This volume is the culmination of a project initiative on the relationship between social memory theory and Jewish and Christian conceptions of afterlife in antiquity, which was spearheaded by Jiří Lukeš, Sandra Huebenthal, and Thomas Hatina during a series of doctoral seminars in Prague on Social Memory Theory and early Christianity in May 2017. The initiative led to the organization of two related international conferences over the span of two years. The first was held at the 2018 Society of Biblical Literature meeting in Denver. Gratitude is extended to the steering committee of The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section which graciously agreed to dedicate one full day to the launch of this project. The second conference was held in May 2019 over two days in Prague at both the Hussite Theological Faculty of Charles University and The House of the Professed which is a beautifully decorated early baroque building that houses the faculty of Mathematics and Physics. In the preparation of this volume, we would like to thank Naomi Rey for her careful editing and the editorial staff at Brill. We are also grateful to all the organizers, the participants at the conferences, and the contributors to this volume. For several, engagement with social memory theory is a recent undertaking and we are appreciative for their willingness to meet the challenge in a spirit of mutual learning. We would particularly like to acknowledge Prof. Petr Pokorny who presented a paper entitled “Social Memory Theory and Formgeschichte.” His sad passing before he could convert his notes into a structured paper did not allow us to include his contribution. We would like to honor his participation—alongside his immense scholarly influence and gentle spirit—by dedicating this volume to his memory.