The Eclipse of Biblical Temporality: Absolute Chronology and Relative Time in 2 Maccabees and the Fourth Gospel

Modern, post-Scaliger expectations for constructing an absolute chronology out of ancient biblical narratives introduce a fallacy of assumed time that distorts the reading of these narratives. While absolute chronology undergirds historical-critical interpretation from Spinoza and Reimarus to twentieth-century scholarship, the more recent “temporal turn” in philosophy, historiography, and literary theory aligns with a renewed attention to narrative time and ancient temporal consciousness. Focusing on 2 Maccabees and the Gospel of John as historiographical narratives reveals how both texts configure events through relative temporal devices—such as temporal markers and temporal process verbs—rather than through absolute calendrical dating, even when coordinates appear in 2 Maccabees’ embedded letters. Building on this comparison allows for a dimensional model of time that respects these configurational strategies and avoids obscuring how these texts construct theological and historical meaning within their own narrative worlds.