We all, in the West at least, learned history on timelines. We think of history as linear. There is reason to believe that we owe much of this to the Bible. The Bible is a book of linear history. It starts with a point of creation and proceeds with prophecy and promises to forecast a future that ultimately culminates in an end of the world and final judgment. It begins in a garden and ends with a city, the celestial city of God in a new Heaven and new Earth. This linear view of time is so built into our way of thinking that we seldom think consciously about it. We assume it in our views of the world, and have some trouble imagining any other way of seeing time. This is just one more way in which the Bible has  helped to shape civilization.