Structuring Early Christian Memory

Rodriguez shows how social memory research has complicated the relationship between past and present in New Testament studies. 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. This was formerly the "Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement", a book series that explores the many aspects of New Testament study including historical perspectives, social-scientific and literary theory, and theological, cultural and contextual approaches. "The Early Christianity in Context" series, a part of JSNTS, examines the birth and development of early Christianity up to the end of the third century CE. The series places Christianity in its social, cultural, political and economic context. European Seminar on Christian Origins and "Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Supplement" are also part of JSNTS.

Rafael Rodriguez

Rafael Rodriguez, assistant professor of New Testament (Johnson Bible College; Knoxville, TN), received his Ph.D. from the University of Sheffield in 2008 and is currently researching Christian origins and the so-called 'parting of the ways.'