The Role of Memory in the Tradition Represented by the Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles

Abstract

Drawing from the work of both Lord and Foley on memory, I will extend arguments I made in The Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles: Scribal Works in an Oral Culture (2010), demonstrating that their understanding of the role of memory in oral traditions provides an excellent lens through which we can view the ancient Israelite tradition as represented in the Deuteronomic History (Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings) and the Book of Chronicles (1-2 Chronicles). In the first section I will show how a synchronic reading of these literary works strongly suggests a similar notion of memory behind this tradition--that is, in Lord's words, a not memorization (Lord 1981:451). The texts that occur within the narrative of the two works (for example, the law of Moses) are imagined as primarily oral compositions to be used as mnemonic aids for the internalization of the tradition. In the second section I will show how a fuller diachronic understanding of these literary works is facilitated by that same notion of memory, at the level of both the composition of these texts and their transmission. The Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles are best understood as two instantiations of the broader tradition that existed in the interplay of the co-existing parallel texts, none of which could possibly represent the complete fullness of the tradition or the entire collective memory of the people. As such, even the material that is unique in Samuel-Kings and Chronicles can be understood as nevertheless remembering the broader tradition, rather than requiring the reconstruction of necessary theological conflicts between the authors/schools.