The Book of Lamentations: Emotions and Cultural Memory

The destruction of Jerusalem in the sixth century BCE and the subsequent Babylonian exile rank among the most formative experiences in Jewish history. The biblical Book of Lamentations takes up this event and responds to it not only as a historical catastrophe, but as a profoundly emotional experience. The poems give grief, fear, guilt, loneliness, and hope a linguistic form and convey these emotions to later generations. This book examines how emotions are shaped, transmitted, and culturally remembered in the Book of Lamentations. It starts from the observation that emotions in these texts are not merely individual reactions, but part of a shared communal memory. Emotions shape how the past is understood and contribute to the formation and stabilization of collective identity. Lament thus appears as a cultural practice that enables the expression of loss and helps sustain community even in times of profound crisis. The study combines close textual analysis from biblical studies with approaches from cultural studies and the history of emotions. It places the Book of Lamentations within a broader cultural framework by considering both earlier ancient Near Eastern lament traditions and later interpretations in rabbinic Judaism. This makes visible how emotions are remembered, transformed, and reinterpreted over the course of centuries. The book shows that collective remembering is fundamentally shaped by emotions and that emotions themselves are part of cultural memory. In doing so, it contributes to a better understanding of the role of emotions in religion, history, and society, and explains why ancient texts continue to have emotional impact today. Seite 1 von