If I Forget You, Jerusalem! - Studies on the Old Testament - Niels Peter Lemche

If I Forget You, Jerusalem! - Studies on the Old Testament - Niels Peter Lemche

11. On Historical Memory in the Historiography of the Old Testament

If I Forget You, Jerusalem! - Studies on the Old Testament - Niels Peter Lemche

Niels Peter Lemche [+-]
University of Copenhagen
Niels Peter Lemche, has been publishing in the field of Old Testament studies for fifty years. He has been both Assistant Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, from 1978 to 1986 and Professor of Theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1987 to 2013. He is the founder of the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, and a member of the board of the Copenhagen International Seminar (Routledge). He has recently edited (in co-operation with Dr. Jim West) Jeremiah in History and Tradition (Routledge, 2019).

Description

In Homer the probably only reference that points at something left over from the Mycenean world is the wild boar helmet in the home of Meriones (Iliad X, 260–271 ). Otherwise the Homeric epic is made up of sundry fragments and small stories joined together without any regard for the historical background. In Old Testament historical research the scholars have tried to distinguish between primary and secondary sources in the best historical-critical tradition. But without much success. Although here and there we are confronted with historical information (e.g. Tiglatpileser III’s reaarangements in western Syrie in around 730 BCE, and Sennacherib’s attack on Jerusalem in 701 BCE), the biblical narrative is quite useless as a historical source of the past. The narrative is obviously constructed by its authors from bits and pieces with their own prehistory.

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Citation

Lemche, Niels Peter. 11. On Historical Memory in the Historiography of the Old Testament. If I Forget You, Jerusalem! - Studies on the Old Testament. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 158-176 Aug 2024. ISBN 9781800504363. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=44802. Date accessed: 13 Oct 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.44802. Aug 2024

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