Memory Theory: Cultural and Cognitive Approaches to the Gospel Tradition

In the past two decades analytical approaches drawing upon memory theory have made major inroads into the social sciences and the humanities. They have been slow, however, to leave a mark upon New Testament scholarship. Their neglect is especially problematic when it comes to the origins and history of the gospel tradition, arguably the most basic issue in the study of early Christianity and its literature. In what follows we shall see that the phenomenon of the gospel tradition is closely bound up in the cognitive, social, and cultural operations of memory.