Collective Memory Distortion and the Quest for the Historical Jesus

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeba A. Crook
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Level Of Detail ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Memory Distortion ◽  
Memory Theory ◽  
Do So

Memory theory is being used, if not explicitly to buttress the reliability of the Gospel portraits of Jesus, to do so implicitly by shifting the search away from the ipsissima verba Jesu towards the memory of Jesus. Rather than argue about what Jesus did or did not say—the reliability wars—some scholars now sidestep the issue by arguing that memory is inherently reliable in a broad or general way. Thus, the Gospels are reliable not at the level of detail, but at the level of broad memory, impact, or gist. In this article I argue that such optimism can only come by selectively quoting the troubling work of memory theorists, and by ignoring the full implications of memory theory.

scholarly journals Matthew, memory theory and the New No Quest

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeba Crook
Keyword(s):  
Gospel Of Matthew ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Memory Distortion ◽  
Memory Theory

This article explores the effects of cognitive and social memory theory on the quest for the historical Jesus. It is not the case that all memory is hopelessly unreliable, but it is the case that it commonly is. Memory distortion is disturbingly common, and much worse, there is no way to distinguish between memories of actual events and memories of invented events. The Gospel of Matthew was used to illustrate this very difficulty. This article also draws attention to the fact that although numerous criteria have been developed, refined and used extensively in order to distinguish between original Jesus material and later church material, those criteria have long been unsatisfactory, and most recently, because of the effects of thinking about memory theory and orality, have been revealed to be bankrupt. Since memory theory shows that people are unable to differentiate accurate memory from inaccurate and wholly invented memory, and since the traditional quest criteria do not accomplish what they were intended to, this article argues that scholarship about Jesus has been forced into a new no quest.

The Problem of Selectivity in Memory Research: A Response to Zeba Crook

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-97
Author(s):  
Anthony Le Donne
Keyword(s):  
Social Memory ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Memory Distortion ◽  
Memory Research ◽  
Memory Theory ◽  
Memory Applications ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study

Zeba Crook argues that there is an emerging consensus that the Gospels are reliable historical narratives by those to have applied ‘memory’ theories to historical Jesus research. Crook argues that this emerging consensus betrays a selective reading of research done on ‘memory distortion’ in interdisciplinary study. This essay demonstrates that Crook misunderstands and misrepresents social memory theory both in and outside Jesus studies. A better understanding would have properly represented the spectrum from theoretical ‘presentism’ to ‘continuitism’ in memory applications/adaptations.

Feasible Researches in Historical Jesus Tradition: A Critical Response to Chris Keith

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-61
Author(s):  
F. Gerald Downing
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Feasible Method ◽  
Memory Theory ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
Historical Tradition

In his programmatic article, ‘The Narratives of the Gospels and the Historical Jesus: Current Debates, Prior Debates, and the Goal of Historical Jesus Research’, Chris Keith argues for a very clear distinction between two styles or types of historiography (Keith 2016). One searches ‘behind’ the gospel texts for ‘authentic’ matter; the other, according to Keith, the only ‘feasible’ method, allowing for ‘memory theory’ in particular, is to discern how ‘the tradition’ developed, and only thence generate theoretical reconstructions of a Jesus who may have originally prompted it. It is argued here that this presents an unsustainable dichotomy, for the historical tradition(s) of the first Christians also themselves ‘lie behind’ our texts, and imaginative searches for both Jesus and Jesus traditions have to proceed hand in hand.

Jesus at the Crossroads of Inference and Imagination

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-89
Author(s):  
Jordan J. Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Social Memory ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Historical Imagination ◽  
Memory Theory ◽  
Methodological Foundation ◽  
Question And Answer

A significant re-evaluation of the historiographical methods and approaches used in historical Jesus research has been underway in recent years. Some scholars have begun to look to social memory theory for a way forward. Although social memory theory provides some valuable insights, a solid methodological foundation is still lacking. The intention of this article is to advance the discussion by drawing attention to R.G. Collingwood’s contributions to the philosophy of history and historiography in The Idea of History (1946). In particular, I will discuss his historiographical principles of inference, evidence, question and answer, historical imagination, along with his critique of ‘scissors-and-paste’. These principles have the potential to form the foundation of a theoretically grounded historiographical practice in Jesus research.

The Later Work of Gabriel García Márquez

2021 ◽  
pp. 557-573
Author(s):  
Nicholas Birns
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Magical Realism ◽  
Gabriel Garcia Marquez ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Personal Memory ◽  
Late Work ◽  
Moral Transformation ◽  
Drug Cartels ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Do So

If the Bolívar novel embodies the collective memory of a region in a manner spare yet ingenious, the novelist’s other major late work tends toward personal memory. In Of Love and Other Demons, García Márquez comes as close to magical realism as in any work since the short stories and One Hundred Years of Solitude and reaffirms the multiracial and Caribbean character of the author’s own definition of Spanish America. In News of a Kidnapping, García Márquez ventures onto the territory of drug cartels and violence, which became the preoccupation of the next generation of Colombian writers, relating this material from the deadpan, appalled stance that is as characteristic of his viewpoint as the mesmeric incantations so commonly associated with him. In Memories of My Melancholy Whores, a late in life moral transformation redeems a lifetime of iniquity and testifies to the strangeness of the new territory of extreme old age, in a sense as unexplored a country as Macondo once was. In Living to Tell the Tale, García Márquez reflects upon the first half of his own life. Unlike in the case of Bolívar, García Márquez did not get to tell the ending of the story, leaving later writers and readers to do so in their own minds, as the great master had done for the General.

Mnemonic Interplay: A Response to Byrskog, Bauckham, Zimmermann, and Schröter

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 173-182
Author(s):  
Anthony Le Donne
Keyword(s):  
Autobiographical Memory ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
False Dichotomy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Components

In response to the essays by Bauckham, Byrskog, Schröter, and Zimmermann concerning “memory”, Le Donne summarizes and critiques four different applications of mnemonic studies to the Jesus tradition. The author notes the different approaches to sociology relative to memory and argues that both autobiographical memory and collective memory fall under the wider category of social memory. Moreover, contra Bauckham social memory is helpful avenue of study for historical Jesus research once properly understood. Contra Schröter, he argues that the study of the social components of autobiographical memory ought to play a part in scholarship concerning the Gospels. He also challenges the false dichotomy between the “remembered Jesus” and the “historical Jesus” as posed by Zimmermann.

scholarly journals Is it OK to laugh about it yet? Hitler Rants YouTube parodies in Hebrew

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liat Steir-Livny
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Defence Mechanism ◽  
German Film ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
Cultural Field ◽  
Current Affairs ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Do So

The Holocaust was and remains a central trauma in Israel’s collective memory. For many years, the perception was that a humorous approach to the Holocaust might threaten the sanctity of its memory. Official agents of the Holocaust memory continue to believe in this approach, but since the 1990s, a new unofficial path of memory began taking shape in tandem with it. It is an alternative and subversive path that seeks to remember – but differently. In the last decade, YouTube has become a major cultural field including new humorous representations and images of the Holocaust. The article analyses a virtual phenomenon – “Hitler Rants” (or “Hitler Reacts”) parodies in Hebrew. These are internet memes in which surfers take a scene from the German film Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel 2004), showing Hitler ranting at his staff as the end of WWII approaches, and they add parodic subtitles in which Hitler rants about completely different things – current affairs and pesky little details. The incompatibilities between the visuals, the German screaming, and the subtitles turn Hitler into a ludicrous individual. The article objects to the notion that views the parodies as “cheapening” the Holocaust, and rather claims that they underscore humour’s role as a defence mechanism. Israelis, who live in a society in which the Holocaust memory is intensive and creates constant anxiety, seek to lessen reactions of tension and anxiety, even for a few minutes, and they do so through humour.

scholarly journals Memory, History and a Mother’s Resistant Mourning in Giuseppe Dessì’s Il disertore

2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-149
Author(s):  
Amy Boylan
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Memory Theory ◽  
Individual Memory ◽  
War Memories ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Italian Women ◽  
Mourning And Melancholia ◽  
The Way

This essay proposes a re-reading of Giuseppe Dessì’s Il disertore (1961) in the context of collective memory theory and postmodern concerns with mourning and melancholia. Through an examination of the way Dessì represents the interaction between individual memories and official memorialization in the post-WWI period, I argue that Dessì anticipates postmodern perspectives on commemoration. In particular, I look at the protagonist, Mariangela, both as a recuperation of the private and public anti-war activities of many Italian women, and as a melancholic mother whose refusal to obey normative modes of mourning results in a form of resistant mourning. Furthermore, it is precisely through Mariangela’s oppositional gaze that Dessì exposes the inadequacies of her town’s official receptacle of war memories, the monumento ai caduti, in order to interrogate the way collective—but also individual—memory is constructed.

Recursion, Distortion, and Source Amnesia

First Vision ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 109-116
Author(s):  
Steven C. Harper
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Visual Display ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Memory Distortion ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
Artistic Representations ◽  
Generalized Knowledge

Between 1870 and 1900, the last Latter-day Saints who knew Joseph Smith gave way to generations that never did. Their collective memory transitioned as they selected, related, and generalized knowledge together. At points in this process their collective memory prioritized coherence over accuracy, as memories tend to do. Art and music depicting Joseph Smith’s first vision began to appear in the 1870s and 1880s. This chapter particularly highlights C. C. A. Christensen’s audio and visual display called the “Mormon Panorama,” which inspired George Manwaring’s hymn, “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer”—a hymn well known among Latter-day Saints to this day. These artistic representations reflected and contributed to the recursion of collective memory and its transmission to the next generation. They also reflected and contributed to memory distortion and source amnesia.

Ehrman, Bauckham and Bird on Memory and the Jesus Tradition

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Kirk
Keyword(s):  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Theory Analysis ◽  
Memory Research ◽  
Memory Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Origins

The past twenty years have seen numerous studies applying memory research to problems in the history of the Jesus tradition and also in historical Jesus research, where it has become a point of controversy. Three recent book-length contributions to these debates are Bart Ehrman’s Jesus Before The Gospels (2016), the just-released second edition of Richard Bauckham’s 2006 volume, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2017), and Michael Bird’s The Gospel of the Lord (2014). Respectively these authors represent quite different appropriations of memory theory. Analysis of their contributions will clarify where, twenty years on, applications of memory theory in Gospels and Christian origins scholarship stand.

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