Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | Januar/2022 |
Spalte: | 57–58 |
Kategorie: | Altes Testament |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Ben Zvi, Ehud |
Titel/Untertitel: | Social Memory among the Literati of Yehud. |
Verlag: | Berlin u. a.: De Gruyter 2019. XII, 760 S. = Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 509. Geb. EUR 133,95. ISBN 9783110546385. |
Rezensent: | Jutta Jokiranta |
This volume is a collection of twenty-five previously published essays from 2010 onwards, one essay presented as EABS Presidential Address 2016 (»Squaring Circles and the Social Benefits of Squaring Them«), and five previously unpublished essays (»Reading the Book of Hosea,« »Readers, Social Memory, Deuteronomistic Language and Jeremiah,« »Shaping and Remembering an Arch-Villain,« »Contributions of the Geneaologies,« »Potential Intersections«), plus the Introduction. They all exemplify Ehud Ben Zvi’s rich explorations in addressing social memory among the Persian-period Yehudite literati, especially in prophetic books, Deuteronomistic history, Chronicles, and Pentateuch.
Each essay stands on its own, so that for the reader of the collection some aspects, especially the methodological starting points, become repetitious. The volume is not divided into any sections, which could have easily been done and provided some helpful structure for the reader (e. g., essays on Chronicles; essays on Minor prophets).
The methodology of studying social memory is most clearly presented in the Introduction and in some case studies (esp. »Remembering the Prophets«). Although there are various approaches in memory studies, the »socio-anthropological« approach (13) prac-ticed here has some basic assumptions that probably a wide array of scholars would agree to: memory is selective and while some things are remembered, others are forgotten; memory is associational: with one figure or place, other things become remembered; communities have memory agents who are in a position to shape memories; only people (not texts) have memories; memories are evoked by »sites of memory« (such as texts, 10); a limited number of items or a select set among alternatives tend to govern a community’s »mindshare« (97.106); social memories are structured as narratives, with few central characters and some less important figures, a plot, and a location in period of time and space; success-ful sites of memory are often flexible and provide possibilities for re-narration; group identities are intertwined with group memories.
For a beginner in memory studies, there is no clear recipe of how to go about doing this business (studying social memory); instead, there are numerous examples and case studies to spark our imagination. The focus is on imagining the reading and rereading communities of various Hebrew Bible texts, not their authors – or the authors (literati) are themselves construed as readers of (previous) texts. The assumption is that the memories of the literati were governed by reading collections (like »fifteen prophetic books,« 109) which later became part of the Hebrew Bible canon; little consideration is given to non-canonical texts or memories (and this is a deliberate choice, 37; see also 634). There is, however, some discus-sion if the ancient readers recognized similar conceptual blocks of tradition that scholars do when they speak about Deuteronomistic history, for example (304). Where and how the remembering took place is also quite generally assumed, not extensively investigated (e. g., the role of rituals? festivals? education? yet, see 635–40). All the essays require quite a lot of background knowledge from the reader; biblical source texts are mostly referred to by mere references and not quoted in full (nor it is specific, which form) and it is up to the reader to engage with the texts under discussion. A good deal of other (textual and archaeological) scholarship is assumed to be familiar for the reader, too. For example, the essay on remembering Jerusalem (»Exploring Jerusalem«) underlines that the post-exilic Jerusalem was a depopulated poor town where (re)building the temple did not make much sense in comparison to other areas and temples. The poor Jerusalem and the pre-exilic Jerusalem were remembered more than the later, larger Jerusalem. Footnotes do contain a lot of further information, and sometimes relevant schol-arship may be found in other essays (e. g., on the Yehud population, essay on »Total Exile, Empty Land«).
Some essays look at large blocks of literature (such as Deuteronomistic history and Prophets) and the resulting organization of time (126), some touch upon Imperial context (134). Several case studies explore the role of central characters, such as Moses, Joshua, Abraham, and prophets such as Isaiah, Hosea, Jeremiah. For example, the study on Joshua (»Squaring Circles and the Social Benefits of Squaring Them«) argues for a Joshua who was not remembered as conquering the land but rather as a follower of the torah. A large portion of case studies deal with Chronicles; especially enlight-ening here are the essays on Ahaz (»Shaping and remembering an Arch-Villain«), on Chronicler’s view on the exile (»Toward a Sense of Balance«), and on Chronicles as negotiating views on (Davidic) promises (»A Balancing Act«). Chronicles and Samuel–Kings are seen to be in interaction with each other (»Chronicles and Samuel–Kings«), instead of Chronicles being just »reception« of previous traditions. Yet, it is difficult to tell if the envisioned possibilities of how these traditions could have been read in light of each other (e. g., 325) actually took place – perhaps this cannot even be known? In any case, readers not used to practicing social memory imagination may find it difficult if there is little to disprove or prove the suggested scenarios.
The essays on Jerusalem highlight the creative remaking in turning this town and the building of its temple into other foundational events besides the exodus and Sinai events; yet this did not happen by remembering the conquest of Jerusalem but rather by other means and models.
One central claim for understanding Persian period Yehud that emerges from the collection is that some texts such as Ezra-Nehemiah that are often dated to this period are not as central to understanding the literati of this time as often imagined. The essay on remembering Ezra-Neh offers an alternative or complementary view on the mixed marriages problem to those who try to explain the problem historically; Ezra-Neh provided an exploratory, uto-pian view of »pure« Israel that did not succeed.
The last essays bring forward more thematic investigations, on ideal wives (Prov 31), monogamy vs. polygamy, othering, the empty land myth, and counterfactual history. The one addressing the »Total Exile, Empty Land« myth argues that the earlier scenarios of a tension between the returnees and the remainees are not very well grounded in the existing evidence. Lastly, »Potential Intersections« relates the Social memory approach to some Bourdieusian concepts, especially cultural capital, taste, habitus, and social reproduction – it is always welcome when different social theoretical approaches are compared and there is more work to be done here.
I think the collection succeeds to do what it perhaps primarily seeks to do, to induce our heuristic nerves, to ask questions of what and why became remembered in the way it was preserved in the textual record. The collection does not work as an easy lesson on social memory studies but certainly allows one to pick a partial exercise on some aspect, hero, or text. It has great potential to change the way we think about biblical texts in general.