Cultural memory theory as an interdisciplinary field of research is concerned with the usability of the past for the formation of identity in the present. Theorists argue that cultural memories are only re-appropriated and re-cast as they are found to be useful for contemporary communities facing new and complex circumstances. One medium through which a community’s memories may be reclaimed and reused is literature and, specifically, through the text forming work of intertextuality. By means of intertextuality, literary compositions become sites of memory with the power to form communal identity. The final hymn of the book of Habakkuk, a frequent topic of scholarly debate, demonstrates strong intertextual ties to ancient Near Eastern mythological portraits of nation deities and, as a result, portrays Yahweh as both victor over cosmological forces and national powers.
Cultural memory theory as an interdisciplinary field of research is concerned with the usability of the past for the formation of identity in the present. Theorists argue that cultural memories are only re-appropriated and re-cast as they are found to be useful for contemporary communities facing new and complex circumstances. One medium through which a community’s memories may be reclaimed and reused is literature and, specifically, through the text forming work of intertextuality. By means of intertextuality, literary compositions become sites of memory with the power to form communal identity. The final hymn of the book of Habakkuk, a frequent topic of scholarly debate, demonstrates strong intertextual ties to ancient Near Eastern mythological portraits of nation deities and, as a result, portrays Yahweh as both victor over cosmological forces and national powers. In its present context, the hymn functions as a response to the prophetic lament concerning the Judahites’ ongoing experience of injustice and suffering under the oppressive force of the Babylonians. In this new context, the ancient mythological memory of Yahweh as divine warrior and conqueror of chaos is re-appropriated as an affirmation of faith memorialized through literary composition and ritual recitation. Indeed, Habakkuk’s final hymn, understood as an archaic, poetic composition intertextually tied to ancient Near Eastern mythological texts, may be understood as the re-appropriation of an ancient cultural memory concerning the character of Yahweh that functions to sustain and unify the community in light of present trauma and political turmoil. Such an assessment of Habakkuk’s final hymn, then, sheds new light on a classic form critical concern. That is, when the lens of cultural memory studies is turned on the final hymn of Habakkuk, new insight emerges regarding the Sitz im Leben of the prophetic work.