Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance and Text

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.

• Table Of Contents
• Part I: Introduction
  • 1. Jesus Tradition in Memory and Performance
  • 2. Contemporary 'Historical Jesus' and Gospels Research
• Part II: A Framework for Apprehending Ancient Christian Traditions
  • 3. Memory, Reputation, History
  • 4. Performance, Structure, Meaning, Text
• Part III: Jesus' Healings and Exorcisms in the Sayings Traditions
  • 5. 'What You Hear and See': Echoes of Restoration in Jesus' Healings
  • 6. 'Today this Scripture': Reading and Referencing Israelite Tradition
  • 7. 'No City or House Divided against Itself': Exorcism as Israelite Tradition
• Part IV: Conclusion
  • 8. Remembering Jesus Speaking