The Rev. Dr. Jacob Rodriguez

Assistant Professor of New Testament

The Rev. Dr. Jacob Rodriguez

BA, Wheaton College (IL), 2009
MA, Wheaton College (IL), 2011
DPhil, University of Oxford, 2021

Before coming to Trinity, I served in various ministries for 12 years in Ethiopia, Oxford, and Washington, DC. These included theological education, discipleship mobilization for Muslim background believers, and pastoring ministry. In 2021, I completed a DPhil in New Testament and Early Christianity at University of Oxford. My thesis, entitled Combining Gospels in Early Christianity: The One, the Many, and the Fourfold, was given the 2023 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise. I am an ordained priest in the Anglican Church in North America, and I am delighted to serve at Trinity and help train up the next generations of gospel-centered clergy for the urgent task of church mission in North America and beyond. My wife, Tessa, and I have three children, and we love to serve others through hospitality.

Assistant Professor of New Testament

The Rev. Dr. Jacob Rodriguez

BA, Wheaton College (IL), 2009
MA, Wheaton College (IL), 2011
DPhil, University of Oxford, 2021

Research Interests

– Early Christian Gospel literature, especially the four canonical Gospels, the Diatessaron, the Epistula Apostolorum, and the Gospel of Thomas.
– New Testament manuscripts and the related disciplines of papyrology, codicology, and textual criticism.
– Judaism from 200 BC to 200 AD, especially the public reading of Torah in this period.
– The formation of the New Testament as Scripture and canon .
– Second-century Christianity, especially Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Clement of Alexandria.
– Disability theology and the healing tradition in the canonical Gospels.
– Muslim background believer discipleship movements in the Horn of Africa.

Workshops, Lectures, & Retreats

“Public Reading in Pauline Churches: Jewish Praxis for Gentile Believers,” Lautenschlaeger Theological Colloquium, University of Heidelberg, 1 May 2023.
“Hymning Christ in Johannine Key: The Priestly and Johannine Origins of Irenaeus’s Tetraevangelium,” University of Oxford New Testament Seminar, Keble College, Oxford, 4 December 2020.
“Christian Pedagogy at the Beginning of the Gospel: Mark and Third-Century Egyptian Catechesis in P.Oxy. 9.1041,” Wycliffe Hall New Testament Seminar, Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, 27 May 2020.
“Justin Martyr and the ἀπομνημονεύματα: Public Reading as Covenant Praxis: Public Reading as Covenant Praxis,” Redescribing Christian Origins Seminar Group, Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, San Diego, November 2019.
“What We Have Heard, We Write to You”: Modelling Reception in the Gospels of Luke and John and in the Epistula Apostolorum,” Oxford-Bonn Theology Faculty Joint Seminar, Oxford, September 2019.
“What We Have Heard, We Write to You”: Modelling Reception in the Gospels of Luke and John and in the Epistula Apostolorum,” Early Christianity Seminar, British New Testament Conference, Liverpool, September 2019.
“Justin and the Apostolic Memoirs: Public Reading as Covenant Praxis,” Tyndale House New Testament Seminar, Wolfson College, Cambridge, June 2019.
“An Unusual Gospel Title: A Palaeographical, Codicological, and Socio-Historical Analysis of the Flyleaf on P. Oxy. 2” ManuSciences Franco-German Spring School, Fréjus, France, March 2019.

Publications & Research

Combining Gospels in Early Christianity: The One, the Many, and the Fourfold. WUNT II. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming in 2023 (under contract).
Co-authored with Markus Bockmuehl: “Jesus Books, Gospel Fragments, and Gospel Harmonies,” in Second-Century Christianity: A Sourcebook. Edited by Michael F. Bird and Scott Harrower. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, forthcoming in 2024 (under contract).
Co-authored with Jeremiah T. Coogan: “Ordering Gospel Textuality in the Second Century,” Journal of Theological Studies 74.1 (2023): 57–102.
“Justin and the Apostolic Memoirs: Public Reading as Covenant Praxis,” Early Christianity 11 (2020): 496–515.
“‘All That Yahweh Has Commanded We Will Obey’: The Public Reading of Torah as Covenant Praxis in Early Judaism,” Journal of the Jesus Movement in Its Jewish Setting 4 (2017): 91–117.
“Irenaeus’s Missional Theology: Global Christian Perspectives from an Ancient Missionary and Theologian,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 59.1 (2016): 131–45.