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The Bible as a book of memory

Summary: This article aims to explore some specific features of biblical memory through an analysis, which focuses on texts of the Hebrew Bible, particularly from the Book of Deuteronomy. Biblical memory is selective in that its remembrance of past sufferings and slavery is motivated not by a hatred of the oppressor but by gratefulness towards God as liberator and savior. All the laws and the commandments of the Torah, such as Sabbath rest, the sabbatical year or the treatment of the alien and the poor, are motivated by this grateful remembrance of deliverance from oppression into freedom. These laws are intended to ensure the lasting effects of freedom and to give expression to its effects on the liturgical as well as on the social level of community life. Biblical memory is creative and constructive. It helped the community to preserve its own identity and survive at the most critical points, when its very existence was at stake.