Memories of such unique events belong to the category ofepisodic memory.
Other memories consist of items without reference to a singular event in one’s
life, such as the names of the sorts offish sold on the marketplace, or the fact
that Finland is in Europe. Memories of such lexical items belong to the
category ofsemantic memory. How can we explain the difference between
these two types of long-term, declarative memory? As Tulving argued more
recently, episodic memories result from the so-called“episodic retrieval
mode”(Tulving, 2002, p. 5). Memories that are remembered as episodic
memories must include references to a conscious concept of the self (these
things happened to me, not to someone else) and a subjective sense of time
(these things happened at a particular point of my life). Rather than thinking
of semantic and episodic memory as two completely different systems, it is
best to consider episodic memory as a system that includes semantic memory
but adds some distinct features to it (such as selfhood and subjective time,
as mentioned above). It is, in Tulving’s words,“a recently evolved, late-
developing, and early deteriorating past-oriented memory system”(p. 5).
What kind of role did episodic memories play in the formation of the New
Testament? The answer to this question depends on the particular text one is
interested in, but also on models of how the texts came into existence. For
example, it is beyond doubt that many passages of Paul’s letters rely on the
apostle’s autobiographical memory. The presence of autobiographical mem-
ories in the gospels, in contrast, is much more debated. To convince his
readers of the credibility of his narrative, Luke writes in the introduction to
his gospel:
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that
have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from
the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after
investigating everything carefully from the veryfirst, to write an orderly account
for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning
the things about which you have been instructed. (Luke 1:1–4)It is not the task of this chapter to discuss the extent to which the gospels (or
particular passages in them) rely onfirst-hand recollections of members of
the Jesus movement. From the Lukan preface it appears that the author put
much confidence into the recollections of eyewitnesses and expected his
readers to think the same way.^8 Indeed, people tend to trust their memories
of the events of their lives and things of which they havefirst-hand experience.
In recent New Testament scholarship Richard Bauckham (2006) and Robert
(^8) Luke’s preface has been brought into connection with ancient literary conventions, particu-
larly of historiography and scientific writing (Alexander, 1999; Schmidt, 1999; Robbins, 1999;
Adams, 2006).
Memory and Transmission 77