[lptk]

I think it's safe to say that the inspiration for Java lambda almost certainly did not come from the "FP zeitgeist" you're describing, but simply from other JVM languages like Scala and Clojure, which showed how useful they were and how they could be done nicely on the JVM.

[JoelMcCracken]

I believe both of those languages have motivational roots in the parallel computation drive/what I am describing as the FP zeitgeist.

For example, this ya the earliest reference to clojure I could find on hn. Notice the text of the announcement and how it focuses on parallelism https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/comp.lang.lisp/xvK...