Stephen D. Campbell. Remembering the Unexperienced: Cultural Memory, Canon Consciousness, and the Book of Deuteronomy

Abstract

In the preface, Dominik Markl suggests this is “the first monograph to systematically apply this notion [of cultural memory] to the textual analysis of Deuteronomy” (p. 11; see Campbell’s similar remarks on p. 242). While this is perhaps a little enthusiastic, it does highlight the rarity of such works. And this rarity is curious considering, on the one hand, the importance Deuteronomy attaches to memory, and, on the other, the burgeoning body of memory scholarship. For this reason, I am grateful for Campbell’s contribution to the small but growing conversation among biblical scholars.Campbell’s work, a slight revision of his 2019 PhD dissertation, takes as its starting point a quotation by Norman Gottwald, which argues for the integration of “social scientific criticism” and “canonical criticism” (p. 19). In pursuit of this, Campbell adopts a key scholar from each realm and draws them together in conversation, applying his approach to Deuteronomy (especially Deut 4). For social science, he leverages Jan Assmann and his notion of cultural memory, and for canonical criticism he uses Brevard Childs.Assmann’s notion of cultural memory explores how communities preserve their foundational memories across generations: “Cultural memory is formal and transmitted through cult, canon, and festival” (p. 45). The distinctive part of Assmann’s view is his focus on canon, and this is what Campbell seeks to develop. A canonized text is important because it “represents the codification of cultural memory” (p. 49), and so, by analyzing such texts, we can discern the processes and logic underlying a community’s cultural memory (see Campbell’s discussion of Textplege and Sinnpflege on pp. 98–99). Yet Campbell rightly takes issue with Assmann’s focus on purely “external forces” (p. 101)—namely, the exile—as the impetus for Israel’s cultural memory. He suggests we must balance the external forces with “internal forces” (p. 102), namely, the community’s enduring hermeneutical and theological impulses. After all, “canonization requires both the external stimuli and the internal theologising impulse of the community” (p. 101). To ensure this, Campbell brings Assmann’s notion of cultural memory into conversation with Brevard Childs’s canonical criticism.Having proposed a complementary approach, Campbell moves to apply it to the Bible’s book of memory par excellence: Deuteronomy. Campbell focuses especially on the feature of Deuteronomy that Gerhard von Rad famously called the “problem of the generations”: Deuteronomy’s desire to ensure the perpetuation of the exodus memories across all future generation.1 Following in the tradition of von Rad and others, Campbell argues the rhetoric is part of an intentional mnemonic strategy to create the Moab experience perpetually: that is, to create both an identification with and distancing from the exodus generation. In this way, Deuteronomy aims to initiate new generations as participants in the covenant from Sinai while also teaching them to avoid the mistakes of the original exodus generation.Considering the space devoted to developing the theoretical groundwork, it was surprising to find Campbell land on a rather traditional position. He does propose a new term for the dynamic at play in Deuteronomy (“generational compression,” p. 25 etc.), and even considers its presence in other parts of the canon, but his view shares much in common with previous scholarship. Perhaps this arises from another surprising feature: for a work that seeks to understand “the actualising effect the rhetoric of generational compression in Deut 4:1–40 has on later generations” (p. 27), there is curiously little interaction with key thinkers on actualization in general and its application to Deuteronomy in particular. For example, the perspective of Gerhard von Rad, considered foundational to the field, was raised only in adjacent ways, and the key work by Gordon McConville and Gary Millar (Time and Place in Deuteronomy [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994]) was absent altogether (both from text and bibliography). This latter case was particularly curious considering McConville’s name appears in the book’s acknowledgments.Even still, this work represents a helpful contribution to a small but growing conversation among biblical scholars. Most helpful, to my mind, is Campbell’s attempt to develop an approach marrying social science and canonical criticism. This provides a promising approach moving forward, and it deserves a place within the growing conversation in biblical studies. Furthermore, Campbell’s treatment of Jan Assmann is quite helpful, for, while important to the field, Assmann is often bypassed due to the difficulty of his writing and ideas. Campbell’s work, then, provides an accessible entry point into Assmann’s work, which, in turn, may provide more interest among biblical scholars.