Chronicles and Social Memory
In a small and marginal province of a large empire, in a temple-city whose total population was a few thousand and its literati far fewer, there existed not one, but two lengthy, written, read and reread ‘national’ histories. Why would two ‘national’ histories emerge and continue to co-exist with each other in such a small, relatively cohesive community? Would it not have been be more ‘cost-efficient’ for the community and the literati who read these histories within a shared social location just to continue re-shaping their existing history, either through interpretation or editorial work, so as to allow the past to remain significant for the present of the community by advancing new readings rather than developing a completely new one? Why would a small community that shares a general social mindscape, a comprehensive social memory and religious/cultic/socio-cultural institutions still prefer to encode its social memory in two lengthy compositions rather than in one? How did the interactions of these histories shape their reception and reading, and how did the latter in turn shape the shared social memory? The city is Jerusalem, the province is Yehud, and the second ‘national’ history is Chronicles.
Time and place: Mowinckel lecture 2016: Chronicles and Social Memory Oct. 21, 2016 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM, U40, Domus Theologica