Beginning and End of History

* I enjoyed Connie Regener’s “On Faith” column Oct. 30, which clearly explained the roots and meaning of Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day.

However, her statement that “Only Christians believe that history has a beginning and an end” is inaccurate.

The great book of beginnings, Genesis, is a product of the Jewish tradition. So is the Book of Daniel, which describes the end time when “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt (12:1-4).”

A similar sentiment is expressed in Isaiah 66:22-24. The Koran, Islam’s scripture, is even more explicit about the last days and the final judgment, as in Surah (Chapter) 69 and elsewhere.

So it is clear that the monotheistic faiths share a similar philosophy rooted in the conviction that history is purposeful and that human actions have consequences.

BENJAMIN J. HUBBARD

Chair, Department of

Comparative Religion

Cal State Fullerton

* Trudie Mitschang (On Faith, Oct. 23) writes very well, but where has she been since the advent of modern biblical scholarship? She seems to have stepped straight out of the Middle Ages.

JEAN BROOKHART

Huntington Beach