Jenna Kemp theorizes the formation of the Bible as a process of cultural memory in which forgetting is central. By examining secondary additions, it situates biblical scribes as figures who mediate the memory of texts. They remember text, add to it, and change how it can be remembered in the future.
Forgetting is central to processes of cultural memory. It allows for synthesis to occur so that »sites of memory« can form and be transported over time. Jenna Kemp conducts three case studies of instances of scribal activity, drawing from theories of cultural memory and intertextuality to theorize the formation of the Bible as a process of cultural memory. As scribes inherit texts, they receive a wide range of potential meanings; they activate and change the texts in ways that change those potentials, eliminating some and unleashing new ones. This process allows the texts to signify in new presents - the texts are remembered - and at the same time, it relies on the forgetting of earlier meanings. From this perspective, forgetting is not necessarily about loss. It is a generative force that makes new meaning possible. Without forgetting there is no memory.
Table of contents:
Introduction1. Cultural Memory
2. Method and Structure
Chapter One: A Theory of Cultural Memory: Memory, Intertextuality, and Agency1. Theorists
2. Literature as a Site of Memory
3. Intertextuality and Agency
4. Remembering and Forgetting
5. Cultural Memory in Biblical Studies
6. The Scribal Turn
Chapter Two: Canon: Intertextuality in Exodus 34:11–171. Allusion as an Act of Remembering
2. Relative Date of Exodus 34:11–26
3. Exodus 34:11–14, 15–16, 17
4. Canon as a Site of Memory
Chapter Three: Isaiah the Seer: Metaphor and Temporality in Isaiah 21. Composition and Structure
2. Old Poem: Isaiah 2:10.12–17*
3. “Revision through Introduction” (and Conclusion)
4. Isaiah the Seer: Temporality between Utterance and Fulfillment
5. Conclusion
Chapter Four: Divine History: Ambiguity and Resolution in 1 Samuel 13–151. Composition History
2. Saul as Yahwist: 1 Samuel 13:2–14:52 Prior to the Insertions
3. Saul Rejected
4. Reading the Composite: Gaps and Ambiguities
5. Conclusion: Divine History as a Site of Memory
Conclusion 
