intricate symbolism that only the initiated would understand, the result was what we call "apocalyptic writing." One notable example in this tradition is the Book of Revelation, often called the "Apocalypse of Saint John", in the new Christian Testament. But there were many, many similar books that didn't pass muster for the final biblical cut. The book of Enoch, the book of Baruch, the Pseudeigrapha, and the Apocalypse ot Peter are a few examples that still survive.
This kind of apocalyptic writing first appears in Persian Zoroastrianism. Zoroaster, called Zarathustra by the Greeks, is thought to have lived circa 550 BCE, although some scholars place him as much as five hundred years earlier. A good case can be made that he founded the first monotheistic religion, even though Abraham is generally credited with this honor. But until the Babylonian captivity, when Jews first experienced Persian religion, their writing was filled with sentences such as "Jehovah is a mighty God, and a God above all gods" (Ps. 95:3). The phrase "all gods" suggest that Judaism was not yet monotheistic.
The principal concept of Zoroastrian apocalyptic writing is dualism. A battle between good and evil is being carried out on planet Earth. The good God, Ahura Mazda, is using humankind to bait the evil Ahriman into the world. Ahriman will tempt humans, and they, by resisting, will wear him down so that he can eventually be destroyed. History will end at the last judgment, and a new, purified earth will be formed. Humans will be rewarded with paradise, an ideal heavenly realm with a divine court abiding over the blessed, or hell, which is not eternal but will purify the wicked along with the earth. Before that happens, however, Zoroaster will return. He will be conceived by a virgin with his own seed, which has been stored in in a mountain lake. Every thousand years between the founder and the final restoration of the world three thousand years later, a prophet will appear, check out the progress of the world, and help to prepare the final battle.
When the Jews returned from the Babylonian / Persian captivity, their writings showed evidence of the kind of apocalyptic literature they had encountered there. The later prophets of Judaism, beginning with Daniel, wrote with "good against evil" and "light against dark" imagery. The Dead Sea Scrolls left by the Essene community make it clear that apocalyptic theology was a potent force in their struggle against Roman oppression.
It may well have been a sense of apocalyptic curiosity that allegedly prompted some Zoroastrian priests, called "magi" or "wise men," to make the long journey to Bethlehem after they saw an astrological event sometime around 6 BCE that they believed signaled the birth of the king of the Jews.
The Qur'an of Islam continued the tradition of monotheistic apocalyptic writing:
Then on the Day of Judgment, He will cover them with shame and say, "Where are My 'partners' concerning whom ye used to dispute (with the godly?" ... To those who do good there is good in this world, and the Home of the Hereafter is even better and excellent indeed is the Home of the righteous, Gardens of Eternity which they will enter: beneath them flow pleasant rivers: they will have all that they wish: thus doth Allah reward the righteous, (namely) those whose lives the angels take in a state of purity, saying, (to them), "Peace be on you:enter ye the Garden, because of (the good) which ye did (in the world." (16:27-32)
Apocalyptic literature of all monotheistic religions shares a sense of linear time ending in a fiery judgment delivered from the mouth of God or his messenger, with rewards for the blessed and punishment for the wicked. Believers look forward to the next life and a cessation of the bitterness of this one, with the hope of hearing something like: "Blessed are those who was their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.... Whoever is thirsty, let him come". (Rev. 22:14,17)
