Dr. Kelsie Rodenbiker

I completed my Ph.D. at Durham University in 2021. I argued in my doctoral thesis that authorial attribution to significant apostolic figures and the use of exemplary figures from the Jewish scriptural past are both aspects of the ancient literary-rhetorical strategy of exemplarity, the use of a prestigious figure from the past as a model for the present and future. The use of the authorial apostolic pseudonyms of James, Peter, John, and Jude as well as the illustrative scriptural exempla shape the canonical reception of the Catholic Epistle collection. 

My current streams of research focus on questions of canon and literary reuse, especially concerning pseudepigraphy, the use of scriptural figures, and manuscripts and scribal cultures. I lecture and present regularly on the Catholic Epistles, canon and the canonical process, apocrypha and the ancient perception of pseudepigraphy, and the relationship between Jewish tradition and early Christian literature. 

I am currently a Fellow of the Centre for Advanced Studies, “Beyond Canon,” at the University of Regensburg; I am a chair of the Later Epistles seminar of the British New Testament Society; and I co-convene the University of Glasgow Biblical Interpretation and Theology seminar.