Deuteronomy and the Material Transmission of Tradition

Download or read book Deuteronomy and the Material Transmission of Tradition written by Mark Lester and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-03-04 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deuteronomy and the inscribed texts depicted within it are often called “books.” Moreover, its treatment of writing has earned it a prominent place in historical accounts of the religion of ancient Israel and Judah. Neither Deuteronomy nor its text-artifacts, however, are books in any conventional sense of the term. This interdisciplinary study reorients the analysis of Deuteronomic textuality around the materiality, visuality, and rhetoric of ancient rather than modern media. It argues that the Deuteronomic composition adapts the media aesthetics of ancient treaty tablets and monumental inscriptions to a story that is itself transformed into an artifact of the past.