The "Introduction. The Afterlife in Jewish and Christian Antiquity: Navigating Competing Conceptions as Products of Social Memory "to the topic and the theory of social memory contains a thorough presentation of the time of the creation of the presented texts, explains the critical conceptual apparatus and introduces the texts with which the authors work.
Attention is paid to the concepts of the afterlife and Judaism and Christianity, as well as the language used. Issues of myth, ideology, and narrative are discussed.
Passages deal with hermeneutics and methodology and show the emergence of social memory and its place in the field of memory studies. Mention is made of pioneers in the field and their contributions (M.
Halbwachs), as well as the revival of interest in the field of memory from the 1970s (J. and A. Assmann; P.
Nora; J. Olick; B.
Schwartz) to the present day. The areas of philosophy and literary criticism are covered, and, marginally, psychology and rhetoric, which have been distinctive cultural phenomena since antiquity.