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Book: If I Forget You, Jerusalem!

Chapter: 9. History and Memory in the Old Testament

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.44800

Blurb:

What is the difference between cultural (or – perhaps – collective memory) and history? Basically the difference is a modern invention dependent on the emergence of modern historical method since the 19th century. Before c. 1800 history was story, and the story had educational purposes: It had as its task to establish a feeling of cohesion within a society. Biblical historiography is accordingly not history in any modern sense; it is cultural memory.

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