[2] Born in Dresden,[1] Rudolph studied Protestant theology, religion, history and Semitology at the universities of Greifswald and Leipzig in the years 1948 to 1953.
Subsequently, for six years, he was research assistant while he worked in parallel towards doctorates in theology and religious history.
During his work at universities in Leipzig, Chicago, Marburg and Santa Barbara, he acquired an international reputation as an expert in Gnosticism and Mandaeism.
Rudolph stressed that religious studies must be a rational science and be subjected to methodological atheism.
This theory, which was initially fiercely contested in German religious studies, is now largely a matter of consensus.