Hendel, Cultural Memory in the Hebrew Bible (CUP, temporarily open access)

NEW (BRIEF) BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE ELEMENTS:

Cultural Memory in the Hebrew Bible

Genesis to Kings

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2026

Ronald Hendel

Summary

The relationship between the biblical representations of the past and the history of the second and early first millennia BCE is best comprehended by the concept of cultural memory. This volume investigates the dynamics of cultural memory in the Hebrew Bible, with case studies on the ancestors, the Exodus, the conquest, and Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The texts create a monumental past by a mixture of memory, forgetting, revision, and re-actualization, motivated in various measures by religion, politics, the landscape, ethnic relationships, and cultural self-fashioning. The archaeology of the Levant illuminates the complicated pathways between history and biblical memory.

The whole book is available for free until 1 July. For you, special deal!

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.