The Memoirs of God: History, Memory, and the Experience of the Divine in Ancient Israel

by Mark S. Smith

Overview

This insightful work examines the variety of ways that collective memory, oral tradition, history, and history writing intersect. Integral to all this are the ways in which ancient Israel was shaped by the monarchy, the Babylonian exile, and the dispersions of Judeans and the ways in which Israel conceptualized and interacted with the divine-Yahweh as well as other deities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451413977
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	10/28/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	405 KB

About the Author

Mark S. Smith is Helena Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary and Skirball Professor Emeritus of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at New York University. He is the author of over 120 articles, 17 books, and 5 co-authored books: most recently, Where the Gods Are: Spatial Dimensions of Anthropomorphism in the Biblical World (2016) and The Genesis of Good and Evil: The Fall(out) and Original Sin in the Bible (2019).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Time Lines: Periods, Events, and Writings

Maps

Introduction

The Biblical Backdrop to the Story

Introduction: The Bible and the Task of History

The Mythic Period of Moses

The Period of the Judges (ca. 1200-1000?)

The Period of the Monarchy (ca. 1000-586)

The "Exile" (ca. 586-538)

The Persian Period (ca. 540-333)

Challenges to Israel during the Biblical Period

Premonarchic Challenges

The Challenges of the United Monarchy: Saul, David, Solomon

The Challenges of the Divided Monarchy

Responses to the Fall of Judah and Jerusalem (586)

Persian Period Challenges

Textual Creations as Responses to Postexilic Life

Concluding Remarks and Reflections

Biblical Monotheism and the Structures of Divinity

Introduction

Structures of Divinity: Deities versus Divine Monsters

The Divine Council and the Divine Family: From Polytheistic Ugaritic through Polytheistic Israel to Monotheistic Israel

Monotheism: From Crises to New Religious Vision

The Formation of Israel's Concepts of God: Collective Memory and Amnesia in the Bible

Introduction

Collective Memory and Amnesia

Re-membering Divinity at Mount Sinai

"Methods of Monotheism" and Collective Memory

Cultural Memory and Amnesia of Divinity through the Lens of Divine Oneness

Postscript: Biblical Memory between Theology and History

Biblical Narrative and Systematic Theology

Revelation, Tradition, and the Idolatry of History

The Paradox of Revelation: Eternal yet Temporal

Revelation and the Limits of the Biblical Canon

Biblical Supersessionism

World Theology

Sources and Bibliogrpahy

Index