Where History Lies

History is both everywhere and nowhere. It is omnipresent in the sense that time creates a past, a reality (often in the form of decay) for all things as the earth rotates around the sun. This ever-present reality of history cultivates a sense of its enduring relevance and thus encourages the observation of patterns, even if the nature of those patterns is difficult to discern. In this fashion, Mark Twain once pithily opined that “history never repeats itself, but the kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legend.”1 That sense of familiar circumstances and responses in different places and eras to history invites the idea of comparison: How do societies and cultures reflect on the notion of the past? Such reconstruction of the “broken fragments of antique legend” involves not only perceptions of how history functions but also the relationship among origins, the past, and the construction of identity in the present. Perhaps one of the best-known such origin stories is found in the Bible in Genesis 1, and scholars have long noticed the repeating schemes of creation beginning with this chapter, followed by ensuing re-creation throughout many parts of the rest of biblical history.2 In this sense, origin stories such as Genesis 1 guide how people understand their place both in history and, given regular recitations of such mythic origin stories, throughout time in a number of subsequent contexts. The “kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present” meet with, if not merge with, “the broken fragments of antique legend.”Yet history is also nowhere, or at least it is difficult to find it overtly in the sense of the hidden modes, assumptions, and values regarding how writers of the past couch the concept of history. Again, Twain aptly summarized the condition when he stated that “the very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”3 The task of making such prejudice explicit has occupied scholarship not only for the purposes of correcting poorly written histories but also for understanding the nature of writing about the past itself. At the heart of this special issue of English Language Notes is an attempt to trace, in different periods and across global geographies, just how history writing, or historiography, has functioned. In taking such a wide lens on the varieties of history, common denominators emerge regarding the power of history not only to imagine the past but also to construct a number of political presents. Even as each essay is authored by experts in their specific disciplines, thereby involving the distinct manifestation of how history operates in particular places and eras, each contribution highlights the usability and instrumentality of the past for the creation of the identity of the present toward a variety of political ends.Thus how we think about the past and the stories we tell about it shape our individual and collective imagination.4 The political present often frames the past, how it is understood and how it is used. A recent example entails curricular reforms in various states in America. Over the past few years, public school districts have advocated for the placement of biblical law, mostly the Ten Commandments, in classrooms.5 The rationale is often twofold: first as a general claim about the country’s past, that the Bible and the religious systems connected to it have a profound historical connection to the founding of America; second as a more specific, enduring, and prescriptive argument, that within this stream of influence on American society, the constitutional and legal norms that have produced a lasting, flourishing, and purportedly equitable society were founded on biblical law.6 The developers of such legislation may be acting on sincerely held beliefs; however, two major issues with this line of logic reveal how instrumental this presentation of biblical history is.First, scholars within the realm of biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies have, over the past sixty years, determined that legal collections, such as those in the Bible, were not practiced law, at least not in the sense of having unqualified authority and narrowly defined norms.7 Ancient rabbis knew of the impracticalities of enforcing some biblical statutes, such as Deuteronomy 21:18–21, in which a drunken and rebellious son was taken by parents to the city elders and stoned to death.8 This short case sparks a number of questions: What constitutes drunk? What constitutes rebellious? And who would have sons left if this were practiced? Even the nature of the Ten Commandments has been identified as not practiced; rather, the Hebrew word often translated as “test” in Exodus 20:20 (as though these are laws to test their fidelity to the divine) has been argued rather to mean “to give an experience.”9 In other words, the Ten Commandments offer the Israelites the experience of seeing Moses speak face-to-face with God, as a vouching of his prophetic status and the divine backing of any other utterances he might give, though the Ten Commandments themselves are not those laws.10The use and abuse of biblical law in America thus highlights one of the great historical errors in the study of the Bible: the confusion of genre.11 The details of “dos” and “don’ts” in English translations of the biblical texts, particularly as the Bible is packaged in a codex (an invention of writing that appeared around a millennium after the biblical texts began to be written), may look like laws and statutes that we identify as practicable. Yet studies over the past decades have revealed how the biblical laws participate in genres from ancient Mesopotamia typically labelled “codes” (such as the Code of Hammurabi). Archaeologically and literarily it has been argued that such legal collections (a more accurate term than code) that look like the biblical texts were not practiced or, again, at least not in the narrow terms that modern cultural figureheads appeal to when attempting to implement biblical law in modern society.12 The Code of Hammurabi, although famous not only as often-required reading in modern world history high school classes but also as one of the most copied texts in scribal curricula in the ancient world, was largely inaccessible: It was placed in an area of the temple where very few could access it, and only 5 percent or so of the population could even read. Hammurabi himself rarely consulted it and, in fact, contradicted it.13 Though it was erected at the end of his reign, it clearly was not a vision of practiced law, but rather a literary vision of royalty, justice, and society, engaging with other literary forebears (such as the Laws of Eshnunna).14 The occlusion of consideration of the history of genre, however foreign to modern readers, can facilitate the instrumental use of the Bible and its history in modern culture.15 It is not only the histories we write and tell but also the histories we do not carefully interrogate or even omit altogether that lend our pasts to instrumentalized enterprises.16Second, though America’s foundational principles and legal systems were suffused with general Christian convictions, it is not evident that they relied directly on the Bible. Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence has been lauded as one of the great modern examples of an Epicurean manifesto, lacking any notice of Christian theology.17 Thomas Ricks has argued that the initial decades of the founding of America involved a demographic with the fewest number of clergy per capita than at any other time in national history.18 Yet the religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening of the late eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, during which the number of clergy and church membership increased, has been anachronistically attributed decades earlier to the framers’ mindset. As another datum, though controversial, article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 states that “the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”19 Many at the time objected to the phrasing, and though there are historical complexities around its framing, it nonetheless passed as part of American statecraft.20 Naturally, the distinction between federal and state legislation, national and local religious sentiments, is a vital one. Though the First Amendment prevented Congress from establishing any official religion, the states were free, by design, to do so, and they often enacted such legislation.21The point of this discussion for the topic under examination in this issue is the manner in which instrumental history often relies on losing, forgetting, or ignoring complexity. Selectivity is by nature how history is written. No history, or no well-written history, is a simple compilation of facts and dates aimed at local and national comprehensiveness. Rather, we craft history the way we craft stories, which involves determining which lenses, foci, sample sets, and fragments to include as well as which theories guide our selection of data and narrative structures. The question is how self-aware we are when crafting, selecting, and being transparent (and open to correction) in such narratives.The way in which research on the past, as exemplified in scholarship on the Bible, entails creating narratives from often fragmentary evidence and fragmented methodological training highlights just how complicated a task it can be to do historical research on even one of the most ubiquitous books of all time. As Mahri Leonard-Fleckman indicates in this volume, the risks of not having self-awareness regarding of the biblical texts the to those who would and use it for political and other the and of the involved in the study of the Bible, Leonard-Fleckman also for a that for of historical for a that is and can include both as well as from in It is this that for research on the Bible to its or at least to be self-aware about its constructed It is also this that cultivates a to to as a of fragmented evidence and as well as an of the when historical of the Bible, and are identified in the of writing history the notion of has a to look at and local of history, and to in they are to and more has the of in writing history and in historical it was of the past or more modern writing history involves as an part of the This is not to that history is about the past to find and those who are those who are out the histories that in biblical studies when the past a of our in history. states that study of the past who the or who was and than how and of were produced and and as well as by and under which which is a vital of the task of understanding history and how it has been In the of divine in history under general principles and narratives of historical historiography, its in and idea that across world In historiography, with the of the more on to the of As to of world history the of their a was nonetheless evident in the of not a with the being or some particularly few particular concept of many concept of was such that his In the of the of many held to the notion of the of history, as the for making a and such in the essay the and of History for translated as the and of History for of history, each of which functions Yet history in the sense any and notion in of a history (as with and to in other the idea that with a history of history and can but to a particular narrative and form can identity as concept of the to which can be and in a way to that rather than this history can and 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particularly those on and in to the The is to historical that with other words, the not on their terms (a historical that can with the at the of the Such is to to the of a one that as a that to imagine history and that creates a the past is not this construct of history in his its two on the one is the and on the other is of and to the status and of which can include both those at the of power and those at the entails the consideration of the of or to the concept that people history. the example of a a the very terms under which some can be History for how in this the it most a is a only if the think they are the other as a term for the construction of the and of history a more profound most are the and of of such a on that can the in which the two of in a particular that can we the of power that some narratives and What this making of history is not the of which can like a rather, and has also out is that power is only such to the that it and a as functions as the for power in time and and it can in the of stories about the past as history writing and history this and as in a few in this volume, history is not written by the is the and about the past of the of the present. the to and construct to the (as in the case of the entails an that can also to and the of biblical law in the public as though this were to Leonard-Fleckman states on of this issue that case well regarding the of narratives of in the of is a written from the of an and is not to be from the is a of history, even if and when from a of of and written by the a topic in a manner in essay as well regarding history. the of history as and from in to the school of history such as The not a or of history produced by the but rather a stream of of history as and on in particular over the of the past, the present has been a part of the creation of history, to claim that the is and The of a is with examples of selection regarding how modern (often in periods and a that in in the for in this how the of and texts from ancient societies that were no to their and biblical but were on their a issue for and at How these in the of society that from the to the and to the modern and to be between the and The construction of and literary history in this case was a for the for how scholars themselves and the creation of a of history that with and their in the nineteenth in the the way scholars in the study of ancient particularly of and in particular that of the of these of that were the of for their the for such historical reconstruction in of in and in subsequent of the a sense of as a not during this as a to recent on on scholarship on ancient highlights how the of the on and ignoring major such as who to the of the study of ancient The of and authority scholars to ancient on very and very terms than their not only is the contribution of in the historical reconstruction of ancient in but the very nature of scholarship on religious texts and even more at some part of their in ancient for their 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historical History could be an like never past and not a with its of making in the The of the and the a In a few short in the of from other and the of for with in to the idea that more not have to with an were cultural power that the (and the world that was distinct from it in the of that the an for the of a of when we would no be held to the of the past, of like religion, and the divine realm could be left for The at least from and was one of and The past was the past, it was to even if they are difficult to The in a percent in some with the of which the of the biblical of would have as a to from the The was to be the to open and it government the the of the of after the its and the enduring influence of religion, that a in this that might find in parts of society, to have more of a on the cultural and political on in the and and on the also the of Christian The at a to the of but the is no with in even if the making and of narratives the of the in and the to the of the in public the 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modern or cultural appeal to a past for when they are when such to the past are on and The is not, in each to but rather to the that give shape to history is and we think we are when we to a instrumentality of the past as a topic of study creates the to reflect on distinct and distinct toward a common What is the past? do we about it, and the with the past as an reveal about is such a to the past and a could and as who to and Yet rarely do both and of history to such the to pasts and histories for or the narratives that are and the evidence rarely emerge as self-aware of some writers in history have understood the past as of and also that such histories can be written with to the in the sense of history as and of the past as a of writing, were both parts of the in historiography, as in this Such foundational after the of the of the past with This example the that understanding the of history can It is this very however, that is to it to craft history, and how and under our histories 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which of as ancient in the millennium and with in the nineteenth Mahri Leonard-Fleckman the of history that have determined how the Bible has been in the (and from religious as well as the fragmented nature of the of historical essay thus the ancient with history and with and but in the of to the of in the of and such can regarding how he would his earlier the of scholars in in their research on ancient and the Hebrew Bible. how history is not written by the a long of history from to the modern how history has been and is more the and how the past and the present are given the cultural and political and that with that this as a of the and involved in on how the past is and how it has been across many different a of it is from this that we can do our in of the for writing be to