Full Description
Although the Psalms of Asaph (Pss. 50, 73-83) contain a concentration of historical referents unparalleled in the Psalter, they have rarely attracted sustained historical interest. Karl N. Jacobson identifies these psalms as containing cultic historiography, historical narratives written for recitation in worship, and explores them through mnemohistory, attending to how the past is remembered and to the rhetorical function of recitation in the cultic setting. Jacobson describes mnemohistory at the intersection of memory and history, explores the singularity of the rhetorical and formals aspects of remembrance in the Asaph material, and discusses "residual mnemohistory," material that is not intentionally called to remembrance. Jacobson shows that Asaph "remembers" the past as a movement from henotheism to a more orthodox form of Yahwism as the core memory that informs a new historical situation for worship participants. By describing the "way Asaph remembers," Jacobson highlights symbolic and individualized elements of the psalms' mnemohistorical work that earlier form-critical approaches failed to recognize.
Contents
1. Introduction and History of Interpretation2. Theoretical Considerations: History and Communal Memory3. Mnemohistory and the Asaphite Corpus4. How Asaph Remembers5. Psalm 78: The Heart of What Asaph Remembers6. What Asaph Remembers7. Excursus: Residual Memories in the Asaphite Corpus8. Conclusions: Why Asaph RemembersIndicesBibliography
