Group items tagged

Historical criticism attempts to find the world the text is set in and the world the text was written in. Historical criticism wants to know where the text is coming from.

It’s probably useful at this time to notice the intertextuality of the Bible. By this, I mean that the people writing were aware of everything that was written beforehand. This is especially noticeable when New Testament authors quote Old Testament sources. When we come across this in our reading we should take note of how the author echoes his source and how he re-interprets it.

The Old Testament was created in periods of globalization, in the Persian and the Hellenistic-Roman period. The writings is a piece of memory work meant for creation of national or local identity and particularity in a global world, in the 1st millennium b.c.e. In a globalized world, counter-activity is always present, which focuses on the local, small tradition, the particular narrative, which creates its own way of coherence. The notion of "cultural memory" is used both in the humanities and in social science. Cultural memory appears as overwriting (palimpsests) and re-use of material artifacts, such as buildings, monuments, and texts, and of ritual practice. Memorization can be conscious or unconscious, incorporated in the body, and become visible material culture and monuments. The notion of landscape plays a crucial role in memory work, representing a special challenge in the project. People are never alone, but always relate to place, education, nation, family, religious and political groups, and so on. These collectives are the frames that direct people's comprehension of reality. This is the human context from which one also should look upon  memory and remembrance.

The notion of cultural memory is the decisive factor in a society's reconstruction of the past through a number of media. BiCuM investigates how memory is a fundamental instrument in the formation of cultural, religious, ethnic, and national identity in the Old Testament. The research of the Centre demands an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on relevant studies of the Eastern Mediterranean area in Antiquity.