The topic of social memory has been discussed for almost 20 years in the international field, but it hasn't been reflected in the Czech environment yet. This master thesis tries to introduce the topic of social memory theory to the Czech theological audience. It concentrates on the critique of the "criteria approach" in the historical Jesus research from the social memory theorist, esp. Chris Keith. It also tries to find roots of this way of thinking either among theorist of social memory like its "father" late Maurice Halbwachs and our contemporary Jan Assmann, or among New Testament scholars like Birger Gerhardsson and Werner Kelber who challenged the development model of the gospel tradition presented by Rudolf Bultmann. The critique of Bultmann is the basis of Keith's critique of the "criteria approach". This thesis presents Keith's concepts of "Jesus-memory approach" and "New historiography" and presents critiques of it both from the international scholars and its own. This thesis is a contribution to the field of hermeneutics and the development of methodology.