"Mad" Rhoda in Acts 12:12-17: Disciple Exemplar

Abstract

Recent interpretations of the slave girl Rhoda in Acts 12:12-17 pinpoint extratextual connections with Greco-Roman narrative comical scenes involving the servus currens ("running slaves") as the interpretive key to the narrative. The comical "laugh" typically experienced at the expense of the bumbling servus currens falls to Mary and the disciples gathered at her house, who dismiss her witness—not once but twice—and leave Peter standing in the street and knocking on the door. Through analeptic and proleptic intratextual connections, the implied auditor associates Rhoda with model disciples such as Paul, the women at the resurrection, and the servants in the parable of the watchful servants. In the same way, Mary and the disciples gathered at her house, and even Peter, are implicated for their failure to be watchful. This character juxtaposition in Acts 12 turns the master–servant world upside down, with the servant becoming the model disciple and the master and her friends fumbling in their discipleship.

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