Eschatological thinking as a source of formation of modern historical understanding of time

The paper sheds light on the problems of Biblical eschatology in the context of its influence on the contemporary understanding of historical time. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate a fundamental connection of the contemporary understanding of time with the conceptions, which existed within the scope of the Biblical religious tradition. It was important for the author to draw attention to the history of translation and interpretation of apocalyptic texts as strategies preceding a number of techniques of contemporary description and comprehension of history. With this purpose there are given examples of means ancient exegetes used in their aspiring to actualise the value of eschatological legacy despite the loss of keys to prophetic symbology of these texts. Moreover, the characteristic traits of religious perception of time which can be traced in secular consciousness, including contemporary historical science, are considered in the paper. On the basis of a number of historical examples of the interaction of history and eschatology and the demonstration of exegetic experience of identification of apocalyptic prophecies with the historical reality the necessity is sustained in the paper of research of the eschatological problematic by historians for the exposition of the principles of contemporary understanding of historical time. Besides there are discussed some aspects of Biblical eschatology in the light of their interpretation in different historical periods. The paper rises the problem of the canonical status of the Revelation of John the Evangelist in the light of its historical interpretation, and also some eschatological fragments of other Biblical books in their functional role in different political situations around the Christian church. In the paper, the connection is grounded of the Christian eschatological conception and the social-historical factors. Therefore, some arguments to the alternative reason of not using the Revelation of St. John in Orthodox liturgy are given. The eschatological thinking and religious conceptions are considered in the paper as a source of the contemporary understanding of time. There are demonstrated the possibilities of the use of historical-anthropological aspects of religious studies of this problem, which consist in a complex system of interpolations of uncanonical, canonical, exegetical and analytical spheres of literature. In the paper, there are not raised the sacral senses of Biblical Apolcalyptics, but an attempt is made to single out systems of logical moves in the eschatological literature with the purpose of their comparison with the dominant historical approaches.

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