RBL 01/2006 Kirk, Alan, and Tom Thatcher, eds. Semeia Studies 52. Thomas J. Kraus Hilpoltstein, Federal Republic of Germany D-91161

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RBL 01/2006 Kirk, Alan, and Tom Thatcher, eds. Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity Semeia Studies 52 Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature; Leiden: Brill, 2005. Pp.

1 RBL 01/2006 Kirk, Alan, and Tom Thatcher, eds. Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity Semeia Studies 52 Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature; Leiden: Brill, Pp. ix Paper/cloth. $38.95/$ ISBN / Thomas J. Kraus Hilpoltstein, Federal Republic of Germany D Today specific theories of social and cultural memory provide essential tools to assess the textual products of communities and individuals and the ways they reconstruct and commemorate their pasts. They do this by shedding light on shared experiences and current social realities and, at the same time, by attempting to circumscribe the reasons and origins of the prerequisites for the formation of memory at all. Basically, this is what the introductory essay on social and cultural memory, the eleven studies, and the two responses in this volume of collected essays is all about. To be more precise, scholars apply such theories to examine the beginnings of Christianity and its literature, to reflect upon its oral tradition and historical Jesus questions. That is why the subtitle is more concise here, Uses of the Past in Early Christianity. Moreover, what we have today, for instance, as the written Gospels is to be linked to memory dynamics and the mnemonic activities, to mention only two areas. Alan Kirk, Associate Professor of Religion at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Tom Thatcher, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Cincinnati Christian University, bring together specialists in the field who present various and varied approaches to memory theories in general and at the same time offer their applications to specific biblical stories and topoi in particular. The topic and the manner of discussion fit well within the scope of Semeia Studies, published by the Society of Biblical Literature.

2 Without doubt, the area of research and the perspectives presented here do not turn the book into an easy read. On the contrary, memory theories, above all focusing on social and cultural aspects, are abstract and complex, often theoretical at first glance before being appreciated through the help of examples or test cases. Thus, one of the editors, Alan Kirk, assists readers by offering a meticulous introduction to Social and Cultural Memory (1 24). Not only is the narrative style and the accuracy of phrasing of this essay one, if not the, highlight of the volume, but readers are given a comprehensible introduction to memory theories and the main protagonists and their theses. This is a fine report of research, whose author never loses sight of the aim and purpose of the broader context in which this report is set. Of course, such an account could fill the book on its own, but Kirk restricts himself to what his readers need to know, and he refrains from presenting incidental information and seeking to be comprehensive. This essay could have been published independently and still be rewarding. Furthermore it serves as a foundation for the eleven papers and two responses that follow. Near the end Kirk briefly introduces the contributors and their studies before finally expressing his hope that readers may realize what the contributors to this volume are convinced of: the return of memory to New Testament and Christian origin scholarship as a serious analytical category will have consequences that will reverberate throughout the discipline (24). What an application of memory theory to the New Testament in general may look like is offered by the two editors in a joint essay title Jesus Tradition as Social Memory (25 42). Here Kirk and Thatcher describe the more than fifty years in which theorists have been exploring the social dimensions of both the nature and transmission of memory (25), referring to scholars such as Ernst Käsemann, Norman Perrin, William Wrede, K. L. Schmidt, Rudolf Bultmann, and Martin Dibelius as well as to current scholars such as Birger Gerhardsson, Burton L. Mack, John Dominic Crossan, and Jens Schröter. Kirk and Thatcher identify seven points of intersection of social memory theory and Christian origins (40): (1) memory as an analytical category; (2) tradition formation and transformation; (3) oral tradition as cultural memory; (4) written Gospels as commemorative artifacts; (5) early Christian commemoration; (6) normative memory; (6) and continuity and change in early Christianity. The task of the volume is to show how or if these points intertwine and help to paint a more realistic as well as poignant picture of, for example, the historical Jesus, the Gospels, and early Christianity. This leads to Barry Schwartz s Christian Origins: Historical Truth and Social Memory (43 56). Generally speaking, the problem could also be to define historical truth as a category or, to be more precise, to circumscribe what turns, for instance, an oral tradition written down into something to be regarded as historically true. Schwartz, however, correctly avoids long-winded definitions and, after presenting the beginnings of social memory theories, refers to the basic assumption that a communication situation between

3 the (Gospels) creators and their recipients, who might have had direct contact via a textual tradition, is also dependent on two vehicles: a cultural object conveyed and the social world in which they are embedded. Principally, we today do not have any choice other than to rely on the witnesses of the Gospels. Nonetheless, we must reckon that [w]itnesses usually get something wrong, but [s]ocial memory is preserved by witnesses, and the content of the tradition they convey is more than a mere reflection of their needs and troubles (55). Our task is to get into touch with the thought world of his [the native s point of view] community, by reconstructing the context in which its members wrote, spoke, and listened. Richard A. Horsley, writing about Prominent Patterns in the Social Memory of Jesus and Friends (57 78), gives an account of the different views of Jesus memory, which alternate between two poles: Jesus had little or no memory and More conservative scholars leave Jesus memory seemingly intact (78). He justifies why and how (study of) social memory is useful for approach to Jesus and Jesus-movements (67) and tackles the question How do we gain access to the social memory of Jesus people? (70) before he presents his concept of the social memory of Jesus, which he sees as being built on Israelite social memory (72 78). Roughly speaking, Tom Thatcher s Why John Wrote a Gospel: Memory and History in an Early Christian Community (79 97) can serve as an exemplification of the theoretical framework set by the previous studies. His subheadings alone demonstrate what Thatcher is after in order to focus the spotlight on the Fourth Gospel and memory ( The Fourth Gospel as Archive ; John s Memory of Jesus ; Writing as Rhetoric ; The Past in Memory ; The Past in History Books ; Why John Wrote a Gospel ). Above all, Thatcher s reflections on the general and primary problem of what kind of memory and what extent of reliability is preserved in history books, as well as what he sees in the Gospel of John, is intriguing and provoking at the same time. A smaller textual unit is at stake in Holly Hearon s The Story of the Woman Who Anointed Jesus as Social Memory: A Methodological Proposal for the Study of Tradition as Memory (99 118). Quite interesting is her fresh analysis of the pericope, which she examines as Gospel narrative and social memory (106 17). In the end, Hearon rightly claims that [n]o method has yet provided the key for uncovering all we would like to know about the pre-gospel period and social memory theory calls attention to weaknesses inherent in some of our efforts (117). Helpfully, one essay, Arthur J. Dewey s The Locus for Death: Social Memory and the Passion Narratives (119 28), focuses on the passion narratives and another Georgia Masters Keightley, Christian Collective Memory and Paul s Knowledge of Jesus (129

4 50) on Paul, before attention is drawn to Heb 11, a text of defined limits, by Philip F. Esler in his Collective Memory and Hebrews 11: Outlining a New Investigative Framework (151 71). Here Esler points out that group identity is associated with collective memory and that Heb 11 can serve as a model text to focus on collective memory, social identity, and time (161 64). Gender becomes significant in Antoinette Clark Wire s Early Jewish Birth Prophecy Stories and Women s Social Memory (173 89). She intends to illustrate what the general theory contributes to more focused research and asks if these birth prophecy stories limit us to speaking strictly of their separate functions for distinct social groups, or if such telling can be said to have mobilized a general confidence in past liberations prophesied at birth, which would raise the society s expectations of liberators to come (176). Among the stories she tackles is one about Elijah from Lives of the Prophets 21, Moses birth prophecy from Pseudo-Philo s Liber antiquitatum biblicarum 9.10, and Simeon in Luke 2:29 32, to mention only a few. The texts chosen exemplify and prove at the same time that a kind of family tradition must have existed, in which accuracy in detail is not as much the point as the credibility of the speaker, and of the God in whose name the prediction is spoken (189). Moreover, the prophecies that have survived matter because they have been fulfilled in real time, or are expected to be fulfilled so as to change the life of a violated people. Violence and how it is commemorated is the topic of Alan Kirk s The Memory of Violence and the Death of Jesus in Q ( ), first drawing on the massacres of Wounded Knee and of the Hutu in Burundi in order to illustrate the relevance and significance of memorizing violence. Then Kirk deals with killed prophets and martyrs in Q ( ) before focusing on Jesus death and finally arguing that Q should be regarded as a commemorative artifact (204). April D. DeConick presents a reading of the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas ( Reading the Gospel of Thomas as a Repository of Early Christian Communal Memory [207 20]) extracted from her Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas: A History of the Gospel and Its Growth (London: T&T Clark, 2005). Once more the issue of retrospective reconstructions of the past (207) is addressed, something interpreters should be more aware of when judging and explaining texts from the past. DeConick poses several questions the community behind this apocryphal text might have asked as a means of reflecting upon the community itself. She rejects the concept of a philosophical Jesus and argues that the earliest version of the Gospel of Thomas looks to have been an apocalyptic speech Gospel emphasizing the imminent eschaton and its demands (220).

5 In the first of two responses, Werner H. Kelber ( The Works of Memory: Christian Origins as MnemoHistory A Response [221 48]) not only provides an account of theories in the field but addresses them critically, among them also the previous studies in the volume. Barry Schwartz then deals with Jesus in First-Century Memory (249 61), offering praise that Alan Kirk, Tom Thatcher, and their colleagues have given the field of biblical studies its first systematic statement on social memory (260) and supporting this and further initiatives to develop and soundly establish social memory theories in order to take the collective memory of early Christianity (261) more seriously. A bibliography titled Works Consulted (263 79) and a list of abbreviations (vii ix) may help the readers find their way to further reading and texts cited. The last two pages supply information on the contributors. The volume lacks any indices. Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher are to be thanked for the initiative taken to bring together scholars who work on memory theories and how to apply them to biblical and nonbiblical texts in order to reconstruct early Christianity in a more appropriate way. Although the abstract area of research inevitably presents a complex language and style, the readers are rewarded by the sound and concise conclusions drawn and the insights offered. Of course, the topic and the academic style require that one be previously informed in the area or a scholar working on early Christianity, biblical and associated texts, and the interpretation of historical texts linked with their transmission, reception, and reliability. Thus, it is to be hoped that this volume will be received as a great leap forward for assessing early Christian (and other) texts in and outside the Bible and that it will motivate scholars to rethink the assumptions they hold and the interpretations they convey to others.

BNT600: Issues in New Testament Criticism. Spring 2009, M 12:30-3:10 O: grad. credits

BNT600: Issues in New Testament Criticism Cincinnati Bible Seminary Tom Thatcher Spring 2009, M 12:30-3:10 O: 244-8172 3 grad. credits tom.thatcher@ccuniversity.edu RATIONALE Christian preaching, teaching,