IDENTITY, MEMORY AND SCRIPTURAL WARRANT: ARGUING PAUL'S CASE

Reading texts and their (layered) narratives as memory underlines that remembering the self is not about the restoration of some original. It is rather a matter of remembering, of putting past and present selves together, moment by moment, in a process of provisional (re)construction. Cultural memory feeds into the construal and maintenance of social identity. Interactive anamneutic and identity negotiation processes are also at work in the Pauline letters, shedding light both on Paul's use of the Scriptures and how he sought to foster a particular identity in communities: his use of scriptural warrant to foster a specific identity through memory-and forgetting-is briefly illustrated in a few selected Pauline passages.