At the other end--I shall call it time's cycle--events have no meaning as distinct episodes with casual impact upon a contingent history. Fundamental states are immanent in time, always present and never changing. Apparent motions are parts of repeating cycles, and diffences of the past will be realities of the future. Time has no direction.
I present nothing original here. This contrast has been drawn so often, and by so many fine scholars, that it has become (by the genuine insight it provides) a virtual cliche of intellectual life. It is also traditional--and central to this book as well- to point out that Judeo-Christian tradtions have sturggled to embrace the necessary parts of both contradictory poles, and that time's arrow and time's cycle are both prominently featured in the Bible.
Time's arrow is the primary metaphor of biblical history. God creates the earth once, instructs Noah to ride out a unique flood in a singular ark, transmits the commandments of Moses at a distinctive moment, and sends His son to a particular place at a definite time to die for us on the cross and to rise again on the third day. Many scholars have indentified time's arrow as the most important and distinctive contribution of Jewish thought, for most other systems, both before and after, have favored the immanence of time's cycle over the chain of linear history.
But the Bible also features an undercurrent of time's cycle, particularly in the book of Ecclesiastes, where solar and hydrological cycles are invoked in metaphor to illustrate both the immancence of nature's state ("there is nothing new thing under the sun"), and the emptiness of wealth and power, for riches can only degrade in a world of recurrence--vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher.
"The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose, The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. . . The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done . . . (Ecclesiastes 1:5-9)
...And the New York Times, in its editorial pages no less, has proclaimed that extraerrestrial impact as a catastrophic cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction has no place in science: "Terrestrial events, like volcanic activity or change in climate or sea level, are the most immediate possible cause of mass extinctions. Astronomers should leave to astrologers the task of seeking the causes of earthly events in the stars" (April 2, 1985).