Memory and Reflection: Jacob's Story

Adriane B. Leveen

An inquiry into the Biblical view of memory focuses on the narratives concerning Jacob. This paper looks at two types of memorypersonal and collective. Both are delineated through the character of Jacob/Israel. As an individual Jacob reflects repeatedly on his past. As Israel, he comes to constitute and represent the nation s memory of its beginnings. I conclude that memory is one of the chief means of characterization available to the narrative. Another conclusion of this inquiry reveals the extent to which place in the Jacob narrative anchors memory for both Jacob and the reader. While Jacob repeatedly marks the sites of his physical encounters with God, his pauses in movement transform arbitrary stops along the way into significant places that come to be memorialized by the larger collective.

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