Cultural Memory Transgenerational Transmission in Deuteronomy

“Cultural Memory Transgenerational Transmission in Deuteronomy” in The Book of Deuteronomy: Composition, Contexts, Interpretation, and Reception, ed. by D. Markl, C. Evans, K. Baek (FIOTL / VT.S; Brill) Title: Cultural Memory Transgenerational Transmission in Deuteronomy Author: Stephen D. Campbell Author Bio: Stephen D. Campbell (Ph.D. Durham University) is Academic Director at Aquila Initiative and Pastor at the International Baptist Church of Bonn, Germany. From a certain perspective, there has been a fracturing in the field of pentateuchal and—in particular—deuteronomic research in the last generation. Just as a cheap drinking glass that falls from a table shatters into countless tiny pieces, so our field has broken apart beyond anything recognizable 50–100 years ago.1 But from a different, more generous and hopeful perspective, the recent developments in biblical studies have opened exciting new horizons for research. A new generation of young scholars is excitedly taking the baton from the generation of giants who came before and are now passing into memory. Furthermore, mid-career scholars are still eagerly at work breaking new ground and paving new frontiers in interdisciplinary research. No matter the reader’s perspective on these trends, this present volume is part of an everimportant task in biblical studies: the retrospective and prospective accounting of our field. This essay’s particular contribution to this effort is to give an account of a small fragment in Deuteronomy studies. Stated more positively, I aim to point to new horizons for Deuteronomy research to the reader. As the given title suggests, this chapter presents an account of “Cultural Memory Transgenerational Transmission in Deuteronomy.” What exactly does this mean, especially since notable work has been conducted by many on the subject of memory and Deuteronomy?2 What my contribution to this collection of essays has in view is a study of Deuteronomy’s rhetoric. Taking the “received form” of Deuteronomy as a starting point, this study offers an account of ways Deuteronomy can be understood not only to canonize a cultural memory for tradents but also to create that memory and ensure its transmission across generations.3 1 See for example, J. W. Rogerson and Judith M. Lieu, The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies (Oxford: Oxford, 2006). 2 Most notably, see A. J. Culp, Memoir of Moses: The Literary Creation of Covenantal Memory in Deuteronomy (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019); Barat Ellman, Memory and Covenant: The Rold or Israel’s and God’s Memory in Sustaining the Deuteronomic and Priestly Covenants (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013); Johannes Unsok Ro and Diana Edelman, Collective Memory and Collective Identity: Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History in Their Context (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021); and Stephen D. Campbell Remembering the Unexperienced: Cultural Memory, Canon Consciousness, and the Book of Deuteronomy (BBB 191; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021). 3 Borrowing from Brevard Childs whose broad understanding of canon accounts for the process as well as the canonical form, I have adopted here the position that to study the Bible as canon is not a purely 1 This approach is decidedly different from those that seek to understand or reconstruct the history of Judahite religion from the biblical and extra-biblical material history.4 Instead, this approach seeks to take Deuteronomy seriously as Scripture, a text that is an authoritative witness to the God of Israel for contemporary communities of faith. Far from flattening the text, this approach seeks to take it seriously in all its contours. These texts were chosen and not others. These stories were compiled, and others were not. Through this process, the compilers, editors, and redactors were not unaware of difficulties, fracture lines, or incongruencies within the text. However, instead of smoothing out the text into a seamless whole, these textual challenges were left as part of the text. Evidently, the form in which the text was received was more desirable than a perfectly coherent one.5 Whatever the genesis of Deuteronomy, it is now presented as a collection and presentation of Israel’s cultural memory from the mouth of Moses for the benefit of Israel’s future generations. Imaginatively entering the world of Deuteronomy is an attempt to understand its power to generate and transmit a cultural memory. This transmission of cultural memory cannot be taken for granted, since many canonized texts are widely unknown within their cultural milieu. Many canonized pieces of music are not recognizable by the populace. Many canonized pieces of art hang on the walls of public museums without being recognized or appreciated. In this essay, I briefly will introduce the reader to—or perhaps remind the reader of—eight features of Deuteronomy’s rhetoric that help establish and transmit a cultural memory across generations.6 Listed here, these rhetorical means of creating and transmitting cultural memory in Deuteronomy are as follows: literary or structural approach to the Bible. Rather, to read the Bible as a canon of Scripture that reflects the hermeneutical and theological concerns of the tradents is to study the Bible both as an historically situated text and as authoritative Scripture of a faith community. 4 The list here is extensive, but, as it pertains to memory-related studies, see especially the works of Jan Assmann, Diana Edelman, Ehud Ben-Zvi, and Dominik Markl in this regard. 5 This is a major interpretive principle of Brevard Childs, who wrote in his Exodus commentary, “If one assumes, as I do, that the major purpose of biblical exegesis is the interpretation of the final form of the text, the study of the earlier dimensions of historical development should serve to bring the final stage of redaction into sharper focus.” Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus, A Critical, Theological Commentary (OTL; Bloomsbury: SCM, 1974), 393. Significantly, Eckart Otto has argued a very similar point for a “diachronically reflected synchrony to understand the text that we have.” Idem, “Diachrony and Synchrony in the Book of Deuteronomy: How to Relate Them” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association of Biblical Studies, Helsinki, Finland, July 31, 2018). See also his treatment in “Tora für eine neue Generation in Dtn. 4: Die hermeneutische Theologie des Numeruswechsels in Deuteronomium 4,1–40,” in Deuteronomium – Tora für eine neue Generation (BZAR 17; ed. by Georg Fischer et al.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011): 105–122. 6 Although this essay offers an expanded discussion of some issues, it is not as thorough as my Remembering the Unexperienced. Further, much of what is presented in this essay is based on that book-length discussion of the present topic. Perhaps similarly, Jan Assmann has argued that Deuteronomy exhibits eight mnemotechnics, “techniques of cultural memory,” namely: 1) Awareness: learning by taking to heart (6:6 and 11:18); 2) Education of future generations (6:7); 3) Visibility: 2 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Clearly defined generational boundaries that separate 1) the exodus generation, 2) the wilderness/Moab generation, and 3) the wilderness/Moab generation’s children Repeated use of personal, sensory language that undermines these defined generational boundaries Compression of Israel’s generations into a shared experience Use of sensory perception (esp., seeing and hearing) that is both mutually relativizing and reinforcing Epistemology that undermines the causal link between personal experiences and knowledge A literary world that is outside the Promised Land, allowing Deuteronomy to be relevant in any situation Emphasis on Israel imitating Moses as a teacher A given pattern for covenant renewal that perpetuates these cultural memories generation after generation 1. Defining Generations: Data Points Essential to The World of Deuteronomy One of the key features of Deuteronomy is the ever-present theme of Israel’s generations.7 This is understandable given the subject matter of the book, and it is a key element for understanding the literary world of Deuteronomy. The basic claim is this: the generation that experienced the exodus from Egypt is now deceased, and there is a new generation that has taken its place, but has no direct personal experience of the miraculous events of the plagues, exodus, sea crossing, or law giving that are so foundational to Israel’s mythic past.8 markings on bodies (6:8 and 11:18); 4) Liminal symbolism: inscriptions on doorposts (6:9 and 11:21); 5) Storage and publication: inscriptions on whitewashed stones (27:2–8); 6) Festivals of collective memory (16:3, 12; 31:9–11); 7) Oral tradition: poetry as a codification of historical memory (31:19–21); and 8) Canonisation of the text of the text of the covenant (Torah) as the basis for literal observation (4:2, 12:32, 31:9–11). Jan Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge, 2011), 196–199. 7 Although this observation is not new, it is important to distinguish this textual feature of Deuteronomy from its desired rhetorical effect. Furthermore, addressing the text on the level of rhetoric enables the reader to explore the ongoing impact of the chosen text in its received form as opposed to the alternative approach of using the Generationswechsel as literary- or redaction-critical data in the same way that scholars have used Deuteronomy’s Numeruswechsel. 8 One of the key features of Deuteronomy’s literary context of memory is the importance of generational transition. Bernd Biberger, Unsere Väter und wir: Unterteilung von Geschichtsdarstellungen in Generationen und das Verhältnis der Generationen im Alten Testament (BBB 145; Berlin: Philo, 2003), 332–361. Richard Adamiak has argued, instead, that Deuteronomy is concerned with presenting the dt. generation on the plains of Moab as “the same generation which left Egypt, journeyed through the Wilderness and is now about to enter the Promised Land;” idem, Justice and History in the Old Testament: The Evolution of Divine Retribution in the Historiographies of the Wilderness Generation (Cleveland: John T. Zubal, 1982), 49. Arguing source-critically, Adamiak 3 Although more verses could be given to strengthen the point, only three verses from the opening frame of Deuteronomy are necessary to illustrate the claim that Deuteronomy firmly establishes generational boundaries that are essential to the world of the text. The first is Deut 1:34–35. ‫וישמע יהוה את־קול דבריכם ויקצף וישבע לאמר׃ אם־יראה איש באנשים האלה הדור הרע הזה את הארץ‬ ‫הטובה אשר נשבעתי לתת לאבתיכם׃‬ When the Lord heard your words, he was wrathful and swore: “Not one of these—not one of this evil generation—shall see the good land that I swore to give to your ancestors[.]” 9 The second is Deut 1:39, which reads, ‫וטפכם אשר אמרתם לבז יהיה ובניכם אשר לא־ידעו היום טוב ורע המה יבאו שמה ולהם אתננה והם יירשוה׃‬ And as for your little ones, who you thought would become booty, your children, who today do not yet know right from wrong, they shall enter there; to them I will give it, and they shall take possession of it. The third verse is Deut 2:14. ‫והימים אשר־הלכנו מקדש ברנע עד אשר־עברנו את־נחל זרד שלשים ושמנה שנה עד־תם כל־הדור אנשי‬ ‫המלחמה מקרב המחנה כאשר נשבע יהוה להם׃‬ And the length of time we had traveled from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Wadi Zered was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation of warriors had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn concerning them. These verses taken together create a framework in which to read the narrative of Deuteronomy. First, these verses establish the narrative claim that the exodus generation (apart from children) died completely in the wilderness.10 According to the world of Deuteronomy, the adults of Israel who departed from Egypt and stood at Mt. Horeb have died. They are gone, except for Joshua, Caleb, and— at least for now—Moses. Secondly, Deut 1:39 claims that the little ones who have persisted in Israel were young and morally innocent of the sins of their parents.11 They were too young to know the difference between right and wrong when Israel sinned at Kadesh Barnea and was doomed to die in the wilderness. They were too young to make informed decisions or participate knowingly in the decisions of the nation. This means that Israel is comprised of people who were either not yet born or have no meaningful memory of the most important events in the nation’s history that Moses will speak about in Deuteronomy, namely the events surrounding the exodus from Egypt and receiving the law at Sinai. This is a national composition that is nothing short of a cultural disaster. posits that the purpose of this presentation is to acquit the exodus generation of their sins in the wilderness and make them justified recipients of the Promised Land. Op. cit., 49–61. 9 Translations—unless stated otherwise—are taken from the NRSV. 10 According to Arnold, “The statement brings into sharp focus the way Deuteronomy categorizes the Israelites into different generations: ancestral, the exodus/desert generation, the generation of the plains of Moab, and all future generations.” Bill T. Arnold, The Book of Deuteronomy Chapters 1–11 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2023), 167–168. See also, Jeffrey Tigay, Deuteronomy (Devarim) (Philadelphia: JPS, 1996), 27. 11 Tigay, Deuteronomy, 20; Lothar Perlitt, Deuteronomium 1–6 (BKAT V/1; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1990–2013), 122. 4 These young Israelites will be expected to remember these events and pass them on to their children, but the nation has no grandparents and no direct, personal experiences of these events. No one has first-hand memory of the plagues in Egypt, the exodus, the miraculous sea crossing, Mt. Horeb, or Kedesh-Barnea. This cultural makeup is essential for us to grasp because of the way it contrasts with the rhetoric of Moses regarding these events. In other words, the cultural makeup of Moses’ audience stands in sharp contrast to the way Moses speaks to his audience about these events. It is to this that we now turn. 2. “Yours Are The Eyes That Saw:” Moses’s Rhetoric of Personal Experience Despite what has just been observed regarding the makeup of Moses’s audience within the literary world of Deuteronomy, his appeal to personal memory is frequent, grammatically unnecessary, and rhetorically excessive. What happened at Horeb is something ‫“ אשר־ראו עיניך‬your eyes have seen.” They are in Israel’s heart and can be passed from one generation to the next (4:9). In fact, these events are a reality that must be passed from one generation to the next. Moses’s audience is instructed to make their own experiences of Horeb known to their children and grandchildren. They are personal experiences because Israel “came near and stood at the foot of the mountain.” Israel saw the mountain covered in fire, cloud, and darkness. Israel heard a voice and received the ten words. All of these claims exist in the world of the text despite the historical and even literary reality that Moses’s audience was not there, and so the people did not have these experiences. Consider, for example, what Moses says in 4:9 to his audience, ‫ַרק השמר לך ושמר נפשך מאד פן־תשכח את־הדברים אשר־ראו עיניך ופן־יסורו מלבבך כל ימי חייך‬ ‫והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך׃‬ But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children. His audience might rightly respond, “No, we don’t remember that because that was before we were born.” And yet, this rhetoric of sense perception and memory is pervasive in Deuteronomy. This rhetoric is used to encourage loyalty to Yhwh because Yhwh will act in the future consistently with how he has acted in the past. For example, this rhetoric is used in Deut 7:18b–19 to encourage trust in God’s ability to defeat Israel’s enemies just as he defeated Egypt. ‫זכר תזכר את אשר־עשה יהוה אלהיך לפרעה ולכל־מצרים׃‬ ‫המסת הגדלת אשר־ראו עיניך והאתת והמפתים והיד החזקה והזרע הנטויה אשר הוצאך יהוה‬ ‫אלהיך כן־יעשה יהוה אלהיך לכל־העמים אשר־אתה ירא מפניהם׃‬ Just remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. Moses here appeals to a personal memory of events that are not personally remembered by his audience. Their trust in God is not based on a direct memory, but rather on an inherited memory of these events. Moses, however, does not always use the phrase “your eyes have seen” or similar. At other times, he simply appeals to a memory of past events that are supposed to affect their present. For example, 5 this is seen whenever Moses warns Israel about turning to other gods because of God’s punishment of Israel in the past. God’s punishment of their parents is supposed to strengthen their devotion to Yhwh. For example, in Deuteronomy 9, Moses appeals to Israel’s history of improper worship at Horeb when they built a golden calf. Deuteronomy 9:7 states, ‫זכר אל־תשכח את אשר־הקצפת את־יהוה אלהיך במדבר למן־היום אשר־יצאת׀ מארץ מצרים עד־באכם עד־‬ ‫המקום הזה ממרים הייתם עם־יהוה׃‬ Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place. Moses then tells of how he came down from the mountain and broke the two stone tablets ‫לעיניכם‬ “before your eyes” (9:17). At still other times, Israel is instructed to remember past experiences to guide their moral living. This is most commonly seen with the phrase ‫( וזכרת כי־עבד היית בארץ מצרים‬5:15; 15:15; 16:12; 24:18; 24:22; or similarly, ‫ וזכרת כי עבד היית במצרים‬in 4:18). It is Israel’s personal experience being slaves in Egypt in the past that is supposed to guide their living in the future for generations to come. Indeed, Deuteronomy’s command to observe the Sabbath, treat the poor fairly, and keep the ‫ חג שבעות‬are all reinforced through the appeal to remember their slavery in Egypt. And again at other times, appeals to the past serve as reminders of past commands that the current generation of Israel cannot reasonably be expected to know. For example, Israel is commanded to remember “what Amalek did to you on your journey out of Egypt…” (Deut 25:17). Israel was attacked by Amalek, and the current generation is to remember that attack, its vile nature, and God’s subsequent promise to wipe out the memory of Amalek (Exod 17:14–16). One might wonder how this rhetoric of personal experience functions. What is the rhetorical purpose? Is it to alter memories or to destabilize Israel’s identity by planting false memories and a false identity? Or is it something else? I have proposed elsewhere that this rhetoric functions as a textual means for shaping, preserving, and transmitting Israel’s cultural memory to subsequent generations.12 It does this by textually compressing one generation into another to create a shared experience that transcends normal boundaries of time and space. This is an effect that I have called Generational Compression, and it is to this that we now turn. 3. Generational Compression: Transmission of Personal Experience Throughout Deuteronomy, Moses speaks to the Moab generation as if it had the experiences of the exodus generation. The compression of generations into one another creates a shared experience that is common to the whole nation. For example, in Deut 10:21, within the context of receiving the law, Moses states, ‫הוא תהלתך והוא אלהיך אשר־עשה אתך את־הגדלת ואת־הנוראת האלה אשר ראו עיניך׃‬ He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. Although the Moab generation did not see these acts of God in a personal way, Moses speaks to his audience as though they were there. Their lives are compressed into the experiences of the previous 12 Campbell, Remembering the Unexperienced. 6 generations. By so doing, Moses creates a shared experience and a shared responsibility that is not frozen in the past. This is nowhere clearer than Deut 5:1–3. ‫ויקרא משה אל־כל־ישראל ויאמר אלהם שמע ישראל את־החקים ואת־המשפטים אשר אנכי דבר באזניכם‬ ‫היום ולמדתם אתם ושמרתם לעשתם׃ יהוה אלהינו כרת עמנו ברית בחרב׃ לא את־אבתינו כרת יהוה את־‬ ‫הברית הזאת כי אתנו אנחנו אלה פה היום כלנו חיים׃‬ Moses called all of Israel, and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am speaking in your ears today; you shall learn them and be careful to do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. It was not with our fathers that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, we ourselves, who are all of us here alive today. (AT) This passage has generated much scholarly dialogue for obvious reasons.13 Our interest here is with the language of Moses that draws the Moab generation into the events of the past, especially those about which they have no direct, personal memory.14 Moses nevertheless says that they were the ones who entered into the covenant. Rashi, along with many others, has interpreted this to mean “not with our fathers only,” which parallels Deut 29:13–14: ‫ול ֹא אתכם לבדכם א ֹנכי כֹרת את־הברית הז ֹאת ואת־האלה הז ֹאת׃ כי את־אשר ישנֹו פֹה עמנו עמד היֹום‬ ‫לפני יהוה אלהינו ואת אשר איננו ֹפה עמנו היֹום׃‬ I am making this covenant, sworn by an oath, not only with you who stand here with us today before the Lord our God, but also with those who are not here with us today. These two verses both speak to the imagined audience of Moses but also look to the future. Later generations who read or hear Deuteronomy will understand Moses speaking to them, drawing them into the experiences of past generations. These events will come alive in their mind as they imagine the sights and sounds of Horeb. This effectively establishes covenant making and covenant keeping as something that, while rooted in the historical prologue of the covenant formula, is based on transmitted memories. These transmitted memories, however, are personal. No matter the temporal context, these memories are not distant and impersonal but are personal precisely because they have been transmitted through a shared history. And with the shared history comes a shared responsibility to respond favorably toward God. This transmission is possible despite the generational boundaries of Deuteronomy. 4. Is Hearing or Seeing More Important? Connecting and Relativizing Hearing and Seeing Several long scholarly treatments on the “fathers” of Deuteronomy have made this a well-worn discussion. See, Thomas Römer, Israels Väter: Untersuchungen zur Väterthematik im Deuteronomium und in der deuteronomistischen Tradition (OBO 99; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990; Norbert Lohfink, Die Väter Israels im Deuteronomium: Mit einer Stellungnahme von Thomas Römer (OBO 111; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag and Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1991; and Bill T. Arnold, “Reexamining the ‘Fathers’ in Deuteronomy’s Framework” in Torah and Tradition: Papers Read at the Sixteenth Joint Meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and the Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap, Edinburgh 2015 (OTS 70; ed. by Klaas Spronk and Hans Barstad; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2017). 14 “Deuteronomy’s conception of the people of God identifies every future generation of Israelites with the ancient generation at Horeb.” Arnold, Deuteronomy 1–11, 302. 13 7 Part of the means of memory transmission in Deuteronomy comes through relativizing the importance of seeing and hearing. In Deuteronomy 4, for example, the authority of God’s verbal covenant at Horeb is reinforced by the awesome visual appearance of God upon the mountain. However, this visual experience is meant, according to Moses, to teach Israel that God has no visible form. The words of God (“take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life”) point to the visible experience, but the visual experience itself is called into question and points Israel back to the spoken word (“Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.”). This creates a self-validating loop between what is seen and what is heard. By hearing the words of God through Moses, the Moab generation is invited into this loop; the words point Moses’s audience to once again gaze upon the mountain and “see with their own eyes.” This understanding of seeing and hearing in Deuteronomy is more complex than the Protestant tradition, for whom Deuteronomy 4 became an important proof-text for the rejection of icons, has typically allowed.15 However, I wish to argue here that Deuteronomy 4 depicts both seeing and hearing as necessary but insufficient for future generations. On the one hand, the act of seeing is used within Deuteronomy to highlight the importance of hearing; Israel is to remember and obey the words of Yhwh and reject any form of visual representation of the divine presence. However, that hearing is presented as coming to the people in mediated form (through Moses) and not as a direct revelation, as was the seeing. Both are necessary means of revelation, but neither is sufficient on its own terms. Within Deuteronomy’s depiction of Horeb, the visual experience of the theophany was direct and unmediated just as Israel’s experience of the world around it, but Horeb was not a direct visual revelation of the divine. The seeing was direct and unmediated, but what Israel saw was nothing. The direct revelation came through hearing the spoken word in mediated form through Moses. The fact that they saw nothing is meant to highlight what they heard, even if it came to them in a mediated way. Yhwh’s commands come to the people through Moses, but are proven to be true through the visual experience of seeing God’s works in the world around them (4:32–39), which sends the observer back to the spoken word by the very nature of the visual experience itself (4:40). How can later generations, then, enter into or engage with this self-perpetuating circle of self-validation? The answer for Deuteronomy is that every Israelite is already within the circle, for every Israelite through Judaism’s ongoing rituals stood at Horeb and renews that covenant through the ritualized twice-daily recitation of the Shma. For our purposes here, however, I want briefly to offer contemporary readers of Scripture a way to make sense of this relationship between seeing and hearing in Deuteronomy by offering an account of how this approach of both/and might be mapped onto current understandings of the role and function of ritual as a fully embodied practice meant to instruct and shape the participant. Recent studies have not only pointed up the importance of fully embodied ritual to a biblically depicted 15 Carlos M. N. Eire, War against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1986), 197–220; and John H. Leith, “John Calvin’s Polemic Against Idolatry,” in Soli Deo Gloria: New Testament Studies in Honor of William Childs Robinson (ed. by J. McDowell Richards; Richmond: John Knox, 1968): 111–124. 8 epistemology but also that of Deuteronomy in particular.16 Through reading, hearing, reciting, instructing, re-enacting, memorializing, and celebrating feasts in scripted ways, Deuteronomy describes as an ideal practice in Israel precisely that which it presents Moses doing in the sight of the nation. In other words, Moses becomes for Israel not only the great lawgiver and interpreter but also the paradigmatic teacher all later generations must attempt to emulate. As Moses instructs with words and appeals to the imagination of a later generation on the plains of Moab who did not in fact stand at the foot of Horeb, so too must later generations instruct their children and appeal to their imagination in order to establish an ongoing reality within the nation—a reality in which words and ritualized actions incorporating all the senses function to keep the past alive and ever relevant. In this sense, both the words and images of Horeb become important shapers of both the collective identity and the evolution of the ritualized remembering of Horeb in Judaism known as Shavuot. At this point the words of Martin Buber are instructive. When those who have grown up in the atmosphere of the Bible think of the “revelation upon Sinai,” they immediately see once again that image which overwhelmed and delighted them in their childhood: “the mountain burning with fire up to the heart of the heavens, darkness, cloud and lowering mist.” And down from above, down upon the quaking mountain, that smokes like a furnace, descends another fire, flashing fire from heaven; while through the thunder that accompanies the flashing lightning or, it may be, from out of that self-same thunder, comes the blast of a ram’s horn.17 This transmission of collective memory requires the proper use of religious imagination that Deuteronomy’s rhetoric of seeing and hearing supports. 5. Epistemology: Deuteronomy’s Limits to The Limits of Transmissibility Deuteronomy also helps this transmission of a cultural memory through an assumed epistemology that subverts the causal link between personal sensory experience and understanding. On the one hand, one does not have to perceive in any personal, sensory way in order to believe, and on the other hand, personal, sensory experiences do not guarantee one’s belief. Both of these points are seen most pointedly in 29:1–5 (Heb.) ‫ויקרא משה אל־כל־ישראל ויאמר אלהם אתם ראיתם את כל־אשר עשה יהוה לעיניכם בארץ מצרים לפרעה‬ ‫ולא־נתן יהוה‬ ‫המסות הגדלת אשר ראו עיניך האתת והמפתים הגדלים ההם׃‬ ‫ולכל־עבדיו ולכל־ארצו׃‬ ‫ואולך אתכם ארבעים שנה במדבר לא־בלו‬ ‫לכם לב לדעת ועינים לראות ואזנים לשמע עד היום הזה׃‬ ‫לחם לא אכלתם ויין ושכר לא שתיתם למען תדעו כי אני‬ ‫שלמתיכם מעליכם ונעלך לא־בלתה מעל רגלך׃‬ ‫יהוה אלהיכם׃‬ You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear. I have led you forty years in the wilderness. The clothes on your back have not worn out, and the sandals on your feet have not worn out; you have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink—so that you may know that I am the Lord your God. 16 See, for example Dru Johnson, Knowledge by Ritual: A Biblical Prolegomenon to Sacramental Theology (JTISup 13; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2016). 17 Martin Buber, Moses (London: East & West Library, 1946), 110. 9 According to Moses, his audience is simultaneously unable to understand—unless God gives them the ability to understand—and expected to understand—because God did these great signs in order that they would understand. This complex epistemology (at least) weakens, and possibly completely removes, the causal link between personal, sensory perception and understanding. This notion itself is not a distinctly biblical, or deuteronomic notion. Instead, it is a truism of the human condition that, contrary to the vernacular saying, seeing is not believing. This claim can easily be traced throughout the Hebrew Bible. According to a canonical reading18 it can be seen in Isaiah (Isa 6:9–10),19 Jeremiah (5:21),20 Ezekiel (12:2),21 the Gospel according to Matthew (Matt 13:14), and Acts (Acts 28:26, 27). Although Deuteronomy speaks to this topic within a wider biblical tradition, the importance for my argument here is Deuteronomy’s logically reverse epistemological claim that not seeing is not not believing. That is to say, in this passage there is a causal separation between seeing the acts of Yhwh in the exodus and the internalization of the importance of these events. Seeing, in other words, does not always lead to understanding. Israel might have seen the mighty works of God in the exodus, but that does not mean that Israel can interpret these events or understand their importance. From a whole-book perspective, this text (Deut 29:1–5 ET) in the concluding frame of Deuteronomy makes explicit what is demonstrated in the opening chapters of Deuteronomy; despite the works of God throughout the exodus from Egypt, Israel still acts faithlessly (Deut 1:32–33). Although Israel has been commanded to learn from its history and has been given a lesson through the example of Moses on how to do such a theological interpretation of the past (e. g., Deut 4:1–40), Israel is ‫עד היום‬ ‫ הזה‬unable truly to understand, hear, or see. Therefore, within the world of Deuteronomy, 18 From a form-critical perspective, however, Walther Zimmerli doubts that this statement of recognition in Deuteronomy 29 has great importance to the discussion of its usage in Ezekiel. Idem, I am Yahweh (ed. by Walter Brueggemann; trans. by D. W. Stott. Atlanta: Westminster John Knox, 1982), 53; and Walther Zimmerli, Erkenntnis gottes nach dem Buche Ezechiel: Eine theologische Studie (ATANT 27; Zürich: Zwingli-Verlag, 1954), 27–30. 19 Far from a criticism, it is nonetheless interesting to note that the major Isaiah commentators make no reference to this theme’s presence in Deut 29:3 (Heb.). Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 56–57; Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12: A Commentary (CC; trans. by Thomas H. Trapp; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1991), 271–273; George B. Gray, The Book of Isaiah (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1912), 109–110; and Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39 (AB 19; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 222–226. 20 Similarly, Jeremiah commentators prefer to note connections to Isa 6:9–10 or Ezek 12:2, if they note any. See, for example, Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1–20 (AB 21 A; New York: Doubleday, 1999), 402–403. 21 Likewise, Ezekiel scholars have tended to make no reference to this text in Deuteronomy, but rather have focussed on its connection to Jeremiah and Isaiah; Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20 (AB 22; New York: Doubleday, 1983), 208–209; George A. Cooke, The Book of Ezekiel (ICC; T&T Clark: Edinburgh, 1936), 129; Leslie C. Allen, Ezekiel 1–19 (WBC 28; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994), 178; and Walther Eichrodt, Ezekiel: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM, 1970), 149. 10 understanding (having spiritual sight and hearing) is not the necessary result of direct, personal seeing and hearing. Hearing the promises of Yhwh or seeing his great acts is not an assurance of faithful living. The importance of this for our concerns is that for Deuteronomy, understanding the importance of God’s acts in history and responding to their covenantal implications is not dependent upon individuals having direct, sensory experiences of the events. Each generation of Israel is able to respond to the great acts of Yhwh whether or not it has experienced them in a direct and personal way. In this way, generational compression into the experiences of the exodus generation allows each generation to see and hear the acts of God in an imaginative way that leads to responsive obedience to Yhwh. 6. Setting: Outside The Land About Life within The Land As many scholars have noted, Deuteronomy is staged outside the land of Canaan, the land of promise, even though it is focussed exclusively on Israel’s life inside the land. This means that any later generation can imaginatively enter the world of Deuteronomy and likewise imagine life within the land. This effectively removes the distance between the Moab generation and those in exile and beyond. While some have argued that “[Deuteronomy] develops an art of memory that is based on the separation of identity from territory,” I am more convinced that Deuteronomy’s words and rhetoric intensify the connection between Israel and the land. 22 This is because the book is rather preoccupied with the identity of Israel within the land, because, although given outside the land, the laws can only be obeyed within it. Tigay offers a succinct articulation of this understanding. All of Deuteronomy looks toward Israel’s life in the promised land. The land of Israel, the focus of God’s promises to the patriarchs, is His ultimate gift to their descendants. It is the place where God’s laws are to be carried out and where a society pursuing justice and righteousness (4:5–8) and living in harmony with God (7:12–13) can be established.23 If Tigay is correct that all of Deuteronomy is focussed on life within the land, then instead of creating a cultural identity apart from the land Deuteronomy would seem to function for the purpose of strengthening the link between Israel and the land by making a life of obedience to the law outside Canaan unimaginable—or at least not the ideal. The instructions of 12:13–14, for example, strengthen Israel’s connections to the land of promise: ‫השמר לך פן־תעלה עלתיך בכל־מקום אשר תראה׃ כי אם־במקום אשר־יבחר יהוה באחד שבטיך שם תעלה‬ ‫עלתיך ושם תעשה כל אשר אנכי מצוך׃‬ Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place you happen to see. But only at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes – there you shall offer your burnt offerings and there you shall do everything I command you. According to my reading, the fact that Deuteronomy is staged outside Canaan is meant to heighten the national longing for life within the land. This is true no matter what the world behind the text is. Whether Mosaic (according to the traditional view), Josianic (according to early critical views), or exilic (according to newer critical scholarship), the world of the text is presented as one which is outside looking in. If, according to the world of the text, Israel can stand on the plains of Moab and prepare to 22 23 Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization, 192. Tigay, Deuteronomy, xvi. 11 obey God’s instructions inside the land, then later generations can do that as well. From the exilic perspective, Israel can exist outside of the land while longing to be back within the land because of Deuteronomy’s way of constructing a memory. All of this points up the fact that later generations are disallowed the opportunity of saying “these commands don’t apply to me.” Not only does Deuteronomy function rhetorically to transmit personal memory to later generations but the teachings of Moses are made relevant no matter where later Israelites find themselves. 7. Teaching The Next Generation: Moses as National Exemplar Another key feature of Deuteronomy that is meant to reinforce and transmit Israel’s cultural memory is the use of Moses as the exemplar of teaching. This is hinted at in 1:5 where the entire book of Deuteronomy is framed as an explanation of the law for Israel. But this is given further texture through the use of ‫( למד‬to teach) in Deuteronomy. In so doing, the reader sees clearly that the teaching of Moses is meant to be imitated by Israel. Furthermore, the content of Moses’ teaching comes from Yhwh to Israel. As a result, when Israel imitates the teaching of Moses, Israel will be transmitting the divine instruction. The use of ‫ למד‬begins in 4:1. ‫ועתה ישראל שמע אל־החקים ואל־המשפטים אשר אנכי מלמד אתכם לעשות‬ So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe The content of this teaching is the ‫ חקים‬and the ‫“( משפטים‬statutes and ordinances”)24 and the instruction always comes from God through Moses to Israel. The divine source of this teaching is made clear in 4:5: ‫ומשפטים כאשר צוני יהוה אלהי‬ See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances This is also clear in 4:14: ‫ואתי צוה יהוה בעת ההוא ללמד אתכם חקים ומשפטים‬ And the Lord charged me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances But this is most clearly shown in 5:30–31 where Moses clearly acts as a mediator between God and Israel. ‫לך אמר להם שובו לכם לאהליכם׃‬ ‫ואתה פה עמד עמדי ואדברה אליך את כל־המצוה והחקים והמשפטים אשר תלמדם ועשו בארץ אשר אנכי נתן‬ ‫להם לרשתה׃‬ “Go say to them, ‘Return to your tents.’ 24 Several commentators have noted the frequent usage of these terms in conjunction in Deuteronomy. See esp., Jack R. Lundbom, Deuteronomy: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 234–235, who catalogues well the various combinations of the dt. terms. Most scholars have seen the ‫ חקים‬and the ‫( משפטים‬and similar formulae) as set idioms acting as rhetorical signals of textual structuring. See, Perlitt, Deuteronomium, 303. Accordingly, “Moses’ speeches in Deuteronomy, in particular, develop their line of argument according to a rhetorical progression, with characteristic stages and turning points.” Jean-Pierre Sonnet, The Book within the Book: Writing in Deuteronomy (BIS 14; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), 15. Others have seen these terms as a special exilic term for all of the legal instruction of Moses in Deuteronomy 5–26. See Georg Braulik, “Die Ausdrücke für ‘Gesetz’ im Buch Deuteronomium,” Bib 51 (1970), 53. 12 But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you all the commandments, the statutes and the ordinances, that you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.” In all of these texts, it is clear that Moses is receiving from Yhwh what he is to teach to Israel. Israel is to respond to this instruction by obeying them. Additionally, the commands make clear that Israel is also meant to teach to their children what they receive from Moses. See, for example, 11:18–19: ‫ושמתם את־דברי אלה על־לבבכם ועל־נפשכם וקשרתם אתם לאות על־ידכם והיו לטוטפת בין עיניכם׃‬ ‫ולמדתם אתם את־בניכם לדבר בם בשבתך בביתך ובלכתך בדרך ובשכבך ובקומך׃‬ You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. The words of God to Israel that come through Moses are meant to enter the heart of Israel. Israel is then to imitate Moses and teach his instructions to their children. This is perpetuated through the canonization of Deuteronomy which preserves Moses’ words, his example of teaching, and his command to teach the next generation. Through this pattern of learning from Moses and teaching the next generation, Moses remains the national teacher in perpetuity. 8. Covenant Renewal: Establishing The Expectation of Perpetuation Remembering in Deuteronomy is also accomplished through the regular act of covenant renewal. This is accomplished through two interrelated means, namely the regular, public reading of Deuteronomy (31:9–13) (which is a covenant renewal text) together with the regular use of “today” throughout the book. Together this literary usage and literary feature make Deuteronomy ever relevant to each generation of Israel. However, one possible challenge to this idea is the fact that Deuteronomy seems to present itself as a new covenant. The issue is this: if every generation of Israel is able to receive a transmitted memory of the Horeb experience, then why does Moses make a new covenant? One possible explanation is that Deuteronomy is similar to other ANE treaties (such as that between Mursˇili II and Duppi-Tessub) that required new treaties to be drafted and ratified when new rulers ascended the throne. If this is true then perhaps Deuteronomy is a new covenant preparing for the leader elect Joshua, in which case the Moab covenant functions as the most recent treaty document ratified between Yhwh and Israel. One of the central texts for this discussion is Deut 28:69 (Heb.), which states, ‫אלה דברי הברית אשר־צוה יהוה את־משה לכרת את־בני ישראל בארץ מואב מלבד הברית אשר־כרת אתם‬ ‫בחרב׃‬ These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb. According to this verse, Moses mediates a covenant between Israel and Yhwh that is distinct from the covenant that Yhwh made with Israel at Horeb (mentioned in Deut 4:13; 5:3; and elsewhere). But to what is this verse referencing? Is it a superscript introducing Deut 29:1–30:20 or is it a subscript concluding the terms of the covenant presented in Deut 4:44–28:68? This is not an easy issue, and over 13 the years scholars have argued for both positions,25 but I agree with the growing consensus: “In the final form of Deuteronomy this verse looks both ways, referring to previous material and summarizing it, while simultaneously pointing forward and initiating what follows.”26 As a summary of what comes before, this verse points up the fact that the actual content of this “new” covenant sealed in Moab is virtually identical to the original covenant sealed at Horeb.27 As a heading for what follows, this verse introduces the “ritual of covenant making, reflected (although not actually described) in chapters 29–30.”28 This has recently been supported by Markl’s study of Deuteronomy’s closing frame in which he argues that Deut 29:28 (Heb.) is Israel’s scripted response in the covenant-making ceremony.29 In other words, Deuteronomy 29–30 is a call-and-response ritual text. Most likely, therefore, Deuteronomy is a covenant renewal text rather than an entirely new covenant intended to replace or supplement the covenant ratified at Horeb. Not only is this the depiction of its use for the wilderness generation but is also intended for that use on a regular basis— at least that is a common understanding of the reading of “this law” in Deut 31:9–12. According to this view, Deut 31:11 makes reference to “this law” as a deliberate reference to “this law” of Deut 1:530 and to the command to “hear, learn, and do” in Deut 5:1.31 But perhaps the most compelling reason for taking Deuteronomy as a covenant renewal ceremony is the parallel between Deut 31:12 and 4:10.32 In both cases the people are gathered (to Horeb in 4:10 and to Moses in 31:12) so that they and their children might “hear,” “learn,” and “fear” the Lord all of their days. The result is that Deuteronomy becomes “Moses’ conveying in Moab the ‘words’ he received at Horeb.”33 The Moab Covenant is necessitated by the death of the previous generation34 and the impending death of Moses;35 the repeated, ritualized reading of Deuteronomy on a septennial basis, therefore, becomes the means by which the Horeb 25 The most recent review of the positions is presented by Eckart Otto, Deuteronomium (4 vols; HTKAT; Freiburg: Herder, 2012–2017), 1,983–1,984. See also Norbert Lohfink, Studien zum Deuteronomium und zur deuteronomistischen Literatur III (SBAB 20; Katholisches Bibelwerk: Stuttgart, 1995), 279–291. 26 Richard D. Nelson, Deuteronomy: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 339. See also Otto, Deuteronomium, 1,984. 27 Tigay, Deuteronomy, 274. 28 Nelson, Deuteronomy, 339. 29 Dominik Markl, Gottes Volk im Deuteronomium (BZAR 18; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012), 104–107. This declaration of self-obligation is reminiscent of EST §57. 30 S. R. Driver, Deuteronomy (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1902), 335–336. 31 Nelson, Deuteronomy, 359; Otto, Deuteronomium, 2,117; Karin Finsterbusch, Weisung für Israel: Studien zu religiösen Lehren und Lernen im Deuteronomium und in seinem Umfeld (FAT 44; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 291. 32 Jean-Pierre Sonnet, The Book within the Book: Writing in Deuteronomy (BIS 14; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), 142–144. 33 Sonnet, The Book within the Book, 144 (emphasis original). 34 Markl, Gottes Volk, 123–125. 35 Similarly, within the narrative context of the book of Joshua, it is the impending death of Moses’s successor Joshua that creates the occasion for the covenant ceremony in Joshua 24. 14 experience is passed on to the next generation. This is why, as many interpreters have pointed out, “the covenants of Horeb and Moab are virtually identical.”36 With time this septennial reading of Deuteronomy will become merged with then annual festival of Shavuot.37 This regular reading of Deuteronomy, which is commanded in 31:9–13, is particularly effective because of the peculiar use of “today,” which occurs 27 times in the book. An example of this is found in Deut 8:1: ‫כל־המצוה אשר אנכי מצוך היום תשמרון לעשות למען תחיון ורביתם ובאתם וירשתם את־הארץ אשר־נשבע‬ ‫יהוה לאבתיכם‬ This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. From the perspective of the Moab generation, this use of today is understandable. However, what is of particular interest is that this perspective of “today” does not fit the lived experience of later generations, except from a liturgical perspective. This has led many scholars to see the significance of this word as a “liturgical device which wipes away time and permits Israel to identify itself with the ancestors who entered into the covenant at Horeb (and again at Moab).38 The same word—“today”— therefore, can refer to the day of Moses’s speech in Moab (according to the world of the text) as well as to the day of the covenant renewal at a later festival. In either situation, the regular reading of Deuteronomy together with the use of “today” calls future generations of Israel to recommit themselves to Yhwh.39 They establish Deuteronomy as a text with an enduring relevance. Each generation can say along with Moses, “Not with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today” (5:3). 9. Conclusion 36 Tigay, Deuteronomy, 274. See also Driver, Deuteronomy, 319; Nelson, Deuteronomy, 339; Gerhard von Rad, Deuteronomy: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM, 1966), 178–179; and J. G. McConville, Deuteronomy (AOTC 5. Leicester: Apollos, 2002), 409. 37 For a longer discussion of the relationship between Deuteronomy’s covenant renewal and Shavuot, see Campbell, Remembering the Unexperienced, 227–236. This is in addition to the twice-daily covenant renewal that the Rabbis envisaged when they exhorted Jews to recite the prayer known as the Shma upon rising in the morning and before retiring for the night. The prayer itself is comprised of Deut 6:4–9 (followed by the words, “Blessed be the name of his glorious kingship forever and ever”), Deut 11:13–21, and Num 15:37–41. For the Rabbis, “the Shma is the way of actualizing the moment at Sinai when Israel answered the divine offer of covenant with the words ‘All that YHWH has spoken we will do;’” Levenson, Sinai and Zion, 85. For further discussion of the place of the Shma within Jewish liturgy, see idem, Sinai and Zion, 82–86. 38 Timothy A. Lenchak, “Choose Life!” A Rhetorical-Critical Investigation of Deuteronomy 28,69–30,20 (AnBib 129; Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1993), 19. 39 For a more thorough treatment of “today” in Deuteronomy, see Markl, Gottes Volk, 70–79 and S.J. DeVries, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Time and History in the Old Testament (London: SPCK, 1975), 164–187 and 252–277. 15 As this collection of essays bears witness, Deuteronomy contains a rich tapestry of themes, and the scientific research of this biblical text has many contributors working on very important topics. Volumes like this play an important role in collating these voices to help biblical scholars easily grasp the currents of Deuteronomy research. In Deuteronomy, for example, there has been no shortage of integrational approaches that have sought insights from other fields, especially social studies. This particular essay set out to outline textual observations that result from a study of Deuteronomy as Scripture that is incorporated with insights from cultural memory studies. In so doing, I identified for the reader eight features of Deuteronomy’s rhetoric that help establish and transmit a cultural memory across generations. Given time and space, this number could have been expanded still further, but these were selected because they are the most apparent. On the level of Deuteronomy, the sum of these rhetorical observations is greater than the constituent parts. All of these devices work together to create a text that is always relevant for communities of faith. No matter how far removed an individual is from the events behind the text, each generation can inherit and transmit the collective identity of the people of God through the personalizing effect of these literary devices. In this way, each generation is able to say, “It was not with our fathers that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, we ourselves, who are all of us here alive today” (5:3; AT). Bibliography Adamiak, Richard. Justice and History in the Old Testament: The Evolution of Divine Retribution in the Historiographies of the Wilderness Generation. Cleveland: John T. Zubal, 1982. Allen, Leslie C. Ezekiel 1–19. WBC 28. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994. Arnold, Bill T. The Book of Deuteronomy Chapters 1–11. NICOT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2023. — “Reexamining the ‘Fathers’ in Deuteronomy’s Framework.” Pages 10–41 in Torah and Tradition: Papers Read at the Sixteenth Joint Meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and the Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap, Edinburgh 2015. OtSt 70. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2017. Assmann, Jan. Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge, 2011. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Isaiah 1–39. AB 19. New York: Doubleday, 2000. Biberger, Bernd. Unsere Väter und wir: Unterteilung von Geschichtsdarstellungen in Generationen und das Verhältnis der Generationen im Alten Testament. BBB 145. Berlin: Philo, 2003. Braulik, Georg. “Die Ausdrücke für ‘Gesetz’ im Buch Deuteronomium.” Bib 51 (1970): 39–66. Buber, Martin. Moses (London: East & West Library, 1946. Campbell, Stephen D. Remembering the Unexperienced: Cultural Memory, Canon Consciousness, and the Book of Deuteronomy. BBB 191. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021. Childs, Brevard S. The Book of Exodus, A Critical, Theological Commentary. OTL. Bloomsbury: SCM, 1974. — Isaiah. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001. Cooke, George A. The Book of Ezekiel. ICC. T&T Clark: Edinburgh, 1936. Culp, A. J. Memoir of Moses: The Literary Creation of Covenantal Memory in Deuteronomy. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019. DeVries, S. J. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Time and History in the Old Testament. 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