Deuteronomy characterizes memory as the key to Israel's covenantal loyalty and commands its cultivation in the generations to come, and the book portrays itself as the foundation for this ongoing memory program. For this reason, Deuteronomy is considered to be an ancient collective memory text. However, recent scholarship has not focused on the book as a formative agent, leaving fundamental questions about the book unanswered: Why does Deuteronomy see memory as important in the first place? How does it seek to cultivate this memory in the people? A. J. Culp answers these questions by exploring Deuteronomy as a formative memory text and bringing contemporary memory theory into dialogue with biblical scholarship.Culp shows that Deuteronomy has tailored memory to its unique theology and purposes, a fact that both illuminates puzzling aspects of the text and challenges long-held views in scholarship, such as those regarding aniconism.
A. J. Culp is lecturer in Old Testament and biblical languages at Malyon Theological College and honorary research fellow at the University of Queensland.
Introduction Chapter 1 A Path Overgrown: Scripture as a Memory Producer Chapter 2 What Your Eyes Have (Not) Seen: Deuteronomy as Collective Memory Chapter 3 You Who Stand Here Today: From Collective Memory to Autobiography Chapter 4 Making Memories: Identifying Deuteronomy's Memory Vectors Chapter 5 Emplotting Memory: Story as Memory Vector Chapter 6 Sedimenting Memory: Ritual as a Memory Vector Chapter 7 Emoting Memory: Song as Memory Vector Conclusion A Wrinkle in Time: Memory as Portal into the Divine Presence
Culp's work is significant for several reasons. It is truly interdisciplinary and makes the complicated world of memory studies accessible to his primary audience within biblical studies. His work forms a solid foundation for understanding other texts as memory producers. The implications of this study have significance for hermeneutics, ecclesiology, discipleship and the nature of divine presence in relation to Scripture. As such, many scholars and students will find Culp's book worthwhile, including those whose research focus is outside Deuteronomy. * Bulletin of Biblical Research * The relationship between a biblical text and the shared memories of the community which produced it is an enduring question, and an important one. C. has furthered this discussion with a readable and well-observed study of how collective memory is applicable to Deuteronomy. . . This volume will be useful to any scholar interested in how a biblical text might influence collective memory. * Journal for the Study of the Old Testament * Culp succeeds in his goal to apply memory theory to Deuteronomy's account of how remembrance must continue to take place in Israel, especially through the "memory vectors" that step outside the book's original frame of reference to address future readers. His work provides a useful model of how the social sciences, literary approaches to exegesis, and theological interpretation of Scripture can work in complementary ways. * Catholic Biblical Quarterly * This book is long overdue. Many students of Deuteronomy have expressed their hunches about how the Torah of Moses perceives memory and how memories are created. Appealing to recent social scientific studies on the subject, A.J. Culp has constructed firm theoretical foundations for discussions of memory in Deuteronomy. While memory features more prominently here than elsewhere, we may adapt and apply his methods and insights to other biblical books as well. He begins quite theoretically, but his discussion is crisp and clear and accessible to a wide readership. Culp's work on story, ritual, and song as significant memory vectors in the teaching [Torah] of Moses is outstanding. I wish I had this book twenty years ago! -- Daniel I. Block, Wheaton College, emeritus Deuteronomy is a book in which memory plays a central role, particularly as it seeks to shape Israel's corporate life. Drawing on the insights of developments in memory theory and using this in close and careful readings of the text, Culp helps us realize why and how this important aspect of the book can be recovered while also noting the different ways Deuteronomy draws on memory in shaping the commitments of its audience. Culp has not only reminded us of the importance of this motif for the book, he has creatively shown us how this continues to be important for those of us who read this book as Scripture. -- David G. Firth, Trinity College Bristol / University of the Free State Culp guides us beyond the method of memory as a source behind Deuteronomy to the manner in which the book creates memory for future generations. Essential reading for memory studies and Deuteronomy research. -- Richard S. Hess, Denver Seminary The relatively recent arrival of memory studies in Old Testament studies, through the seminal work of J. Assmann and others, was an encounter waiting to happen, and it has opened up new avenues in Old Testament theology and exegesis. Culp's fine study of Deuteronomy is an excellent example of these possibilities. Rightly perceiving the centrality of memory for the book, his analysis of it through the "vectors" of story, ritual, and song is penetrating and original. Both thoroughly scholarly and hermeneutically progressive, this book is a landmark in the modern study of Deuteronomy. -- J. G. McConville, University of Gloucestershire Remember! This is the demand in Deuteronomy. Using memory studies and other tools, Culp explores what Israel was to remember but, more importantly, how it was to remember. In Deuteronomy story, ritual, and song function in concert to transport every generation back to Israel's founding events. Through these practices, the people would learn to know God truly and live rightly. This innovative work fills a gap in a growing area of Old Testament research. -- M. Daniel Carroll R. (Rodas), Wheaton College and Graduate School Culp's Memoir of Moses, at once a formidable piece of sophisticated scholarship and highly accessible, brings important developments in memory theory into an immensely engaging and fruitful conversation with the biblical book of Deuteronomy. He demonstrates how the book's persistent invitation to remember the central acts of God in salvation history shapes its readers, ancient Israelites as well as modern Jews and Christians, into faithfully virtuous communities of faith who find their identity in a personal relationship with God. I highly recommend this well-written volume to scholars interested in memory theory and the book of Deuteronomy. Beyond this, the work rewards careful study also for biblical scholars in other fields, as its creative combination of memory theory and biblical study promises much fruit for almost all other parts of Scripture. -- Knut M. Heim, Denver Seminary A major reason for the missional ineffectiveness of the western church is that we have forgotten the story we are in. We have literally lost the plot. Culpable neglect of the Old Testament has made us Christians as forgetful of our story - Israel's story - as the Israelites themselves. We do not "remember" and live in the story that created us, grounded our past and generates our future, creation's future. If only the church could recapture the ethos and intentionality of Deuteronomy, as A.J. Culp so richly expounds in this book, we might learn not merely to read our Bibles as either a memorial to a lost world or as a reservoir of handy rules and promises for individual piety, but to inhabit the reality of the world the Bible projects and promises, to live the story, and shape our mission accordingly. This book is not only an example of thorough and innovative biblical exegesis, but also packs a challenge for those for whom Deuteronomy still constitutes Word of God. -- Christopher J. H. Wright
