Books by Rafael Rodriguez
Paul's letters to the Thessalonians are the earliest surviving Christian documents. They are also... more Paul's letters to the Thessalonians are the earliest surviving Christian documents. They are also among the most easily overlooked parts of the New Testament. What could these short, simple letters possibly have to say to a world caught in the throes of racial discord, political polarization, fears of an uncertain future, and fights over truth and false news? While Paul and his companions could not have imagined anything like the twenty-first century, their letters in the mid-first century to non-Jewish followers of Jesus in northern Greece address problems we still wrestle with today: race and ethnicity, family, ethics, an unknown future, how to respond to strangers, and more. These letters, rather than being an outdated part of Paul's collected letters, provoke us to throw ourselves into the great challenges of the modern world, to resist the temptation to repay "another person evil for evil," and to "pursue the good, both for one another and for everyone" (1 Thess 5:15). Will we read these ancient letters anew?
Jesus Darkly: Remembering Jesus with the New Testament, 2018
New Testament students have not always been well served by study of the historical Jesus, which t... more New Testament students have not always been well served by study of the historical Jesus, which tends to segregate Jesus from his significance vis-à-vis Israel’s scriptures and God’s agenda as this is developed among the New Testament writers in the living context of a faith community’s memory. The witness of scripture does in fact help us remember Jesus well. From beginning to end, the Bible tells the story of God putting God’s family back together. Its plot develops in multiple, sometimes competing, ways. It exhibits the full range of human emotions and, perhaps surprisingly, it claims that these are also God’s emotions. But on every page, we hear the call of a God whose family has chosen an early inheritance instead of an intimate relationship. That God – pictured as a parent, often a father – beckons God’s children, inviting them to return and to sit at the table, clothed by mercy and affirmed as God’s very family.
Decades ago, Werner G. Kümmel described the historical problem of Romans as its "double character... more Decades ago, Werner G. Kümmel described the historical problem of Romans as its "double character": concerned with issues of Torah and the destiny of Israel, the letter is explicitly addressed not to Jews but to Gentiles. At stake in the numerous answers given to that question is nothing less than the purpose of Paul's most important letter. In The So-Called Jew in Paul's Letter to the Romans, nine Pauline scholars focus their attention on the rhetoric of diatribe and characterization in the opening chapters of the letter, asking what Paul means by the "so-called Jew" in Romans 2 and where else in the letter's argumentation that figure appears or is implied. Each component of Paul's argument is closely examined with particular attention to the theological problems that arise in each.
If You Call Yourself a Jew reads Romans as a dialogue between Paul and a Gentile proselyte to Jud... more If You Call Yourself a Jew reads Romans as a dialogue between Paul and a Gentile proselyte to Judaism. This fresh reading brings Romans into focus as Paul's exposition of the revelation of God's righteousness--his faithfulness to his covenant promises to Abraham, which climaxed in the announcement that "in you all the tribes of the earth will be blessed" (Gen 12:3). Paul insists that the righteousness of God is revealed, "for the Jew first as well as for the Greek" not through Torah but through the faith(fullness) of Jesus. Torah and the prophets provide corroborating witness for God's righteousness, but Gentiles who bend their necks to Torah's yoke miss the actual mechanism for finding peace with God. Paul found in the story of Jesus the image of complete faith in/faithfulness to God; in Jesus' resurrection he found the image of God's complete faithfulness, "for the Jew first as well as for the Greek" Whereas Torah resulted in curse and death, it also anticipated the unconditional faithfulness of God for both Jew and Gentile. For Paul, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the account of the outworking of God's faithfulness: the end of Torah's curses and the fulfillment of its blessings.
Oral Tradition and the New Testament, 2014
The last three decades have seen an explosion of biblical scholarship on the presence and consequ... more The last three decades have seen an explosion of biblical scholarship on the presence and consequences of the oral expression of tradition among Jesus' followers, especially in the earliest decades of the Common Era. There is a wealth of scholarship focused on 'orality'. This scholarship is, however, abstract and technical almost by definition, and to date no introductory discussion exists that can introduce a new generation of biblical students to the issues being discussed at higher levels of scholarship. Rafael Rodríguez addresses this gap.
Rodríguez adopts a fourfold structure to cover the topic, beginning with basic essentials for further discussion of oral-tradition research and definitions of key terms (the 'what'). He then moves on to discuss the key players in this area (the 'who') before examining the methods involved in oral-tradition research among New Testament scholars (the 'how'). Finally Rodriguez provides examples of the ways in which oral-tradition research can bring texts into clearer focus (the 'why'). The result is a comprehensive introduction to this key area in New Testament studies.
Social memory research has complicated the relationship between past and present because it is a ... more Social memory research has complicated the relationship between past and present because it is a relationship which finds expression in memorial acts such as storytelling and text-production.
This relationship has emerged as a dialectic in which "past" and "present" are mutually constitutive and implicating. The resultant complication directly affects the procedures and products of "historical Jesus" research, which depends particularly on the assumption that we can cleanly separate "authentic" from "inauthentic" traditions.
In Structuring Early Christian Memory Rafael Rodriguez analyzes the problems that arise from this assumption and proposes a "historical Jesus" program that is more sensitive to the entanglement of past and present.
Book Chapters by Rafael Rodriguez
The Beginning of Paul's Gospel: Theological Explorations in Romans 1–4, 2023
"To Recover What Has Been Lost": Essays on Eschatology, Intertextuality, and Reception History in Honor of Dale C. Allison Jr., 2021
Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels: Volume 4: The Gospel of John, 2020
Reading the Fourth Gospel (FG) has turned out to be a surprisingly diffi cult endeavor. In the ni... more Reading the Fourth Gospel (FG) has turned out to be a surprisingly diffi cult endeavor. In the nineteenth century, the Johannine Jesus came under increasing suspicion for being a second-century theological projection back onto the early fi rst century, though early on John had its formidable defenders. 1 John's Gospel would largely succumb to that suspicion, at least during the twentieth century, and its varied "quests of the historical Jesus. " 2 Th e new millennium saw a revival of interest in the historical quality (or qualities) of the FG, particularly in the work of the now-ended John, Jesus, and History Group of the Society of Biblical Literature and some of its participants. 3 Much of this revival has tried to identify individual historical claims within the FG that have not been completely eff aced by the Fourth Evangelist's (FE's) theological agenda, from the overlap between John's and Jesus's baptismal ministries 4 and the emergence of Jesus's earliest disciples from the circle of the Baptist's followers, 5 to the dating of
The T&T Clark Social Identity Commentary on the New Testament, 2020
Similar ambiguity plagues our efforts to know anything about the original audience(s). Markan sch... more Similar ambiguity plagues our efforts to know anything about the original audience(s). Markan scholars associate the text with an urban center, whether Rome in the west or Alexandria or Antioch in the east. Some argue for a predominantly gentile audience (e.g., on the basis of the explanation of Jewish customs in Mark 7:3-4), while others find evidence of a strong Jewish contingent (e.g., on the basis of the Aramaic phrases in 5:41; 7:34; 15:22, 34). Perhaps all we can say is that Mark was written in a city of the Roman Empire, probably for readers who already professed faith in Jesus (whether those readers were ethnic Jews or not). Date We lack conclusive evidence for when Mark was written, though most scholars date it near the Judeo-Roman war (66-70 CE), either during the buildup to or during the war (65-70 CE) or its immediate aftermath (71-75 CE). Again, the evidence is inconclusive. In 2002, Mark Goodacre argued, "what evidence we do have points generally in the direction of a date no later than 70 for Mark" (Goodacre, Case, 23). Ten years later he had been convinced otherwise: "the case for a post-70 dating for Mark is strong" (Goodacre, Thomas, 160-66 [161]). The development in Goodacre's position provides a helpful snapshot of scholarship in general: the Gospel of Mark is dated around the Jews' war with Rome, but it is difficult to be more precise than this. Major Theological Themes Mark's Gospel touches on a number of important theological themes, from the forgiveness of sinners, the inclusion of gentiles, and Jesus's compassion for women and children, to wealth and poverty and the parousia. Two themes, however, have commanded particular attention: the identity of Jesus and discipleship.
The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries, 2020
Liturgical Receptions of Jesus 11 Just as Justin attributes pagan water rites to the influence of... more Liturgical Receptions of Jesus 11 Just as Justin attributes pagan water rites to the influence of "demons" (οἱ δαίμονες), so Tertullian similarly attributes pagan washings to "the devil's zeal (studium diaboli) in hostility to the things of God" (Bapt. 5.3). 12 The Hasmonean, Herodian, and Roman eras saw the rise and proliferation of miqva'oth in public or communal spaces (near the temple, at Qumran, etc.) as well as in private residences. See Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 134-62, esp. 142-47. The earliest evidence for Christian baptisteries is the third-century church at Dura-Europos; see Ferguson, Baptism, 820. Evidence for Christian baptisms indoors is, therefore, lacking until the mid-third century (Dura-Europos) and later (everywhere else). 13 For example, in Acts the instruction prior to the baptism is ad hoc and extemporaneous, and it would become increasingly formalized (but not necessarily standardized) in the Didache, Tertullian and Cyprian, perhaps also at Dura-Europos, as well as for others.
Bridges in New Testament Interpretation: Interdisciplinary Advances, 2018
Two quotations point to the theme of this essay. First, from Richard A. Horsley: "Social memory s... more Two quotations point to the theme of this essay. First, from Richard A. Horsley: "Social memory should not be reified as something in itself. It is rather a sensitizing concept that leads us to recognize social and cultural relations that we might otherwise miss or misunderstand." 1 The second comes from Edward Shils: "No society remains still. Each one is in unceasing change. Yet each society remains the same society." 2 The Gospels and the academic quest for the historical Jesus throw into sharp relief the question of the present's relation to the past. That is, to what extent are groups and the individuals that comprise them free to portray the past according to present needs and interests, and to what extent are such portrayals constrained by the past itself, whether the actual course of events as they happened, or previous accounts of those events in public discourse? These questions have not received much attention from historians of Jesus, who have preferred instead to identify, sharpen, taxonomize, and apply various "criteria of authenticity" to the Gospels and traditions laying beneath or behind them. 3 The evangelists' relative freedom or constraint vis-à-vis the actual words and events of Jesus' life and ministry is, more often than not, decided a priori rather than on the basis of explicit discussion. The Jesus tradition, in this kind of scholarship, is either an atemporal construction of the evangelists' interests, on one hand, or a preservation of Jesus' words and deeds without influence from contemporary concerns, on the other. These are generalizations, of course, but we can find examples of these generalizations at work in analyses of the Gospels and the historical Jesus. Regarding the relative freedom of the gospel tradents vis-à-vis the past, John Dominic Crossan speaks regularly of the "intense authorial creativity and
The So-Called Jew in Paul's Letter to the Romans, 2016
THE SO-CALLED JEW IN PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMANS viii example, Douglas A. Campbell discusses Roma... more THE SO-CALLED JEW IN PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMANS viii example, Douglas A. Campbell discusses Romans 5-8 in terms of the desperate "prior condition of humanity," even of "the blindness of Adamic humanity in and of itself." 3 Similarly, Michael Gorman's discussion of "justification by co-crucifixion" begins: "The first aspect of justification in Paul to consider is this: the Law requires vertical and horizontal covenant-keeping-love of God and neighbor-for humans to experience present and/or eschatological life (justification)." 4 Paul, however, clearly understood Torah (= "the Law") as the distinctive possession and obligation of the people of Israel; its terms and promises were not "for humans" as a whole, at least not directly. 5 Unfortunately, as Campbell and Gorman-and others, certainly 6-read Paul (and Romans, specifically), they find the apostle waxing philosophically about the human condition. This reading of Romans is not so much unhistorical as it is transhistorical. Paul does not call himself an "apostle to humanity" (ἀνθρώπων ἀπόστολος), but rather an "apostle to the gentiles" (ἐθνῶν ἀπόστολος; Rom 11:13). A historically and culturally situated reading of Paul must account for Paul's call to the gentiles. Campbell and Gorman, each in their own way, have implicitly cast Romans 4, in which Paul provides an exegetical discussion of the Abrahamic tradition (thirdperson) from the perspective of "our" relationship (first-person) to that tradition (e.g.
The So-Called Jew in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 2016
Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook, 2016
Since the publication of the first edition of Paul in the Greco-Roman World in 2003, biblical sch... more Since the publication of the first edition of Paul in the Greco-Roman World in 2003, biblical scholarship has turned to memory studies-and particularly social and/or collective memory studies-to investigate the texts at the heart of our disciplines. Historical Jesus and Gospels scholarship (my specialty) has seen an explosion of studies employing social memory studies. 1 Pauline studies, however, has not taken significant notice of social memory. Besides essays scattered across multiple journals and edited volumes, I am aware of only one book-length study of Paul and social memory: Benjamin White's Remembering Paul. 2 White focuses his attention on the memory of Paul (that is, Paul as a remembered-or traditioned-figure) in the latesecond century CE. The present essay, in contrast, highlights the function of memory in Paul's letters.
Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Conversation with Barry Schwartz, 2014
Analysis, then, is sorting out the structures of signi cation … and determining their social grou... more Analysis, then, is sorting out the structures of signi cation … and determining their social ground and import. (Cli ord Geertz, 1973, 9) It is as if su ering itself survives as a visceral memory, while its explanation, still deeply felt, is more a result of ideological work, the work of framing remembrance in categories of victim/oppressor. For the people involved, what they went through is all too real, but it is also open to changes in de nition.
The T&T Clark Handbook to Social Identity in the New Testament, 2014
Generously borrowed from Erving Goffman's approach to social situations as well as 'texts' , ques... more Generously borrowed from Erving Goffman's approach to social situations as well as 'texts' , questions about framing direct our attention to the powers inherent in public articulation of collective memory to influence the private makings of sense. Questions about framing are essentially about the limits to the scope of possible interpretations. Their aim is not to freeze one particular 'reading' as the correct one, rather, it is to establish the likely range of meanings. 1 1 Iwona Irwin-Zarecka, Frames of Remembrance: The Dynamics of Collective Memory (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1994), 4. 2 For an explicit recognition and exploration of the connections between identity and memory (and social theories thereof), see Coleman A. Baker, Identity, Memory, and Narrative in Early Christianity: Peter, Paul, and Recategorization in the Book of Acts (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011).
Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity, 2012
Journal Articles by Rafael Rodriguez
The Ἰουδαῖος in Romans: First to the Gentile-Become-Jew, Then Also to the Gentile-as-Gentile
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2024
Pauline scholars have read ὁ Ἰουδαῖος in Romans as a native-born Jew who stands over and against ... more Pauline scholars have read ὁ Ἰουδαῖος in Romans as a native-born Jew who stands over and against τὰ ἔθνη (“the nations,” or “gentiles”). The ethnonym Ἰουδαῖος, however, applied also to proselytes, to non-Jews who became Jews. Paul lived in a world in which Ἰουδαῖος applied to people Paul did not accept as Ἰουδαῖοι. In Paul’s view, being a Ἰουδαῖος is an immutable, genealogical identity unavailable to anyone not born a Ἰουδαῖος. In some cases, the Ἰουδαῖος in Romans 1–3 is a so-called (or self-styled) “Jew.” Paul demonstrates how gentiles’ efforts at becoming a Jew (sans scare quotes) nevertheless leaves them closer to the gentile-as-gentile than to the native-born Jew.
Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift, 2023
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Books by Rafael Rodriguez
Rodríguez adopts a fourfold structure to cover the topic, beginning with basic essentials for further discussion of oral-tradition research and definitions of key terms (the 'what'). He then moves on to discuss the key players in this area (the 'who') before examining the methods involved in oral-tradition research among New Testament scholars (the 'how'). Finally Rodriguez provides examples of the ways in which oral-tradition research can bring texts into clearer focus (the 'why'). The result is a comprehensive introduction to this key area in New Testament studies.
This relationship has emerged as a dialectic in which "past" and "present" are mutually constitutive and implicating. The resultant complication directly affects the procedures and products of "historical Jesus" research, which depends particularly on the assumption that we can cleanly separate "authentic" from "inauthentic" traditions.
In Structuring Early Christian Memory Rafael Rodriguez analyzes the problems that arise from this assumption and proposes a "historical Jesus" program that is more sensitive to the entanglement of past and present.
Book Chapters by Rafael Rodriguez
Journal Articles by Rafael Rodriguez