For more than two decades the key concept for research on the identity constitutive interplay between past and present in socio-cultural contexts is “cultural memory”. So far an extensive connection of this discourse of cultural studies along with the simultaneous discussion about the significance of canon in biblical studies has not taken place. This is even more surprising since the phenomenon »canon« – especially in its literary shape – plays such a major role when it comes down to acquiring signif-icance from the past for the present and drafting blueprints to generate culture and communities of faith and practice.

The session will take a closer look at various constellations of biblical literature and continuation(s) that reveal how collective and cultural identities are shaped by draw-ing on a certain body of text(s). Questions regarding the history of literature should be connected with questions regarding tradition carriers and their impact on commu-nities of faith and practice. Other than the »classical« exegetical approach, this ses-sion does not address genetic reconstructions backwards and forwards (Traditions- and Redaktionsgeschichte) but is focused on a consistent and systematic change of perspective following the cultural turn. The crucial questions are: by which ways and means, with which effects, from whom and for who is the traditional body of biblical literature (as canon in the broadest sense) being realized as meaningful in a certain present and what general mechanisms is canonization subject to?