Reviewed by: Memory in a Time of Prose: Studies in Epistemology, Hebrew Scribalism, and the Biblical Past by Daniel D. Pioske Mahri Leonard-Fleckman daniel d. pioske, Memory in a Time of Prose: Studies in Epistemology, Hebrew Scribalism, and the Biblical Past (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). Pp. xiv + 281. $99. Daniel Pioske's interest is epistemology in relation to the writing of biblical prose—what scribes knew when they were constructing and compiling biblical narratives, and the limits of this knowledge (pp. 5, 7). As a historian, P. pushes back against what he perceives to be problematic "epistemological assumptions" of the "historicity" of oral biblical traditions that have largely characterized modern historical studies of ancient Israel (pp. 60-61). Instead, he seeks to historicize "the very conditions of knowing" behind the composition of biblical prose (p. 63). At the end of the book, P. labels this an "episteme of memory" (p. 227) because it relies largely on oral traditions and the fragility of human memory. Throughout, P.'s project demonstrates continuity with his first book (David's Jerusalem: Between Memory and History [Routledge Studies in Religion 45; New York: Routledge, 2015]) and the influence of Yosef Yerushalmi and Paul Ricoeur. Underlying his epistemological study are three arguments. First, biblical prose was an innovative method for narrating the past that developed in the late Iron II Period, ca. 830 B.C.E. (p. 53). Second, knowledge available to the scribes derived primarily from oral traditions that interfaced with textuality throughout the development of prose narratives (p. 23). And, third, memory was essential for the preservation of these oral traditions. P. therefore builds on important recent studies regarding the orality-textuality dynamic, such as David M. Carr's Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (New York: Oxford, 2005) and F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp's On Biblical Poetry (New York: Oxford, 2015), as well as debates regarding the dating of prose writing in ancient Israel, including Seth Sanders's epigraphic study (Invention of Hebrew [Traditions; Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009]). With these varied studies underpinning his work, P. describes his unique contributions as twofold: his foci on epistemology and place (i.e., the archaeological record) (p. 9). To these, I would add a third contribution in his comparative work with Greek authors, which he uses effectively (and with caveats regarding distinctions between these corpora) to demonstrate the innovative move from poetry to prose in antiquity (p. 22). After a substantial chapter on theory (chap. 1), the book consists of a series of case studies of early Iron Age sites. These case studies propose distinct ways for how the complexity of memory may have played out in relation to how such sites were remembered in later texts. These case studies are: Gath and the "resilience" of memory (chap. 2); Ziklag, the northwestern Negev and the "entanglements" of memory (chap. 3); and a series of sites that subscribe to the "absence" of memory (chap. 4). For me, the first, theoretical chapter and the subsequent discussions of memory were the most sophisticated and engaging of the book. It seems to me that we (biblical scholars) currently use the term "memory" quite easily, often as a replacement for "history" and as if the term were self-explanatory. P.'s theoretical [End Page 530] discussion, and his continued attention to epistemology and memory, demonstrate a refreshing self-awareness and nuance in his application of terminology. I learned from him. As he demonstrates through his case studies and states explicitly in his closing remarks, he cautions against a "single-dimensional," flat understanding of memory, while providing the reader with a multilayered, contextual understanding of how memory may have functioned to preserve, transform, or forget particular sites in biblical texts (p. 227). P.'s careful attention to archaeological sites is similarly nuanced. As a text scholar, P. demonstrates a remarkable breadth of understanding of particular sites and their histories through an archaeological lens. My two main critiques pertain to questions of prose dating and the relationship between textuality and orality. Regarding the former, it seems to me that the potential role of writing in the Iron I and IIA is...
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Apr 17, 2019
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