No abstract

The intent of this introduction is to signpost how the various studies of this book unfold. The thread that binds the chapters that follow consists of two questions: what did the biblical scribes know about the past referred to in their narratives? And how did they come to know it? This work responds to these questions by triangulating biblical references with a wider constellation of archaeological evidence unearthed from the era in which the biblical stories are set, thus enabling us to examine the relationship between the past attested by these archaeological remains and that past represented within the biblical writings. What comes to light through this manner of investigation, this study argues, are meaningful details concerning the past knowledge made available to Hebrew scribes through information handed down to them, including insights into the underlying frameworks and modes of knowing that would have made narrating a past in prose writing possible.

In den wenigen Jahren seitdem Ausgrabungen in Khirbet Qeiyafa durchgeführt wurden, haben sich schon einige wichtige Studien mit seiner beeindruckenden Hinterlassenschaft aus der frühen Eisenzeit beschäftigt. Was bislang unberücksichtigt blieb, sind die Folgerungen der Befunde für die Schriftkultur, die für das Bild dieser Periode in der Hebräischen Bibel verantwortlich ist. Die Absicht dieser Studie besteht darin, das literarische Schicksal von Khirbet Qeiyafa mit dem des frühen und späten eisenzeitlichen Jerusalem zu vergleichen und zu ermitteln, was das Nichtvorkommen bzw. Vorkommen dieser Standorte in der Hebräischen Bibel über die Quellen der biblischen Verfasser aussagt, über die sie im 11. und 10. Jh. v. Chr. verfügten. Zugleich wird gefragt, welchen Beitrag Ort und Erinnerung bei der Überlieferung dieser Geschichten im antiken Israel und Juda hatten.In the few short years since excavations were first carried out at Khirbet Qeiyafa a number of important studies have been devoted to its impressive early Iron Age remains. Yet what has not been pursued within these discussions are the implications of the settlement’s material culture for our understanding of the scribal cultures responsible for the portrayal of this time period in the Hebrew Bible. In comparing the literary fate of Khirbet Qeiyafa with that of the contemporaneous site of late Iron I/early Iron IIA Jerusalem, the intent of this study is to examine what the absence and presence of these two sites in the Hebrew Bible indicates about the sources biblical scribes possessed about the 11th–10th centuries BCE, and how place and memory contributed to the transmission of these stories over time in ancient Israel and Judah.Dans les quelques années qui ont suivi les fouilles à Khirbet Qeiyafa, un bon nombre d’études conséquentes ont été consacrées à ses impressionnants vestiges du début de l’âge de Fer. Cependant, ce qui n’a pas été développé dans ces discussions, ce sont les implications de la culture matérielle de ce site pour notre compréhension milieux de scribes responsables de la description de cette période dans la Bible hébraïque. En comparant le destin littéraire de Khirbet Qeiyafa avec celui de Jérusalem, site contemporain de la fin du Fer I et du début du Fer IIA, cette étude cherche à examiner ce que la présence et l’absence de ces deux sites dans la Bible hébraïque indiquent au sujet des sources que les scribes bibliques possédaient sur les 11–10

Memory in a Time of Prose investigates a deceptively straightforward question: what did the biblical scribes know about times previous to their own? To address this question, the following study focuses on matters pertaining to epistemology, or the sources, limits, and conditions of knowing that would have shaped biblical stories told about a past that preceded the composition of these writings by a generation or more. The investigation that unfolds with these interests in mind consists of a series of case studies that compare biblical references to an early Iron Age world (ca. 1175–830 BCE) with a wider constellation of archaeological and historical evidence unearthed from the era in which these stories are set. What this approach affords is the opportunity to examine the relationship between the past disclosed through these historical traces and that past represented within the biblical narrative, thus bringing to light meaningful details concerning the information drawn on by Hebrew scribes for the prose narratives they created. The results of this comparative endeavor are insights into an ancient world of oral, living speech that informed biblical storytelling, where knowledge about the past was elicited more through memory and word of mouth than through a corpus of older narrative documents. For those Hebrew scribes who first set down these stories in prose writing, the means for knowing a past and the significance attached to it were, in short, wed foremost to the faculty of remembrance.

This study examines debates surrounding what evidence, textual or archaeological, deserves priority within matters of historical interpretation as they pertain to the history of ancient Israel. Rather than resolving this debate, however, this investigation problematizes the premises that undergird approaches that accord precedence to one type of evidence over another. Drawing on theories of assemblage, this study concludes with a sketch of how an alternative interpretive framework might be conceived.