I think it might actually be more unique for western philosophy/religion to be building a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end - a lot of other ancient cultures seemed to see things as a cycle - for instance, we see in the Mayans that they saw the world as a series of cycles. It makes sense in early traditions to not have a beginning and end - if there's no track of "progress" in a historical fashion, it would be hard to visualize any sort of long lasting change in the cycle.
It was Aristotle's Unmoved Mover being incorporated into Christian Thought around AD 50 via Philo of Alexandria that changed Monotheistic religion of God being the Organizer of All Things from Chaos into the Creator of All Things out of Nothing, Ex Nihilo. Beforehand Monotheistic Religions believed God was a creator but he created out of chaos and imbued the formless with a specific form.
Likewise simultaneously around the time of Aristotle during the time of the Hellenistic Era, The Seleucid Empire arose from the fires of Alexander the Great Empire. The 2nd king in the Seleucid Dynasty decided to make a universal time calendar that just increments again and again past individual rulers and this change the nature of stories tremendously in the empire.
When Antiochus I Soter in 281, after his father death decided to keep the calendar his father created (and he had already served 10 years as a co-ruler prior from 291 to 281.) And not start over it started the various populations that were opposed to the Seleucid authorities to tell apocalyptic tales of the end of days, not just the end of the ruler / authority but the end of everything. Especially since later Seleucid rulers such as Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175 BC to 164 BC) seem to limit Jewish religious rights, though Historians are not sure if this true (it may have been about taxes and other areas of authority.) Well there was a rebellion in 167 BC and the internal Jewish Warriors succeeded from the Seleucid Empire (The Maccabees Rebellion.) Well the rebellion was successful and they were independent for 130 years (though lots of civil wars for authority) and only in the end succumb to the Romans except the Jewish People saw the Romans at first as liberators for they still feared various Greek / Hellenistic empires and the Jewish People thought he romans were better.
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TLDR: Cyclic thinking and Creation from Something / Chaos was actually the norm in monotheism, only during the Hellenistic (Greek Influenced) / Roman Era did this shift to Creation out of Nothing (Ex Nihilo) instead of Creation out of Chaos. But yeah read the article I linked to.
Agreed with the Zoroastrianism bit, that did occur prior.
I was trying to be simple and concise so I did not mention other strands of monotheism that influenced Judaismm and the Middle East such as the Egyptians / Amun (the Hidden One) or the Persian Zoroastrianism (which pioneered the concept of Angels as winged divine beings that Judaism and Christianity incorporated.) Yadda, yadda, yadda religion and history is complicated but also interesting.
Some of our best fictional stories are in cycles. The "Hero's Journey" is often a circle with growth, where you end up where you started from. Every season of The Wire pretty much ends in a circle.
I'm not saying they aren't, and that all narratives conceived in the west require them, but the Abrahamic (and earlier Zoroastrian) religions developed this sense of there being a definite beginning, middle, and end of everything, and that's not a concept universal to many religions.
Nasadiya sukta[0] in Rigveda ponders about creation of Universe and what existed before that. Last two paragraphs (6 and 7 in wiki) are the hard-hitting ones.
