Ep 176: The Gospels and Ancient Media with Rafael Rodriguez

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast

In this episode I talk with Dr. Rafael Rodriguez, who teaches New Testament at Pittsburg Theological Seminary. We discuss his chapter in The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus (out now on Eerdmans), where he explains what ancient media tells us about the historical Jesus. While our primary sources are the gospels as written texts, in antiquity these were not the only ways in which people were exposed to Jesus. Dr. Rodriguez explains the nature of oral tradition, and what we can know about the period between the life of Jesus and the composition of the gospels. He explains both the failures and valuable insights of form criticism, which treats each individual unit of the gospels as an isolated tradition, and argues that the methodology of the Next Quest must move beyond the assumptions of form criticism. Based on the standards of ancient media, there were no ‘original’ versions of the events recorded in the gospels, and we can’t reconstruct exactly which words Jesus did and did not say. Rodriguez makes the compelling case that the diversity and divergences between the synoptic gospels are a necessary product of the ancient media environment, and do not present an obstacle to our faith. Taking these historical insights into consideration will give us a more nuanced impression of who Jesus was.

Media Referenced:

The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus: https://a.co/d/6nQxo23

Rafael Rodriguez Academia: https://pts.academia.edu/RafaelRodriguez

Helen Bond interview: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-167-the-gospels-as-biography-with-helen-bond/

James Crossley interview: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-169-the-next-quest-for-the-historical-jesus-with-james-crossley/

Adele Reinhartz interview: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-173-the-jewishness-of-jesus-with-adele-reinhartz/

Chris Keith video interview: https://youtu.be/B96XmTRQ3jo?si=MG_A0hpqT_-_s4NV

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

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