David J. Rudolph

 

 

Rabbi David Rudolph (PhD, Cambridge University) was born and raised in the Washington, D.C. metro area where he attended Congregation Beth El, a Conservative synagogue, and Beth Messiah Congregation, a Messianic synagogue. David had a profound encounter with the God of Israel when he was 16 and a junior at Walt Whitman High School. This changed the course of his life.

While studying at Sophia University (Tokyo) in the mid-1980s, David came across a community of Japanese Christians who prayed three times a day for the Jewish people. Their extraordinary love prompted David to ask how much he loved his own people (ahavat Yisrael) and what it meant to be a Messianic Jew.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, David completed a Bachelor of Theology and Master of Theological Studies at Messiah Biblical Institute (Messiah Yeshiva), a Messianic Jewish seminary founded by Dr. Michael Brown and Rabbi Daniel Juster. After receiving smicha (ordination), he served for six years as the Rabbi of Shulchan Adonai Messianic Synagogue in Annapolis, Maryland.

In 1999, the Rudolph family moved to South Hamilton, Massachusetts where for three years David studied at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He completed an MA in Old Testament and an MA in Biblical Languages.

From 2002-2007, David studied under Professor Markus Bockmuehl at Cambridge University (England) where he completed a PhD in New Testament with a specialization in Second Temple Judaism.

From 2008-2011, David served on the faculty at Messianic Jewish Theological Institute in Los Angeles and was Scholar-in-Residence at the MJTI Center for Jewish-Christian Relations. He subsequently served as the Rabbi of Tikvat Israel Messianic Synagogue in Richmond, Virginia, for four years.

In 2015, David took up his present post as Director of Messianic Jewish Studies and Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at The King's University in Southlake, Texas.