Within the framework of the DFG-funded research project “Identity Formation in the Mirror of Memories of Jesus: The Gospel of Mark as Collective Memory”, I developed a hermeneutical approach based on transdisciplinary, cultural memory-theoretical research. This approach enables biblical texts to be read as artifacts of collective memory and understood and analyzed as contributions to early Christian identity formation. The Gospel of Mark served in this project as a “test case” or initial subject of investigation. This hermeneutical approach can also be applied to other New Testament and early Christian texts.
Cultural memory-theoretical readings of the New Testament represent a methodological and hermeneutical innovation that is also of interest beyond biblical studies for the broader field of cultural studies. To promote wider application of this approach outside academic specialist discourse, a bridge is needed that connects, on the one hand, the academic and non-academic spheres and, on the other, the German-speaking and English-speaking discourse within biblical studies.
This research focus aims to close this gap and to develop methods for reading the New Testament and early Christian texts as literature of memory. Having laid the hermeneutical groundwork, the current objective is primarily to demonstrate, through case studies, how cultural memory-theoretical readings of New Testament and early Christian texts can be conducted. This includes work on gospel texts, New Testament and early Christian letters, as well as martyr acts.
