Whenever They Prayed

In this book, Rodney A. Werline studies prayers from Second Temple Jewish literature and the New Testament through an anthropological lense. The study offers a methodological innovation and opens up dimensions of prayer texts that were hidden to the eye of the beholder so far. Reading ancient texts in order to reconstruct the actual religious life out of which they originated is one of the most important tasks of biblical scholarship and this book is a fruitful attempt to do so. As such, it is a must-read for both scholars of early Judaism and New Testament scholars.

This book addresses a serious lack in scholarship on prayer in the Bible. Drawing on insights from anthropology, ritual studies, and cognitive sciences, Rodney Werline demonstrates how to take prayer in the New Testament seriously as a social and embodied practice. Focusing on what prayers do rather than merely what they say, Werline explores the shared cultural knowledge they require, offering provocative new perspectives on New Testament prayers. This book makes important contributions to New Testament studies as well as the study of prayer in antiquity in general.

This innovative book explores four major uses of prayer in the New Testament allowing us to see the prayers of Jesus, Paul, and others in a new light. The author seamlessly integrates the study of New Testament prayer practice in its broader cultural environment by drawing on anthropological perspectives to illuminate the embedded, embodied, and performative character of prayer. The volume should find its way into the hands of students and specialists alike and prove an indispensable addition to courses on Christian origins and early Judaism.