Concepts of periodization and causality in talmudic literature

Most Scholars of Talmudic literature correctly assume that the sages never took up the study of the past in the manner so highly developed among Greek and Latin historians. The rabbis did not evince an active interest in "what really happened" in the past, nor did they leave behind anything remotely similar to the historiographical edifice of the classical world. Nevertheless, the sages did frequently attempt to divide the past into certain distinct "periods," or conversely made distinctions between the reality of the past and that of "the present." This article takes up the nature of these attempts at what would appear to be - at first glance - some sort of historical contemplation on the part of the rabbis. The nature of their divisions of the past almost always relates either to some aspect of earlier Israelite existence, or to the current role of the rabbinic sages themselves as compared to other modes of Jewish leadership that functioned in "the past," thus rendering "historical" contemplation a means of self-definition. To the degree that the sages introduced a "causal" process into history, it was based on a moral premise totally removed from the concepts of historical causality developed by classical historians. Talmudic sages were highly sensitive to their particular brand of history, and apparently noted and consequently steered away from any deviation in their discussions - halakhlc as well as aggadic -towards a more general consideration of "what happened".