Rhetorics in the New Millennium: Promise and Fulfillment

STUDIES IN ANTIQUITY AND CHRISTIANITY Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook Vincent L. Wimbush, edit...

Author: J. David Hester

103 downloads 1201 Views 1MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

STUDIES IN ANTIQUITY AND CHRISTIANITY

Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook Vincent L. Wimbush, editor Elijah in Upper Egypt: “The Apocalypse of Elijah” and Early Egyptian Christianity David Frankfurter The Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint Samuel Rubenson Women and Goddess Traditions: In Antiquity and Today Karen L. King, editor Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism James E. Goehring The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections John S. Kloppenborg Reading the Hebrew Bible for a New Millennium: Volume 1: Theological and Hermeneutical Studies Volume 2: Exegetical and Theological Studies Wonil Kim, Deborah Ellens, Michael Floyd, and Marvin A. Sweeney, editors Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism Karen L. King, editor Mimesis and Intertexuality in Antiquity and Christianity Dennis R. MacDonald, editor Wholly Woman, Holy Blood: A Feminist Critique of Purity and Impurity Kristin De Troyer, Judith A. Herbert, Judith Ann Johnson, and Anne-Marie Korte, editors Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt Birger A. Pearson

STUDIES IN ANTIQUITY AND CHRISTIANITY

The Institute for Antiquity and Christianity Claremont Graduate School Claremont, California Editorial Board Dennis R. MacDonald, Director Kristin De Troyer Deborah L. Ellens James D. Hester Ronald F. Hock F. Stanley Jones Rolf P. Knierim Marvin W. Meyer Edward N. O’Neil Birger A. Pearson Jonathan L. Reed Gesine S. Robinson James M. Robinson Michele R. Salzman Tammi L. Schneider Teresa M. Shaw Marvin A. Sweeney Karen Torjesen

RHETORICS IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM Promise and Fulfillment

Edited by James D. Hester and J. David Hester

Copyright © 2010 by The Institute for Antiquity and Christianity Published by T & T Clark International A Continuum imprint 80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038 The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX www.continuumbooks.com www.tandtclarkblog.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, T & T Clark International. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: 978-0-567-34991-0 (Paperback) Typeset by HK Scriptorium Printed and bound in the United States of America by Thomson-Shore, Inc.

FOR OSCAR CULLMANN DAVID H. WALLACE HERMAN WAETJEN WILHELM WUELLNER

TEACHERS, MENTORS, COLLEAGUES, FRIENDS . . .

This page intentionally left blank

Contents Preface

ix

Abbreviations

xi

Contributors

xv

1. Rhetorics in and for the New Millennium James D. Hester

1

Part 1 MAPPING NEW RHETORICS 2. The Rhetoric of Inquiry Elisabeth SchÜssler Fiorenza

23

3. Reading Scripture as/for Public Knowledge Gary D. Salyer

49

4. The Pre-Christian Paul and Rhetoric Wilhelm Wuellner

92

Part 2 RHETORICAL READINGS: RE-READING THE POWER OF PERSUASION 5. Rhetoric, Culture, and Ideology Socio-rhetorical Analysis in the Reading of New Testament Texts L. Gregory Bloomquist

115

6. The Ironic Drama of Matthew 22:15–46 Lewis Leroy ₍Lee₎ Snyder

147

7. Forged in the Fire A Study of the Generic Dynamics in the Acts of the Apostles Dale L. Sullivan

168

vii

viii

Contents

8. Paul and the Rhetoric of Ignorance Greg Carey

193

9. Pseudonymity as Rhetoric A Prolegomenon to the Study of Pauline Pseudepigrapha Frank W. Hughes

216

10. Words as Works Philosophical Protreptic and the Epistle of James Carol Poster

235

Appendixes A. Components of Classical Rhetoric Adapted from Richard A. Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms adapted by James D. Hester 257 B. An Annotated List of Proofs from Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric compiled by Gary D. Salyer

260

C. Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT) and Fantasy Theme Analysis (FTA): A Glossary compiled by James D. Hester

269

D. Theses Derived from the Axiom That Rhetoric Is a Form of Energy summarized by James D. Hester

272

E. An Overview of Burkean Critical Methodology summarized by Lewis Leroy ₍Lee₎ Snyder

274

Select Bibliography for Rhetorics in the New Millennium

279

Index of Key Words

297

Index of New Testament Texts

300

Preface The genesis of this book lies in the rationale of The Rhetorical New Testament Project, which was the brain child of Prof. James M. Robinson, past director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, and Prof. Burton L. Mack, now retired from the School of Theology, Claremont. In 1992, they met with James D. Hester, then professor of religion at the University of Redlands, to discuss the nature and scope of the Project. They recognized that rhetorical studies by Amos Wilder, Hans Dieter Betz, and Mack himself would soon lead to the recognition by others that more such studies of the diverse literary heritage of early Christianity were needed. The problem lay in the fact that few New Testament scholars had studied the pedagogy and theory of classical rhetoric, and even fewer its modern counterparts. Where to begin addressing the need? The first phase of the project consisted of creating bibliographic databases listing primary and secondary sources—books, articles, translations, reference works—that had anything to do with the history of rhetoric, rhetorical theory, rhetorical criticism, rhetorical analysis, and rhetorical hermeneutics. However, with the advent of the Internet and searchable electronic databases, and the increase in publication of rhetorical analyses of early Christian texts, the need for access to reference materials became less vital, and so in the late 1990s the Project entered its second phase. The Project set up a Web site—rhetjournal.net—to encourage the publication of articles using rhetorical critical methods not necessarily based on application of classical rhetorical models for analysis of the New Testament, and to provide resources for interested readers—bibliographies, book reviews, notices of conferences, and conference papers. Then the Project began sponsoring inter- and cross-disciplinary conferences based on a general topic and soliciting papers responding to the topic from rhetorical critics not only in biblical studies but also in whatever disciplinary field a critic with interest might be working. Gradually these conferences drew not only biblical scholars but also those from the history of rhetoric, philosophy, literature, literary criticism, cultural anthropology, economics, medical ethics, history, political science, popular culture, queer and gay studies, feminist criticism, education, and ix

x

Preface

film studies. This cross-disciplinary model attracted scholars from around the world: Australia, Botswana, Canada, Columbia, England, Finland, France, Japan, The Netherlands, South Africa. They have joined American colleagues to discuss the work of Wilhelm Wuellner, one of the pioneers of New Testament rhetorical criticism, and the topics of the rhetorics of healing, evil, identity, and group formation. It is clear that the Project has pushed the limits of what might be categorized as “Antiquity and Christianity.” During this new millennium it has been engaged in the exciting work of exploring how those two rhetorical constructs have been elaborated over the centuries since they were first expressed. This volume, on the other hand, is an effort to move further into a third phase for the Project, one in which the hermeneutics of analysis are informed by the development and use of rhetorical theories beyond those found in the handbooks of classical Greco-Roman rhetoric, where the examination of literary influences or the analysis of style become contributions to criticism and not ends in themselves, where “rhetorics” are not confused with Rhetoric. We believe these essays illustrate that move. None of what we have done would have been possible without the support of a number of incredible people. The visionaries: Jim Robinson, Burt Mack, and Wilhelm Wuellner; the patrons: Robinson, Karen Jo Torgeson, Dennis MacDonald, directors of the Institute; the staff: Jonathan Reed and Leslie Hayes, administrative assistants at the Institute; and Sonya Gravlee, the Institute’s secretary. Finally, the dedication page acknowledges an unpayable debt to those who shared their wisdom, knowledge, learning, and time—our teachers. James D. Hester Little Rock, Arkansas

J. David Hester Baltimore, Maryland

Abbreviations SOURCES Aristotle Rhet. [Rhet. ad Alex. Cicero De Inv. Pro Mur. [Rhet. ad Her. Iamblichus De Vit. Pyth. Quintilian Inst.

Ars rhetorica Rhetorica ad Alexandrum] De inventione rhetorica Pro Murena ad Herrenium] De Vita Pythagorica Institutio oratoria

JOURNALS AND SERIES AA AcTSup AnBib ANRW BBB BDAG BETL BibInt CBQ ChrCent ConBNT CRINT CSSJ FRLANT Greg

Archäologischer Anzeiger Acta Theologica Supplementum Analecta Biblica Aufstieg und Niedergang des römischen Welt Bonner Biblische Beiträge Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich: Greek-English Lexicon Bibliotheca Ephemeridium Theologicarum Louvaniensium Biblical Interpretation Catholic Biblical Quarterly Christian Century Coniecteca Biblica: New Testament Series Compendia rerum iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Central States Speech Journal Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Gregorianum xi

xii

HUT ICC IESS JBL JETS JSNT JSNTSup JSOTSup JTS LB LCL Mils NCB Neot NOTA NovT NTS NovTSup OTE QJS SBLDS SBLSymS SBLSP SBLTT SBS ScEs SNTSMS SPCK TU TDNT TynBul TZ VTSup

Abbreviations

Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie International Critical Commentary International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences Journal of Biblical Studies Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society Journal for the Study of the New Testament Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Journal of Theological Studies Linguistica Biblica Loeb Classical Library Milltown Sudies New Century Bible Neotestamentica Novum Testamentum und Orbis Antiquus Novum Testamentum New Testament Studies Novum Testamentum Supplements Old Testament Essays The Quarterly Journal of Speech Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations Stuttgarter Bibelstudien Science et esprit Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge Texte und Untersuchungen Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Tyndale Bulletin Theologische Zeitschrift Supplements to Vetus Testamentum

Abbreviations

WBC WUNT WW ZNW ZTK

xiii

Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Word and World Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche


Contributors Rev. Prof. L. Gregory Bloomquist Associate Professor, Faculty of Theology St. Paul University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Prof. Greg Carey Professor of New Testament Lancaster Theological Seminary, Lancaster, Pennsylvania Prof. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity Harvard Divinity School, Boston, Massachusetts Dr. J. David Hester Independent scholar. Co-Director, The Rhetorical New Testament Project, Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont, CA. Baltimore, Maryland Prof. James D. Hester Professor Emeritus University of Redlands, Redlands, California Rev. Dr. Frank Hughes St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church Alexandria, Louisiana Prof. Carol Poster Associate Professor of English Calumet College, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Dr. Gary Salyer Adjunct Professor of Biblical Interpretation Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California †Prof. Lewis Leroy (Lee) Snyder University of Nebraska, Kearney, Nebraska

xv

xvi

Contributors

Prof. Dale Sullivan Professor, Department of English, North Dakota State University †Prof. Wilhelm Wuellner Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California

1 Rhetorics in and for the New Millennium JAMES D. HESTER

Although it might be an exaggeration to claim that the return of rhetorical critical analysis to the study of Hebrew and Christian scriptures was one of the great advances in biblical scholarship in the twentieth century, there is certainly no doubt that its re-emergence in the field resulted in a virtual explosion of significant studies that raised the awareness of readers of the persuasive forms and features of biblical texts.1 For the most part the earlier of these studies used the concept of rhetoric as represented in literary criticism, or as represented in the rhetorical handbooks of classical antiquity. In the 1980s, however, other methodologies emerged, principally socio-rhetorical criticism as described by the many works of Vernon Robbins, and neo-Aristotelian/functionalist criticism found in the writings of Wilhelm Wuellner and his students, who used concepts found in the writings of Chaim Perelman and Lloyd Bitzer.2 What emerges from many of these studies, however, is often simply an expression of the results garnered by a particular type of historical and form criticism practiced within a hermeneutics of historical reconstruction. The use of rhetorical techniques, topics, and tropes is carefully recounted, with attempts to find comparable uses of such in literature contemporary with the texts under examination. Particularly in epistolary analysis, forms are described and then analyzed to determine if they meet the criteria for formulaic expression as found in nonliterary letters from the ancient world. Pedagogical materials from classical Greece and Rome are examined for clues for the production of arguments found in Paul or James or Jude. Too often what is not addressed in these studies is rhetorical 1. The reader is directed to the select bibliography at the end of this volume for a representation of the kinds of studies I have in mind. 2. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza provides a fuller summary of these methods in her essay in chapter 2 below.

1

2

Rhetorics in the New Millennium

theory, an explanation of why a discourse or argument would have been persuasive then or remains persuasive now when the original author, audience, and exigence are no longer relevant. Little if any explanation is offered that accounts for the power of the text to reshape the worldview of a hearer or reader who is not a member of its intended audience. The analyst is able to create a kind of rhetorical taxonomy but not a rhetorical criticism. As such she is describing the “rhetorics” of the text.3 I do not mean to argue that such studies are necessarily flawed or inconsequential. Far from it! They provide essential insight into the world of the author and audience. The problem is that there is an implied argument that the rhetorics of the first century c.e., for example, are somehow normative for the twentieth century c.e. Put differently, there seems to be an assumption that rhetorical analysis of early Christian texts is exhausted by a rhetorical analysis of the use of persuasive techniques used in antiquity. This implication masks the utility of modern rhetorical theories to understand persuasive discourse found in ancient texts. In the world of New Testament rhetorical criticism, there seems to be little awareness of or interest in modern approaches to rhetorical criticism that include ethical criticism, dramatistic criticism, narrative criticism, genre criticism, ideological criticism, or postmodern criticism, to name a few.4 Moreover, in her book Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice, Sonja K. Foss defines rhetorical criticism as “the investigation and evaluation of rhetorical acts and artifacts for the purpose of understanding rhetorical processes.”5 She argues that the critic can use an existing method or even create one, either from an existing method or by making up an entirely new one. The generative force of the creation of the new method comes from an analysis of the rhetorical artifact itself.6 With few exceptions, New Testament rhetorical critics seem unwilling to push the boundaries of critical

3. I should acknowledge that many historical/form critical studies are undertaken to enlarge our understanding of the persuasive practices or literary and philosophical genre in antiquity. As such, they make no claim to be authentically rhetorical critical. My concern is for those studies that claim to be critical but are in fact simply analytical. 4. Examples of these and other methods are illustrated in Carl R. Burgchardt, Readings in Rhetorical Criticism (State College, PA: Strata Publishing, 2005). 5. Sonja K. Foss, Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1996), 5. 6. Ibid., 18.

Rhetorics in and for the New Millennium

3

theories and methods that often trace their roots to form and historical criticism to create or experiment with a new critical method. The collection of essays in this volume, on the one hand, illustrate rhetorical critical theory and how it can break the hegemony of historical and form critical approaches to rhetorical analysis of New Testament and, by extension, other sacred texts. On the other, it includes what I believe are among the best examples of rhetorical analysis by critics from both biblical and secular disciplines, using classical and modern analytics to describe the rhetorical processes going on in a text. While these authors do not directly create new theories, they do push the boundaries of current analytics and are suggestive of ways current theories can be elaborated. Before I comment in more detail on the latter7, however, I need to put the whole collection in a larger conceptual context.

RHETORICS AND RHETORIC, ANALYSIS AND CRITICISM I want to make some assertions about the nature of rhetoric that are derived from my reflections on rhetorical criticism over the past two decades. I formulate them as a series of theses, after the model George Kennedy provided in his article “A Hoot in the Dark.”8 While Kennedy attempts to describe the basis of all rhetoric, my interest is focused more on the basis of rhetorical criticism and how that is to be understood as different from rhetorical analysis. In order to provide a context for these theses, however, I need to provide a definition for the concept of rhetoric out of which I operate. I am persuaded by Kennedy that rhetoric at the most general level should be understood as a form of energy, the energy that motivates a rhetor to respond to an exigence, the energy communicated by the message formulated and coded to address an exigence, and the energy used by the recipients to receive, decode, and act on that message.9 Both utterance and action are integral to the 7. Because I want to focus on those essays that carry out rhetorical criticism, I will not provide an overview of the work of Gary Salyer, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, or Wilhelm Wuellner. They deal more with theory. 8. George Kennedy, “A Hoot in the Dark: The Evolution of General Rhetoric,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 25 (1992): 1–22. 9. His definition of rhetoric as a form of energy first appeared, to my knowledge, in the article “Hoot in the Dark.” He elaborated the definition in his book Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 3–5, 215–17.

4


definition. Utterance without action is not rhetorical; action without the motivation of utterance is rhetorically meaningless. “Rhetorics,” on the other hand, can be understood to be the special, pragmatic expression of “rhetoric” within discursive communities whose participants know and/or recognize the conventions, rules, and/or regulations that govern discourse or argumentation within that community. It is under this rubric, e.g., that I would put the classic definitions of rhetoric offered by the Greco-Roman theorists such as Aristotle10 or Quintilian.11 It is important that critics maintain the distinction between “rhetoric” and “rhetorics” in their analyses. With this in mind, I turn now to propose following the conceptual content of rhetoric: • Thesis One: Rhetoric is communal. That is, persuasive communication occurs within groups that share one or more characteristics of worldviews, experiences, means of communication, and, importantly, a coding system that is familiar to all members of the community. The coding system is usually context specific and includes topics, insider language, and linguistic and artistic symbols understood only by members of the community. • Thesis Two: Rhetoric creates community. That is, persuasive use of a coding system creates distinctions between those who recognize the world being created by persuasion and thereby become “insiders,” and those who do not and remain “outside” that world. This thesis seems counterintuitive to the first. How can rhetoric create a community if it needs a coding system familiar to a community? My point is that by process rhetoric functions to distinguish between general communities such as humankind and other animals, and allows for further discrimination to evolve.12

10. “That rhetoric, therefore, does not belong to a single defined genus of subject but is like dialectic and that it is useful is clear—and that its function is not to persuade but to see the available means of persuasion in each case . . .” George Kennedy, trans., Aristotle: On Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 35. 11. “Rhetoric . . . is . . . best treated under the following three heads, the art, the artist and the work. The art is that which we acquire by study, and is the art of speaking well” (H. E. Butler, trans., Institutio Oratoria I(LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920), 299, 301. As is well known, a paraphrase of Quintilian’s definition could be, “The art of a good man speaking well.” 12. See Kennedy, Comparative Rhetoric, chapters 1 and 2, for a discussion of that process.


5

In some sense species and subspecies are created rhetorically. Thus a coding system used by a larger group can be tailored to meet the discursive needs of a smaller one, helping them further to create community. • Thesis Three: Rhetoric is epistemic.13 That is, persuasive communication creates for the receiver insights not previously perceived or understood. Her world of knowledge is expanded and elaborated; her reality reshaped. • Thesis Four: Invention is the core of rhetoric.14 That is, every other “canon” of rhetoric derives from invention. Moreover, how persuasion is constructed depends on social location (the class, economic status, gender, etc., of both the rhetor and the audience), the coding system chosen (linguistic, artistic, symbolic), and the rhetor’s perception of the effects of the reception of the argument. Invention is always a dynamic (interactional), pragmatic, and contextual process.15 • Thesis Five: Although persuasion is completed in and by the audience, that audience is the one defined by the rhetor, and largely an ideal invented by the rhetor. That ideal resides on two plains of reality: the perceived actual partner in communication and the “universal audience” proposed by Chaim Perelman.16 Perel-

13. This is obviously a controversial claim. For overviews of the topic, see Richard Cherwitz, “Rhetoric as ‘a Way of Knowing’: An Attenuation of the Epistemological Claims of the ‘New Rhetoric,’” in Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions, Boundaries (ed. William A. Covino and David A. Jolliffe; Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1995), 452–60; Stanley Fish, “Rhetoric,” in Critical Terms for Literary Study (ed. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin; 2d ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 203–22; Alan Brinton, “William James and the Epistemic View of Rhetoric,” QJS 68 (1982): 158–69; Celeste C. Railsback, “Beyond Rhetorical Relativism: A StructuralMaterial Model of Truth and Objective Reality,” QJS 69 (1983): 351–63; Earl Croasmun and Richard A. Cherwitz, “Beyond Rhetorical Relativism,” QJS 68 (1982): 1–16; Richard L. Scott, “On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic,” CSSJ 18 (1967): 9–16; idem, “On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic: Ten Years Later,” CSSJ 27 (1976): 258–66. 14. This thesis contradicts Kennedy’s Thesis VI—see Appendix D below—that claims that delivery is prior to any other part of rhetoric. Kennedy seems to understand delivery as the ability to initiate exchange of energy. For me, however, that understanding lacks sufficient boundary conditions to render his definition meaningful. Not to be crude, but could it always be true that a belch is rhetorical? It might be, but only if it serves the inventional purpose of persuasive discourse. 15. For a fuller discussion of this process, see my article “Speaker, Audience and Situations: A Modified Interactional Model,” Neot 32 (1998): 75–94. 16. See C. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 30–35, passim.

6


man argues that the universal audience is a creation of the mind of the speaker, her conception of an audience most reasonable and most competent with respect to the issues under discussion.17 The speaker appeals to it as the final arbiter for values or truths that she believes are shared by both her and the particular audience. It is “universal” in that it shares the universe of values common to the them. On the other hand, the speaker also constructs the “actual,” or “intended” audience. She may know it as a historical or “real” entity, but because it is the recipient of persuasive discourse, it is conceptually different from the group experiencing an exigence or a crisis in its perception of reality. It is, for the speaker, that group that is capable of persuasion, thus a rhetorical construct. Within the trajectory of argumentation, however, members of the “actual, or “intended” audience may change as “insiders” are created. The goal of persuasion may change, therefore, from consciousness creating—a kind of epistemology—into consciousness raising—a kind of hermeneutic—or consciousness sustaining—a kind of exhortation. • Thesis Six: “Means of persuasion” include not only topics or “common places,” or abstract coding systems such as alphabets or numbers, but also artifacts of community life. That is, depending on audience and place, persuasion may be framed as art, architecture, film, or other such cultural artifacts, such as letters, ceremonial speeches, prayers, stories, and rituals.18 Furthermore, as ancient theorists recognized, character itself is a means of persuasion. For most of the past decade I have been trying to learn and make use of a general theory of rhetoric proposed by Ernest Bormann in the analysis and criticism of 1 Thessalonians19 and chapter 1 in

17. Chaim Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its Implications (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979), 48, 58. 18. See the interesting essay by Luther H. Martin in which he describes the creation of group solidarity among the members of the Mithras cult as based on sharing the experience of initiation into the cult. “Performance” in response to the “tauroctonous image of sacrifice” was the only common thread in group formation and identify (“Performativity, Narrative, and Cognition: ‘Demythologizing’ the Roman Cult of Mithras,” in Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christianities [ed. Willi Braun; Studies in Christianity and Judaism 16; Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press], 196–97_. 19. James D. Hester, “A Fantasy Theme Analysis of 1 Thessalonians,” in Rhetorical Criticism and the Bible (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Dennis L. Stamps; JSNTSup 195;


7

Romans.20 The more I make use of the theory, the more I am convinced that it offers a way to describe and analyze the formation and elaboration of Christian paideia and rhetoric, and to explain the ability of that paideia to retain its pragmatic power and persuasiveness in the midst of multiple exigences in and through the experience of myriad Christian communities. In fact, it explains, I think, the formation and re-formation of Christian social groups in general throughout time and place. Fantasy Theme Analysis (FTA) emerged from a series of seminars conducted by Ernest G. Bormann at the University of Minnesota in which small group communication was studied. Bormann first described FTA in an article published in 1972. It was refined over time by him, his students, and colleagues and developed a technical vocabulary21 to help the critic describe analyses of shared fantasies that are embedded in public discourse about experiences or events that a group finds unconventional, chaotic, or conflicts with their worldview or self-understanding. Ultimately, it developed a theoretical model, Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT), to help guide studies of empirical data.22

Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 504–25; idem, “Apocalyptic Discourse in 1 Thessalonians,” in The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the New Testament (ed. Duane F. Watson; SBLSymS 14; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), 137–64. 20. James D. Hester, “The Rhetoric of Persona in Romans 1:1–12” in Celebrating Romans: Template for Pauline Theology (ed. Sheila McGinn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 83–105. 21. See Appendix B below. 22. SCT has concepts analogous to those found in Kenneth Burke’s “Dramatistic Criticism.” Burke’s rhetorical theory emphasized not the classic canons of rhetoric—invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery—but the dramatic pentad of “what” (act), “where” (scene), “who” (agent), “how” (agency), and “why” (purpose) (Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives [Berkeley: University of California, 1969], xv). His system was intended to provide a critic with a method for analyzing “human symbolic interaction,” allowing a critic “to analyze the reality experienced by different rhetors” (Carl R. Burgchardt, ed., Readings in Rhetorical Criticism [State College, PA: Strata Publishing, 1995], 205). Ernest Bormann was influenced by social scientific research, and in particular the work of Robert Bales, who studied the ways in which small groups create “dramas” that then function as social reality for them. Bormann, modifying Bales’s work in part by moving away from its Freudian-based analysis, argued that small group fantasies “chain out” not just among members of the group but also into larger segments of society, modifying their behavior as well; see “Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision: The Rhetorical Criticism of Social Reality,” QJS 58 (1972): 398–99. Proponents claim that SCT is able to provide a kind of explanation of why people behave in the ways they

8


SCT is a general theory of communication23 that accounts for the formation of group consciousness through the use of imaginative language by the group that creates for that group a shared sense of reality. It assumes that rhetoric can be epistemic and that because it is, it can help an individual make sense of a world that may be for him or her chaotic, even hostile and threatening. It also assumes that the rhetoric of an individual can be shared and “chained out” in a process of communication within a group that produces a “convergence” or overlapping of private symbolic worlds so that a common consciousness or a shared reality emerges. A group of individuals finds ways of talking about attitudes or emotions they have shared in response to some person or event. They produce “fantasies,” not figments of imagination but imaginative interpretations of events that have occurred in a particular time and place. These fantasies use metaphorical or other forms of “insider” language that “interprets events in the past, envisions events in the future, or depicts current events that are removed in time and/or

do. See John F. Cragan and Donald C. Shields, Applied Communication Research: A Dramatistic Approach (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1981), 7. Said differently, in SCT social behavior has a rhetorical basis. 23. Bormann is careful to distinguish between “special theory,” which he understands as useful in explaining how to conduct communication within the constraints of a certain time and place, and “general theory” (Ernest Bormann, Small Group Communication: Theory and Practice [3d ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1990), 3–5). Special theories deal with communication events in which models for communication are mutually agreed upon but could be ignored by some participants; they are “artistic formulations that specify the nature of conventional forms and provide practical advice on how to take part in the relevant communication episodes” (Ernest Bormann, John Cragan, and Donald Shields, “In Defense of Symbolic Convergence Theory: A Look at the Theory and Its Criticisms after Two Decades,” Communications Theory 4 [1994]: 265). “General theory” he defines as being able to account for “broad classes of events” and “tendencies in human communications events that cannot be ignored or rescinded by the participants” (Bormann, Cragan, and Shields, “In Defense,” 266). General theories explain what happened in the past and may have predictive value as well. “General Theories deal with tendencies in human communication events that cannot be ignored or rescinded by the participants . . . [they] are trans-cultural in that they explain events that take placed in various cultural contexts . . . [they] may include a description of the dynamic forces that can provide a necessary and sufficient set of causes to explain [a] discovered pattern” of longitudinal patterns of communication that “show an evolution from earlier forms to later forms” (Bormann, Cragan, and Shields, “In Defense,” 266–67). Typically, New Testament rhetorical criticism uses special theories of rhetoric and produces analysis, not criticism as such.


9

space from the actual activities of the group.”24 Fantasy themes constitute the story that is the reality for the group and form the basis for discursive argument. In SCT the story is called a “dramatizing message.” Set somewhere other than the here and now, it makes use of metaphors, analogies, puns, allegories, anecdotes, narratives, and other imaginative language to talk about some past conflict or envision some future conflict and interpret them so that they make sense to the group.25 The content of these messages is made up of fantasy themes. These themes are “organized and artistic,” shared interpretations of an experience that allow members to talk with one another about a shared experience.26 They have a specific story line and use insider references, or “symbolic cues,” that can cause an emotional response to that experience. The language of fantasy themes characterizes the event or experience, giving it a “spin” that allows members of the group to account for differing perceptions of what happened.27 Fantasy themes can be organized under fantasy types, which are general scenarios, reference to which can help explain or interpret new experiences. Stock scenarios and generalized persona are synthesized from various themes shared by the group. Types then undergird the group culture. In conventional terms, it is within fantasy types that commonplaces are found. Fantasy themes and types can be organized into a larger rhetorical vision, a coherent vision of social reality that can be conjured by the use of key words or slogans.28 A group’s rhetorical vision provides a “common set of assumptions about the nature and reality of proof. . .” that is necessary for discursive argument. Evidence need not be tied to empirical experience, or even dialectic, but can based on such things as “revelation,” as Bormann has shown was true for the Puritans.29 It is important that a rhetorical vision be functional, situational,

24. Sonja K. Foss, Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press), 290. 25. Bormann, Cragan, and Shields, “In Defense,” 280. 26. Bormann, Cragan, and Shields, “In Defense,” 281. 27. Ernest Bormann, Small Group Communication, 107. 28. Bormann, Cragan, and Shields, “In Defense,” 281. 29. Ernest Bormann, The Force of Fantasy (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985, 2001), 26–75.

10


and contextual. If a rhetorical vision is formulated by a particularly charismatic individual, it may be picked up by a group and its dramatizing message chained out by members of the group. However, that vision will be changed by the elaboration process so that the group consciousness is raised and then sustained. If that change does not occur, the very existence of the group can be threatened. Symbolic Convergence Theory moves the locus of invention from an individual speaker, and his or her resources, to the group. While it is true that an individual can be charismatic enough to guide the process of chaining out a group’s fantasies through the expression of a single powerful rhetorical vision, one individual’s vision will not typically dominate over time if group consciousness is raised high enough.30 Therefore, in SCT the focus of attention moves from the speaker to the message. It is the message, not the messenger, that finally expresses reality for the group.31 SCT posits that the social reality constructed by the group not only allows for discursive argument within the group but also can be a source of motivation for action.32 This is demonstrated, for example, in Margaret Duffy’s study of the political campaign to get approval for the institution of riverboat gambling in the conservative political environment of the state of Iowa. She is able to show how fantasies were used to direct the actions of the competing groups in that campaign.33 Finally, a FTA of the rhetoric, or public discourse, of a group may allow the critic to anticipate the behavior of a group.34 For example, an analysis of a group’s rhetorical vision could suggest at what stage the social reality of the group finds itself—consciousness creating, consciousness raising, or consciousness sustaining—and, therefore, predict the viability of the vision for maintaining the group’s defini-

30. Bormann, Small Group Communication, 111–12. He makes the point that this is particularly true in zero-history or leaderless groups. 31. John Cragan, “Rhetorical Strategy: A Dramatistic Interpretation and Application,” CSSJ 26 (1975): 5. 32. Ernest Bormann, “Colloquy: I. Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision Ten Years Later,” QJS 68 (1982): 289, 304. 33. Margaret Duffy, “High Stakes: A Fantasy Theme Analysis of the Selling of Riverboat Gambling in Iowa,” The Southern Communication Journal 62 (1997): 117–32. 34. Bormann, “Colloquy: I,” 304; Cragan and Shields, Applied Communication Research, 10.


11

tion of reality and anticipate actions by the group to make changes in the vision in order to cope with new experiences or events.35 In light of all this, what would rhetorical analysis look like? Analysis focuses on the communication practices of a given community and how those practices were formulated and practiced. The analyst studies the imaginative language used by the group and the content of messages, and identifies fantasy themes, types, and rhetorical visions. If possible, the analyst may also make use of social-scientific techniques36 in order to understand group consciousness.37 (Obviously the latter is more difficult if the group being studied is removed in time from the analyst!) That consciousness is illustrated in the dramatized messages that the group shares, messages that help members deal with the exigences they face and explain the reality they experience. Symbolic Convergence Theory helps us understand that criticism differs from analysis in that the rhetorical critic illuminates the meta-language of a given group as it symbolizes reality through its discourse. While analysis can illustrate, for example, the apparent use of Aristotelian canons of rhetoric in the educational system of imperial Rome and how those canons were used within a certain documentary rhetorical artifact to persuade, the critic will look for “recurring patterns of symbolization . . . across cultures and stylistic forms.”38 Finding those patterns may allow the critic to chart the development of a society rhetorically, as opposed to social-scientifically, by analyzing not just the patterns but also the form and content of communication used and how they changed in response to the perceptions of reality, as described in communication artifacts, in the society. This change could and should be charted at both the 35. Ernest G. Bormann, John F. Cragan, and Donald C. Shields, “An Expansion of the Rhetorical Vision Component of the Symbolic Convergence Theory: The Cold War Paradigm Case,” Communication Monographs 63 (1996): 1–28. 36. Bormann advocates the use of such things as Q-sort interviews, focused group interviews, questionnaires, and sample surveys. See Borman, “The Symbolic Convergence Theory of Communication: Applications and Implications for Teachers and Consultants,” Journal of Applied Communication and Rhetoric 10(1982): 50–61. On the other hand, he is able to show that a critic can effectively analyze both fantasy themes and symbolic convergence by close reading of historical documents. See idem, The Force of Fantasy. 37. Ernest Bormann, “Rhetoric as a Way of Knowing,” in The Rhetoric of Western Thought (3d ed.; ed. J. L. Golden, G. F. Berquist, and W. E. Coleman; Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1983), 433. 38. Bormann, “Rhetoric as a Way of Knowing,” 446. George Kennedy argues something of the same thing in his book Comparative Rhetoric.

12


macro- and micro-levels of society. Furthermore, one should expect that as societies become more complex, so should forms of communication, both in practice and in materiality, and that preference for one form of communication over another might be determined by such things as educational levels and available technology. Given that kind of critical analysis, the rhetorical critic might also be able to describe the phases of importance of a given rhetorical vision and the “chaining out” of that vision that must occur if group consciousness is to be maintained. That elaboration could be described in the light of changes in historical situational and functional settings experienced by the group, including such things as crises in the political and/or cultural setting of the group or the appropriation of materiality for organizing the communicative process. She might also be able to demonstrate such phenomena as the evolution of a founding rhetorical vision to honorific status, while more pragmatic versions of it are elaborated to adapt to changes in the reality experienced by the group.39 The discovery of “recurring patterns of symbolization,” elaborations of rhetorical vision in response to group experience, and appropriation and adjustment of material forms of communication used by the group ought to allow the critic to predict the viability of group consciousness and the direction its rhetoric takes as it adjusts to exigences it encounters. Such criticism could then be used to explain the rhetorics of small group formation in response to schismatic developments in emerging group consciousness. In the context of the New Testament and early church history, a rhetorical critic, given the presence of a credible number of rhetorical artifacts, could describe the emergence of theological movements rhetorically. SCT and FTA are but one theoretical model and analytical method that moves beyond analysis—the description of how an argument is constructed and what use it makes of culturally derived methods of persuasion—to criticism—the description of why a rhetorical artifact both had and retains its power even now to persuade, to create new reality and new knowledge for the individuals or groups who use it, even if that description deals primarily only with a specific historically located group. The articles in this volume represent 39. The example I have in mind here is the development of the fantasy type “the lordship of Jesus,” in response, in part, to the crucifixion. Paul replaced Jesus’ fantasy type the “Kingdom of God” with the fantasy type “the body of Christ,” which is, as Paul is able to show, a more pragmatic type.


13

what I believe to be additional, significant contributions to rhetoric as criticism.

RHETORICS IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM Greg Bloomquist is one of the foremost practitioners of socio-rhetorical criticism as developed in the many writings of Vernon Robbins. In this volume he offers a rich, complex overview of that approach, focusing on two phases of its development: textural analysis and topical analysis. Building on the work of Kenneth Burke and Stephen Tyler, textural analysis seeks to describe the complex nature of a text by looking for levels of meaning found in the “inner texture,” “intertexture,” social and culture texture, ideological texture, and sacred texture of a given documentary artifact. After describing what Robbins intends by each of these concepts, Bloomquist argues that Robbins’s notion of ideological texture seems to stop at understanding group formation without getting at “how rhetors seek to move audiences . . .” in relation to cultural practices. However, with that exception, he affirms the basic utility of each texture for analysis of texts. He offers a practical application through an analysis of the Parable of the Sower, a tour de force that would suffer if I tried to summarize it! Suffice it to say that after Bloomquist is done, the story of the sower stands out in high and rich relief from the “flat” surface of the page. Next Bloomquist observes that after 1996, socio-rhetorical criticism has been elaborated by moving toward topical analysis. Textures now become places where topics reside, and topics are seen as “building blocks” that produce textures. Although Bloomquist doesn’t put it this way, there is a clear organic or symbiotic relationship between the two, with the energy of the topic expressed, directed, and even elaborated by the texture.40 In Bloomquist’s topological analysis, he is able to raise questions about the effect of the discourse in the text of the sower, where loss of seed is offset by huge gains in harvest. This effect reverses the expectation of the hearer set by the beginning of the story and, as such, mirrors the pattern of expectation in the Markan narrative, in which the life lived in scarcity as experienced by the hearers/readers is replaced by God’s rule with its promise of great abundance. 40. This relationship is strikingly similar to the one Bormann described in analyzing discourse development in small group communication.

14


For Bloomquist socio-rhetorical analysis is not neo-Aristotelianism in new garb, nor Burkean analysis using new nomenclature, although it clearly makes use of both. It is a programmatic approach, making use of the tools of social scientific theory and ideological criticism, which seeks to be both rhetorical and social in that it analyzes the textures and topics of argumentation that grow out of a people’s life experience. Lee Snyder was a Burkean critic, who uses the theories of Kenneth Burke to analyze New Testament texts. Burke was a literary critic whose career spanned more than sixty years and “who developed a unique style of linguistic and sociological analysis based on the study of literature and language.”41 He believed that language was not so much epistemic as pragmatic. That is, rhetoric may not necessarily create knowledge, but it certainly enables human action and interaction. Language has a materiality that causes things to happen; that is both its blessing and its peril. Burke’s philosophy of language is called “dramatism.” From its perspective, language and thought are modes of action. Philosophically, the motivation for action can be analyzed using the dramatistic pentad of act (what happened), scene (where did it happen—situation), agent (who did what), agency (with what), and purpose. In other words, an act cannot be studied scientifically because it is influenced by things outside itself and creates something ex nihilo, that is, purpose. Human motives must, therefore, be analyzed rhetorically. That leads Burke to what might be superficially described as very close reading of a text. The text is the object of analysis; its historical context is of less importance. The language of the text functions to be persuasive quite independently of the author’s situation or even intention. Thus, Burke developed an analytical technique called “indexing.” Snyder describes this process as mapping, “the topography of the words a writer uses.” There are four processes used in this task: • Cluster analysis looks for key terms, synonyms, and metaphor and the other terms that “cluster” around them, looking for patterns of meanings. • Agon analysis takes note of contrasting terms, characters, or actions.

41. Covino and Jolliffe, Rhetoric, 34.


15

• Progressive form analysis notes beginnings, which signal the author’s principles, and endings, which sum up the writer’s purposes, and identifies the forms an author uses to accomplish this. • Transformation analysis tracks how the qualities or identities of personae, and so forth, change in the course of the text. Having defined his terms, Snyder then uses indexing to read Matthew 22:1–6. He finds persuasive intent in the narrative of the four stories included in the text. He says that the author wanted to show that Jesus was wiser than the religious leaders with whom he interacted and that, therefore, the reader should believe Jesus’ teachings. In fact, according to Snyder, the narrative is an enthymeme! Then Snyder examines the text as a drama, using Burke’s understanding of that concept. He describes the act, agency, agent, scene, and purpose in the narrative, thus allowing an overview of the persuasive act found there. At first the religious leaders are the agents acting to reveal the character of Jesus. The scene is their territory, and their purpose was to expose the inadequacy of Jesus’ authority. But a transformation occurs, and by the last scene Jesus is the agent who by his acts—his answers to their questions—confirms his authority. The purpose of the drama then becomes encouragement of the crowds and his disciples—and by definition now, the readers—to believe that Jesus is the teacher and the Messiah. Snyder labels the whole narrative a drama of ironic vindication. Snyder does not reference the canons of classical rhetoric or its topics and tropes. He does not allude to historical issues. He simply takes a modern rhetorical critical method and uses it for a close reading of the text to try to explain why that text has persuasive power. Dale Sullivan is interested in genre criticism, and in his many publications he has examined the form and function of epideictic speeches in the modern world. Recently, however, he has turned to analysis of New Testament literature with the eye of a modern rhetorical critic. He begins his contribution to the book with this sentence: “In this essay I draw the conclusion that Acts is an example from antiquity of a dynamic, dialogic text addressing a perceived rhetorical exigence by stretching the boundaries of then current genres.” He then says that he wants “to explore how New Testament critics go about identifying genre and then to respond to their work from the perspective of modern genre theory.” It is Sullivan’s contention that most New Testament critics arrive

16


at an identification of the genre of Acts out of their presuppositions of the historicity of Acts. Critics who doubt its historicity have, for example, identified Acts as romance literature or as “reportive” literature. Critics who come to the identification of genre through an attempt to identify the author’s purpose in writing usually find history or chronicle as the preferred genre for Acts. Those who look at the situation of the audience claim that the book serves to legitimize what its readers believe and how they act, that is, that the book is an apology aimed at an educated reader. Some critics label Acts a biography of the church. Another group, attempting to derive the genre of Acts by matching it with other similar ancient documents, sees Acts as a popular history or as historical monograph or as apologetic historiography or even as mimetic biography something along the line of a biography of Socrates. Summarizing these approaches, Sullivan says that they can be mapped out on four axes: the romance-history axis, the individual biography-group bios axis, the internal audience-external audience axis, and the apologia-edification axis. Given this, Sullivan is able to conclude that in fact Acts is a mixed, or hybrid, genre that functions as a “strategic response to a situation.” He goes on to quote with favor Carolyn Miller’s definition of genre as “that aspect of situated communication that is capable of reproduction, that can be manifested in more than one situation, more than one concrete space-time.” To elaborate that a bit, genre is governed by certain rules that allow it to be reproduced, and functions in a community situation that shares both verbal codes and channels of communication understood by individuals in the community. On the other hand, it is dynamic and can be stretched to fit an exigence. Genres are dialogic, intertextual, and evolving. Sullivan then lets us know his opinion as to the genre of Acts. He argues that it is “an evolved form of the gospel genre.” The major forms embedded in it are accusation and defense, “a dynamic speech cycle that generates narrative tension within the book. . . .” Accusations meant to silence the gospel are made and then a defense of the gospel occurs. The purpose of the narrative is to encourage, to persuade(?), believers to continue the mission of the church even in a hostile environment. Finally, Sullivan makes the point that the changes made by the author of Acts to the genre that has been appropriated by him create a new genre that is appropriated and adapted by the later authors of documents like the apocryphal Acts of Paul. Thus, he joins with


17

other authors in the collection who emphasize the dynamic nature of rhetoric and its ability to adapt to audience and situation. Greg Carey wants to approach the teaching of Paul not through an analysis based on either rhetorical conventions as described in the ancient handbook tradition or modern theories of persuasion but topologically by looking at the effects Paul creates using the topic of ignorance. By doing this he hopes to “assess the kinds of relationships Paul fosters” with his audience. The topic of ignorance is not widely illustrated in the handbook tradition. In Paul it tends to be used in two ways: on the one hand Paul can use it to impugn the character or “knowledge” of an opponent or member of his audience; and, on the other, he can feign his own ignorance as a device to enhance his own character. Carey illustrates the former through an analysis of the formula “we know,” and the implication of Paul’s superior knowledge over an ignorant opponent or teaching; “do you not know,” which implies shared knowledge not being acknowledged by the audience; or, “I don’t want you to be ignorant,” which indicates that Paul wants to supplement the audience’s knowledge. These expressions are illustrated through their use primarily in Romans and the Corinthian correspondence. While these formulas fall primarily into the category of the ignorance of the audience, Paul also appeals to his own ignorance as an argumentative device. This can be seen in Galatians, where it is expressed as indifference; in the Corinthian correspondence, where he uses both indifference and his apparent lack of “wisdom” as a sign of character or as a particularly revelatory knowledge that is superior to “wisdom.” As I have argued above, “rhetorics” are made up of special theories of rhetoric. Carey’s insight is that in at least one approach to argumentation Paul makes effective use of a special topological rhetoric, not described in the handbooks, of “ignorance,” to address diverse audiences in order to focus his relationship with them. Unintentionally, Carey also illustrates the fact that epistolary formulas42 can be made to serve persuasive ends. 42. John White, Light from Ancient Letters (Foundations and Facets: New Testament; ed. Robert W. Funk; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 203–8, describes epistolary formulas and conventions, including that of “knowing.” The formulaic reverse of that convention is quite obviously “not knowing” or “ignorance.” Jack Sanders’s classic study, “The Transition from Opening Epistolary Thanksgiving to Body in the Letters of the Pauline Corpus,” JBL 81 (1962), 348–62, points out that formulas of “knowing” or “ignorance” often signal the opening of the body of Paul’s letters.

18


Frank Hughes, who studied with Robert Jewett and Carl Joachim Classen at Göttingen, uses resources from classical Greek and Roman rhetoric in his analysis of texts. In his contribution to this collection he addresses the issue of pseudonymity in ancient literature: Hebrew Bible, Greek, Christian, and Jewish. That is, he argues that anonymous authors have written in the name of famous historical figures in each of those literary traditions in order to preserve and extend traditions they see as important to their communities. Hughes begins by reviewing scholarly opinion on the authority of the disputed Pauline letters, highlighting the various solutions offered to overcome the historical and ethical problems of pseudepigraphical designations. Then he turns to Quintilian’s teaching on imitatio and declamation. He points out that the teaching and use of imitation in declamations advocated by Quintilian mirrors that general phenomenon in the ancient world, so that one would expect to encounter pseudonymity in ancient literature as writers try to perpetuate the best of their culture, its traditions and values, by imitating authoritative authors. Tradition was preserved in part by implied reference by use of a name to the ethos or “character” of the author. The implication is that the teachings of the pseudonymous writer imitated those of the historical author in a time and place different from the original and were still valuable for the community. Hughes makes clear that exigences faced by early Christian communities created the need to preserve and elaborate earlier traditions. Greco-Roman rhetoric and paideia provided examples and tools to do that. In Bormannian terms, a “special theory” of rhetoric, a “rhetorics of pseudonymity,” was at hand. Where many critics see pseudonymity as a historical problem, Hughes helps us see it as a rhetorical one that was “solved” by the emerging Christian paideia. Carol Poster comes to the analysis of the book of James as a classics scholar, and she argues that the “letter” should be classified as protreptic literature. The purpose of protreptic, says Poster, “is to exhort the reader to strive toward the good, or the divine.” Philosophically, “it is a theory of speech which assumes that language is both necessary for salvation and the major obstacle to [it]. . . .” Ancient philosophers—particularly Platonic and Pythagorean philosophers—knew that while language was necessary for moral and spiritual persuasion, it was also the source of misunderstanding. Silence was preferable to speech, but when speech was necessary it


19

should be used to stir men’s souls; it should be performative, giving advice on how to conduct one’s life. Furthermore, protreptic is contingent, “invented at a specific place and time in response to a particular set of problems.” Protreptic speech had to be adapted to the audience, but that audience had to be a group of sympathetic hearers if it were to be effective. It did not try to describe the mystery of the faith but instead “stir the soul” by talking about how life is to be lived and in doing so kindle an examination of the ineffable by the hearer himself. Thus, it is instructional and not doctrinal in content. The need to address pedagogic material to a particular audience in a particular exigence led the speaker to the use of letters. However, identifying James as philosophic protreptic is not a function of form criticism but ultimately genre criticism. “Its literary form is conditioned by and responds to the same problems of philosophic language as Platonic protreptic or Cynic diatribe,” says Poster. James is performative. That is, it acts as exhortation; it attempts, to use Poster’s phrase, to “turn souls.” Having made the case for understanding James as philosophic protreptic, Poster then turns to the task of reconstructing something of its rhetorical context. She argues that the author (or redactor) lived in the late first or early second century, a follower of James, the brother of Jesus, and was familiar with syncretistic Hellenistic paideia. She describes those features of the argument in James that align it with philosophic protreptic, especially his emphasis on the fallibility of speech and the interdependence of faith, words, and works. In a lovely bit of exegesis she points out that the word pivsti" also meant “proof” in Greek rhetoric; therefore, James could be understood to be saying, “Show me your proof apart from your works and I by my works will show you my proof.” In other words, “actions are a far better proof of faith than mere verbal claims.” This is one of the essential arguments of any philosophical protreptic. The beauty of Poster’s analysis is that she moves beyond historical and form criticism to an explanation of how the author’s argument was intended to function. She does not understand genre at the level of form but of function, and while she is able to point to other examples of epistolary protreptic, she emphasizes the dynamic nature of rhetoric to respond to exigence and audience. Given the diversity of approaches to rhetorical analysis and criticism represented in this volume, a charge might be made that rhetorical criticism is in danger of producing more cacophony than harmony, casting more shadows than light. In response to that I

20


make two observations. On the one hand, rhetorical criticism makes it clear that there is no—nor should there be!—single, normative interpretation of a rhetorical artifact. On the other, given that, rhetorics allows for a hermeneutic of contingency or functionality, a contextual or situational understanding that can keep the power of persuasion alive. Rhetorics has the potential to answer the taunt, “so what?” in response to a reading. In the end, what I am arguing for, hopeful of, is the development of rhetorical criticism that is symbiotic—that is, it recognizes the fluidity, multiple intentionality, and contextuality of rhetorical acts— symphonic—that is, it makes use of the rhetorics of other disciplines in order to deconstruct and reconstruct the persuasive power of a rhetorical act—and museful—that is, it is deliberately reflective, contingent, and interactional.43 I am optimistic that New Testament rhetorical criticism can become such if it escapes the hegemony of form and historical criticism.

43. I proudly borrow both the terms and conceptual definitions, with some variation, from J. David Hester Amador, Academic Constraints in Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Rhetoric of Power (JSNTSup 174; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 52–57.

Part 1

Mapping New Rhetorics


2 The Rhetoric of Inquiry ELISABETH SCHÜSSLER FIORENZA

Generally, the label “rhetoric/rhetorical” is understood as referring to speech as stylistic ornament, technical means or linguistic manipulation, as discourse utilizing irrational, emotional devices that are contrary to critical thinking and reasoning. Academic and popular parlance continue to label as “rhetoric/rhetorical” statements that it wants to mark as “mere talk,” stylistic figure, as the art of gulling people and as deceptive propaganda. “Mere rhetoric” is a matter of manner rather than substance, of form rather than content, of pretension, ingratiation, and affectation. In short, the negative understanding of rhetoric as clever form of speech that is not true and honest but rather lacks substance can still be found in popular and academic discourses.

RHETORIC AND THE RHETORIC OF INQUIRY However, this negative popular and academic understanding of rhetoric must be carefully distinguished from rhetoric as an academic discipline. In the academy rhetoric is practiced either as a classical discipline1 that provides centuries-old techniques and ancient procedures for constructing and analyzing oral or written discourses. Or it is conceptualized as a communicative intellectual practice that involves contexts, interests, values, and visions. Scholarly interest in both rhetoric as technique and literary convention on the one hand and rhetoric as a cultural-religious discourse and public political practice on the other has steadily increased in the past decades both in the wider academy and in biblical studies.2

1. See, e.g., Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, ed., Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). 2. See, e.g., George Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina

23

24


This is due for the most part both to the revival of rhetorical criticism that harkens back to the handbooks of Greek and Roman rhetoric and the explanation of classic rhetorical terms3 and techniques. It is also due to the revival of rhetoric as critical cultural intellectual discourse4 that has rediscovered the significance of rhetoric in the production of knowledge in general and underscored the rhetoricity or rhetoricality5 of texts and interpretations in particular. The rhetoric of inquiry participates in this broader cultural intellectual movement but focuses on epistemological and disciplinary questions such as: How is knowledge constructed, what counts as interesting research question, what kind of knowledge gets privileged, how is disciplinary authority constructed, what kind of socio-political or cultural religious interests are served and many more. Press, 1980); idem, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984); Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon, 1984); Duane F. Watson, “The New Testament and Greco-Roman Rhetoric: A Bibliography,” JETS 31 (1988): 465–72; Wilhelm Wuellner, “Hermeneutics and Rhetorics: From ‘Truth and Method’ to ‘Truth and Power,’” Scriptura 3 (1989): 1–54; Burton L. Mack, Rhetoric and the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990). Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999). 3. See, e.g., Richard A. Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). 4. See, e.g., Dominick LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Daniel Stempel, “History and Postmodern Literary Theory,” in Tracing Literary Theory (ed. Joseph Natoli; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987): 80–104; Pietro Rossi, ed., Theorie der modernen Geschichtsschreibung (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1987); H. Aram Veeser, ed., The New Historicism (New York: Routledge, 1989); Richard Harvey Brown, Society as Text: Essays on Rhetoric, Reason and Reality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). 5. I have taken over this expression from John Bender and David E. Wellbery, eds., The Ends of Rhetoric: History, Theory, Practice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 25: “Rhetoric today is neither a unified doctrine nor a coherent set of discursive practices. Rather it is a transdisciplinary field of practice and intellectual concern, a field that draws on conceptual resources of a radical heterogeneous nature and does not assume the stable shape of a system or method of education. . . . The classical rhetorical tradition rarified speech and fixed it within a gridwork of limitations: it was a rule-governed domain whose procedures themselves were delimited by the institutions that organized interaction and domination in traditional European society. Rhetoricality, by contrast, is bound to no specific set of institutions . . . it allows for no explanatory metadiscourse that is not already itself rhetorical. Rhetoric is no longer the title of a doctrine and practice, nor a form of cultural memory; it becomes instead something like the condition of our existence.”

The Rhetoric of Inquiry

25

The importance of rhetoric as an intellectual practice and encompassing theory has been recognized widely. Rhetoric is understood as the study and practice of persuasion and argumentation and as part of a comprehensive theory of inquiry and scholarship.6 Rhetorical theory does not foster the conventional scientific split between inquiry and advocacy, but stresses that all inquiry is contextual and taking sides. This understanding of “rhetoric” not just as stylistic means or as a technical tool to analyze ancient texts but as persuasive and argumentative discourse7 aims at overcoming both the academic and colloquial notions of rhetoric as mere technique or as deceitful and negative. Consequently, it seeks to revalorize rhetoric as a public form of discourse for the sake of liberating intellectual discourses from their captivity to so-called value-free objective “science.” Kathleen Welch has distinguished two approaches to rhetoric as an academic discipline which she terms the Heritage School and the Dialectical School. 1. The Heritage School understands classical rhetoric8 in a positivist vein as a series of objective writings that exist in a more or less objective world of artifacts, knowledge, and retrievable reality. It claims that any text can be decoded as a definite entity and as a plain object that does not change. The assumed unchanging nature of texts makes them available to “logical” examination that results in “one true” interpretation that can be found and conveyed if the right methods and techniques are used. It reduces the complexity of the theories that define classical rhetoric and replaces them with 6. See especially John Louis Lucaites, Celeste Michelle Condit, Sally Caudill, eds., Contemporary Rhetorical Theory: A Reader (New York: Guilford, 1999); see also James S. Baumlin and Tita French Baumlin, eds., Ethos: New Essays in Rhetorical and Critical Theory (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1994). 7. For discussion of this development and relevant literature, see Brian Vickers, ed., Rhetoric Revalued (Binghampton: New York University Press, 1982); idem, In Defence of Rhetoric (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988); William A. Beardslee, “Theology and Rhetoric in the University,” in Theology and the University (ed. David R. Griffin and Joseph C. Hough; Albany: SUNY, 1991), 185-200. 8. Welch defines Classical Rhetoric as “a group of writings that begin with the references to Corax and Tisias in the fifth century b.c.e., (the first known systematic treatment of rhetoric) and span about 700 years until Quintilian and later Roman rhetoricians. The writings, writers and contexts of this broad and arbitrary category have been received in varying ways according to traditions of reception” (Kathleen Welch, The Contemporary Reception of Classical Rhetoric: Appropriations of Ancient Discourse [Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990], 167).

26


formulas, rules, lists, and simple categories. It disregards the translation problem from Greek/Latin, uses a formulaic rule approach for defining classical rhetoric (three speech genres, or the division of individual orations into six parts), and it decontextualizes classical rhetoric and its theoretical underpinnings. This mode of interpretation, based on a worldview that composes an external reality that is discrete from an internal reality of perception, represents a familiar stance and derives partly from the Cartesian dualism that creates ways of knowing for many people and whose familiarity has made it appear to be “normal” or “natural.”9 Rhetorical biblical criticism has spent much of its energy in applying and re-inscribing ancient rhetorical methods, disciplinary technology, terminological stylistics, and the systematized conventions of classical rhetorical handbooks and progymnasmata. The revival of rhetoric in biblical studies for the most part has fallen prey to the conservative impulses of the classical rhetorical tradition and to the allure of technical Greek or Roman terms. Most influential has been the methodological approach developed by George Kennedy.10 It consists in the following methodological moves: • one determines the rhetorical unit • one defines the rhetorical situation • one determines the rhetorical problem or stasis and the species of the rhetoric, whether juridical (accusation and defense), deliberative (persuasion and discussion) or epideictic (praise and blame) • one analyzes the invention, style, and arrangement • invention is argumentation by ethos, pathos, and logos • style includes figures of speech and thought • arrangement is the ordering of the various components, e.g. • exordium (introduction) • narratio (statement of facts) • probatio ( main body) • peroratio (conclusion) 9. Welch, Reception of Classical Rhetoric, 9. 10. George A Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 33–38.


27

• one evaluates the rhetorical effectiveness of the rhetorical unit in meeting the exigence. More importantly, by reviving the technology of ancient rhetoric, rhetorical criticism in biblical studies has failed to make the full turn to a critical rhetoric of inquiry11 insofar as it has not developed a hermeneutics of suspicion with respect to methodological and epistemological discourses. Instead it has sought to validate its disciplinary practices in and through the logos of positivist or empiricist science that occludes its own rhetoricity or rhetoricality.12 2. The Dialectical School, which is often called the “New Rhetoric,”13 in turn does not rely on discovering a palpable reality out there in and through the application of methodological rhetorical rules and formulas. It generally acknowledges that scientific discourse is inherently rhetorical and that scholars have no choice but to rely on rhetorical appeals and arguments, selective evidence, value-laden propositions, and ideological frameworks. Hence, this group of scholars rejects formalist decontextualized readings and confronts the problems of translation, formularizing of knowledge, and of decontextualizing of texts, methods, and interpreters. Rhetoric is contextual and context is rhetorical. There are no reliable boundary markers that separate rhetorical-hermeneutical disciplines from scientific-epistemic disciplines. Consequently, this approach focuses on contemporary epistemological theories that are capable of producing rhetorical discourse rather than merely analyzing it. It seeks to engender a “rhetorical turn” in contemporary thought and scientific discursive practices. An example of such an interdisciplinary approach in biblical rhetorical criticism is the form of socio-rhetorical criticism developed by 11. See, e.g., the very uneven contributions in Alan McGill and Donald McCloskey, eds., The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987); Ricca Edmondson, Rhetoric in Sociology (London: MacMillan, 1984). 12. For the tension between “science” and “rhetoric” as two different modes of thinking, see Stanley Fish, “Rhetoric,” in Critical Terms for Literary Study (ed. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 202–22. 13. See Chaim Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969); Chaim Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982). In biblical studies, see especially Antoinette Clark Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul’s Rhetoric (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990)

28


Vernon K. Robbins.14 This method seeks to integrate literary criticism, social-scientific criticism, rhetorical criticism, postmodern criticism and theological criticism. It analyzes: • inner texture (combining literary and rhetorical analysis) • intertexture (configuring phenomena outside texts—historical analysis) • social and cultural texture (social-scientific analysis) • ideological texture (postmodern analysis) • sacred texture (theological analysis) However, this complex model of rhetorical criticism still seems to remain beholden to the modernist-scientific understanding of rhetoric insofar as its rhetorical model is totalizing and delineated along the lines of sometimes exclusionary methods and techniques. It is developed as a tool for analyzing the text but not in terms of a meta-reflection on the rhetorical constitution of methods, perspectives, and inquiry or on the social location and rhetorical situation of scientific inquiry. Therefore, while partially qualifying, this proposal is not developed in terms of the rhetoric of inquiry but rather in terms of the scientific-technological model. The rhetoric of inquiry, I suggest, constitutes therefore a third “school” or area of rhetorical criticism that does not displace but builds on the other two approaches. 3. The Rhetoric of Inquiry: The explicit rhetorical turn to a rhetoric and ethic of inquiry is advocated by those works that unambiguously recognize the relevance of rhetoric for contemporary thought and use rhetoric as a critical and interpretive method. It shows that scholars always engage in rhetoric since even the most positivist scientific discourses use argument, persuasion, and perspectival reasoning. Hence, the rhetoric of inquiry insists that all scientific “discourse has an unavoidable rhetorical component” and that “the task of analysis consists in making explicit the functioning of that component in the production and reception of discourse.”15 Rhetorical

14. Vernon K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996). 15. Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, “Rhetoric and Its Double: Reflections of the Rhetorical Turn in the Human Sciences,” in Contemporary Rhetorical Theory, ed. Lucaites, Condit, and Caudill, 206.


29

analysis unpacks the argumentative strategies not only of texts but also of scientific disciplines. The rhetoric of disciplinary inquiry “refers to those discursive practices that are internal to a specific scientific language community.”16 It signals essentially a crisis in foundational philosophy and is a largely theoretical and epistemological enterprise. In addition to feminist theory and postcolonial studies, the works of Kuhn, Toulmin, Gadamer, Bakthin, Foucault, or Habermas have decisively engendered this rhetorical crisis in academic self-understanding and its challenges to philosophical foundationalism. The growing attention to epistemological questions that has problematized the reigning methods and scientistic frameworks of academic disciplines in general and of biblical criticism in particular has opened the door for the articulation of a rhetoric of inquiry.17 A critical rhetoric of inquiry is best understood as a second order reflection on the methodological practices, unacknowledged theoretical frameworks, and socio-political interests of scholarship that undergird its self-understandings as value-detached, objectivist science. Thus, a rhetoric of inquiry pays special attention to the argumentative discourses of scholarship and their theoretical presuppositions, social locations, investigative methods, and socio-political functions. To give an example: the political philosopher Terrence Ball has pointed out that the “linguistic-rhetorical turn” in political discourse is incomplete insofar as it has “largely ignored the twin issues of political conflict and conceptual change,” although it has always insisted that “our language does not mirror an independently existing world, but is instead partly constitutive of it.”18 The deterministic and a-historical view of language that has been espoused by the “new criticism,” functional structuralism, and some segments of postmodernism assumes that language and texts are “autonomous” and operate independently of either author or audience. Whenever texts and discourses are studied without reference to human agency or sociohistorical situation, language and texts become a closed system that takes on the character of “scientific law.” Such a “rhetorical half-turn” 16. Gaonkar, “Rhetoric and Its Double,” 202. 17. Wilhelm Wuellner has recommended that one distinguish between rhetoric as critical theory and rhetoric as argumentative/persuasive practice. See his “Hermeneutics and Rhetorics,” 1–54. However, “a rhetoric of inquiry” is at one and the same time a critical theory and a critical practice. It does not dichotomize theory and practice. 18. Terrence Ball, Transforming Political Discourse: Political Theory and Critical Conceptual History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), 5.

30


does not allow for a critical investigation into communicative processes as political processes that are best understood as the “action of speakers upon speakers about matters of public or common concern. . . . Disagreements about the scope and domain of the ‘political’ are themselves constitutive features of political discourse.”19 Since the space of rhetorical discourse is the public and political realm of society, academy, culture, and religion, a rhetoric of inquiry does not need programmatically to suppress but is able to investigate the socio-political frameworks, cultural perspectives, and symbolic universes of scientific rhetoric and cultural-religious texts and interpretations. “To regard one another’s claims as arguments rather than ‘findings,’ scholars no longer need doctrines that portray facts as inarguably given.”20 To stress rhetoric is to discount claims to neutrality and implausible doctrines of objectivism. Truth must be seen as contingent, historically situated, and reflective of values, interests, and contexts. In short, to take rhetoric seriously means to dispute the spectator story of inquiry at a theoretical level. To be sure, challenges to the positivist view of science are not unique to rhetoric. The spectator theory has suffered attacks for more than two centuries, though only recently has it lost decisive ground. Rhetoric of inquiry shows how such views fail to explain or improve the words and deeds of scholars. It also fosters more effective thinking, speaking, and acting by students and audiences outside the academy.21 Such investigations into the rhetoric of scientific inquiry and theoretical discourses, however, are not particular to one discipline. They have been made in diverse disciplines not only in the humanities but also in the natural sciences such as mathematics or biology. However, it is often overlooked that a rhetoric of inquiry as an intellectual mode and critical meta-reflection has first been advocated by critical race, postcolonial, and cultural studies that have insisted on the situatedness, intersectionality, and perspectivity of scholarly inquiry. Feminist epistemological and historical studies have greatly contributed to such a cross-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary rhetoric of

19. Ball, Transforming Political Discourse, 13. 20. John S. Nelson, Tropes of Politics: Science, Theory, Rhetoric, Action (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), xiii. 21. John S. Nelson, Allan Megill, Donald McCloskey, “Rhetoric of Inquiry,” in J. Nelson, A. Megill, D. McCloskey, eds., The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 4.


31

inquiry.22 The question of the gender, class, race, or culture of the knower has become epistemologically very significant.23 The critiques of objectivism and value-neutral science have shown that the choice of explanatory models, organizing images, or reconstructive paradigms depends on the socio-political location and communicative interests of those who produce knowledge.24 Moreover, the entire process of scholarly inquiry is best understood as rhetorical. Far from being a fully rule-bound process as positivist and objectivist science has supposed, at all stages scientific knowledge is not dependent on methodological techniques and rules but on individual and communal judgments. Good scholarship involves much more than hard fact and abstract logic.25 Intellectually, John Luis Lucaites and Celeste Michelle Condit have situated a rhetoric of inquiry by arguing that rhetoric constitutes “a distinctive alternative to the projects of modernism and postmodernism.”26 Whereas modernism aims for intellectual certainty, absolute and permanent truth, universality and objectivity, postmodernism seeks to unmask false truth, firm foundations, 22. See, e.g., Lorraine Code, Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on Gendered Locations (New York: Routledge, 1995); Susan C. Jarratt, Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991); Cheryl Glenn, Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity through the Renaissance (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997); Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Re-Visioning Christian Origins: In Memory of Her Revisited,” in Christian Beginnings: Worship, Belief, and Society (ed. Kieran O’Mahony; London: Continuum International, 2003), 225–50. 23. See Lorraine Code, What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 1–70. 24. See my SBL presidential address, “The Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: Decentering Biblical Scholarship,” JBL 107 (1988): 3–17; reprinted in Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 17–30; see also idem, “Defending the Center, Trivializing the Margins,” in Reading the Bible in the Global Village: Helsinki (ed. Heikki Räisänen, et al.; Atlanta: SBL, 2000), 29–48; William A. Beardslee, “Ethics and Hermeneutics,” in Text and Logos: The Humanistic Interpretation of the New Testament (ed. T. W Jennings; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990),15–32; D. J. Smit, “The Ethos of Interpretation: New Voices from the USA,” Scriptura 3 (1990): 16–28. 25. See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983; Tenth Anniversary Edition, 1994; 2d edition, London: SCM Press, 1995; idem, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985; 2d edition with a new epilogue, 1998) idem, Bread Not Stone; idem, Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Proclamation Commentaries; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1991); idem, But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon, 1992). 26. Lucaites, et al., eds., Contemporary Rhetorical Theory, 194–212.

32


value-neutral objectivism and intellectual certainties. Although postmodernism’s trenchant critique of modernism is well taken, postmodernism is always “parasitic on that which it critiques.” Rhetoric constitutes a third intellectual alternative that in my view is best characterized as a rhetoric of inquiry. Instead of living inside the absolute totality of modernism, or living outside modernism in perpetual critique, the rhetorical perspective describes a relatively stable and relatively fluid community that eschews any clear distinction(s) between inside and outside. The rhetorical perspective enables such a worldview because it encourages us to employ the experience and understanding of a highly diverse citizenry as the most important component of communal decision making not the presumed knowledge of timeless truth. . . . Rhetorical theorists who engage the problems and possibilities of discourse in the contemporary world tend to push the deconstructive critiques of poststructuralism and postmodernism forward, but they do so with an eye toward the pragmatic, emancipatory possibilities in any given situation.27 The rhetoric of inquiry understood as an academic domain of study has been especially championed by the so-called Iowa Project (POROI),28 which is concerned with the discovery of rhetoric in the social and natural sciences and its discursive impact on the disciplines. As an interdisciplinary research program, the rhetoric of inquiry explores how scholarship and professional discourse is constructed through argument, how paradigms of knowledge are conditioned by socio-political context, and how the articulation and presentation of scholarship and professional discourse is always audience-sensitive. The rhetoric of inquiry is two-pronged and works on two levels: It critically investigates the practices and theoretical frameworks of academic disciplines and at the same time works within disciplines to improve the level of critical theoretical reflexivity. It is a response to two contrary impulses: to critical studies in the sociology of science and to the philosophical critique of foundationalism articulated by deconstruction and postmodernism, which in the 1980s were two distinct intellectual programs. However, both 27. Ibid., 610–11. 28. http://www.uiowa.edu/~poroi/.


33

looked critically at authoritative research practices and their theoretical foundations of disinterested, objective truth and unchanging reason, which were in reality a way of making temporary sense of conflicting and ambiguous materials. They assigned to rhetoric a fundamental role in epistemology and stressed the social and cultural factors in the theory of knowledge. The logic of inquiry is here transformed into a rhetoric of inquiry.

TOWARD A RHETORIC OF INQUIRY IN BIBLICAL STUDIES In an interdisciplinary intellectual context biblical studies are best understood as rhetorical. Hence, I have argued that the rhetoric of inquiry29 must be developed and recognized as a third methodological direction of rhetorical biblical studies. To articulate the contours of a rhetoric of inquiry as a program or field of biblical studies I will sketch first the programmatic outline of a rhetoric and ethic of inquiry by mapping four main areas of inquiry. After having outlined the main domains of a rhetoric of inquiry in biblical studies, I will then map the parameters of a rhetoric of inquiry by sketching the major paradigm changes in biblical studies. I will attempt to construct such a rhetoric of biblical inquiry “with an eye toward the pragmatic, emancipatory possibilities” of biblical-rhetorical studies. THE PROGRAM OF A RHETORIC AND ETHIC OF INQUIRY IN BIBLICAL STUDIES30 Focusing on the rhetoricity or rhetoricality of biblical texts, interpretations, scholarship, and communication requires the recognition of the intellectual agency and socio-political location of the inter-

29. However, I am not certain that one can speak of such a “school” in biblical studies, although since my SBL presidential address many in the field have taken up research in terms of the rhetoric of inquiry. In my view J. David Hester Amador’s work, Academic Constraints in Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament: An Introduction to a Rhetoric of Power (JSNTS 174; Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), comes closest to instantiating such a rhetoric of inquiry. His critical review of the leading figures in rhetorical criticism engages in a rhetoric of inquiry, although he himself calls for a rhetoric of power. Wilhelm Wuellner has gestured toward such a rhetoric of inquiry but did not fully develop it. See the contributions in James D. Hester and J. David Hester (Amador), eds., Rhetorics and Hermeneutics: Wilhelm Wuellner and His Influence (New York: T&T Clark International, 2004). 30. See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft als kritisch-emanzipatorische Wissenschaft,” in Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (ed. Eve-Marie Becker; Tübingen: Francke, 2003), 347–60.

34


preter. It asks for the socio-historical contextualization of biblical texts as well as demands the scrutiny of the theoretical frameworks and ideological perspectives of biblical studies as a discipline. As far as I can see, four investigative areas are constitutive for the program of a rhetoric and ethic of inquiry. They can be mapped in the following way: 1. The rhetoric and ethic of biblical reading/interpretation investigates the rhetoric inscribed in the text. This is the area that is most developed and covered by rhetorical criticism.31 It explores • the rhetoric, that is, the logos, pathos, ethos of the text, its power of argumentation and persuasion • the act of communication inscribed in the text: author, audience, situation, exigence • the values, norms, and principles advocated by the text • the theoretical assumptions, intellectual frameworks, historical perspectives, and symbolic worlds inscribed in the text. It understands • language not as descriptive or reflective of reality, as a window to the world but as polysemic, constructive, performative, communicative, argumentative, persuasive, repressive, ideological • texts as rhetorical, inscribed communicative, conflictive, tensive practices, as determined by rhetorical situation, argument, goals, worldviews, and visions. • context as constructed rhetorically through selection, classification, and valuation. Social-historical contexts are produced through selection of material, models, images and reconstructed through analogy, contrast, and imagination • both the effective history of a text (Wirkungsgeschichte) and its communities of reading as determining its interpretation. 2. The rhetoric and ethic of scientific production understands the discourses of biblical studies in rhetorical terms and investigates how interpretation is produced and authorized. Hence, it scrutinizes 31. This approach is greatly developed as rhetorical criticism in biblical studies. See the extensive bibliography in Hester Amador’s work, Academic Constraints, 306–448.


35

• the areas of question and problem formulation, choice of methods • the theoretical assumptions, intellectual frameworks, historical perspectives, and symbolic worlds imported by the chosen method of interpretation • the lenses of reading, patterns of interpretation, categories of analysis • the theoretical models, analogies, and metaphors • how the discourse of interpretation is constructed, which authorities are appealed to, which topoi are missing, the boundaries and limits of interpretation maintained, which questions are not admitted, which arguments are silenced. 3. The rhetoric and ethic of the discipline investigates scholarship, research, and the discipline as discrete discursive formations.32 It explores • the social location and positionality of scholarship: who is recognized as “expert” in the field, what kind of scholarship is excluded, what kind of scholarship is valorized • the common sense assumptions and unarticulated presuppositions, theoretical frameworks, paradigms of research, programs of inquiry, worldviews, etc. • the kind of knowledge produced. Is it technical, hermeneutic, or emancipative? • the institutional supports and political or institutional functions of scholarship; to whom is it accountable; the kind of mindsets, imagination, and visions that it seeks to inculcate. 4. The rhetoric and ethic of communication studies how interpretation is communicated and used. It explores: • the kind of knowledge that is valorized and disseminated, the people validated as experts, the criteria used for such evaluation • the audience or readership that is envisioned: other specialists, students, and colleagues in the field, in the humanities, the wider public

32. See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Rethinking the Educational Practices of Biblical Doctoral Studies,” Teaching Theology and Religion 6 (April 2003): 65–75.

36


• the modes of communication: logos, pathos, ethos, or the arguments emphasized, the emotional labels used when dealing with differing positions, the ethos advocated • the socialization into the discipline: education into the rhetoric and ethos of “pure” value-detached reasoning or of critical reflexivity, democratic debate, intellectual responsibility, culturally multilingual and multidisciplinary competence, standards of excellence. After having sketched the contours of a rhetoric and ethic of inquiry, which is only partially realized in biblical studies, I would like to elaborate in the final part of this article the different theoretical approaches in biblical studies that have crystallized into paradigms of inquiry. Since the scope of a rhetoric of inquiry goes far beyond textual readings, it is not possible to elucidate it with reference to a single text. Rather, I want to give an example for how the work and scope of a rhetoric of inquiry can be conceptualized and lead to a transformation in the self-understanding of biblical studies. INTERPRETIVE PARADIGMS IN BIBLICAL STUDIES The locus classicus for the rhetoric of inquiry is the work of Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, which brings to the fore the rhetorical aspect of scientific discourses and disciplinary fields of study.33 Thomas Kuhn’s categories of “scientific paradigm” and “heuristic model” also provide a theoretical framework for comprehending theoretical and practical shifts in the self-understanding of biblical studies. A paradigm articulates a common ethos and constitutes a community of scholars formed by the same institutions and systems of knowledge. Hence, a shift in scientific paradigm can take place only if and when the institutional conditions of knowledge production change. Moreover, paradigms are not necessarily exclusive of one another but they can exist alongside and in corrective interaction with one another. It has now been more than twenty-five years since I diagnosed a paradigm shift underway in biblical studies.34 One can chart today 33. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). 34. See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Women in Early Christianity: Methodological Considerations,” in Critical History and Biblical Faith in New Testament Perspectives (ed. T. J. Ryan; Villanova, PA: CTS Annual Publication, 1979), 30–58;


37

four such interpretive paradigms in biblical studies: the doctrinalfundamentalist, the scientific-historical, the hermeneutic-(post) modern, and the rhetorical-, ethical-, emancipative paradigms. Fernando Segovia also has advocated a critical reflection on the discourses of biblical studies in terms of paradigms.35 While he agrees on the whole with my diagnosis of four disciplinary paradigms, he suggests a different nomenclature. He does so on grounds of a different analysis that distinguishes four disciplinary paradigms in terms of method rather than in terms of both methods and theoretical frameworks. On grounds of method one can distinguish with Segovia historical, literary, cultural criticism, and cultural-studies paradigms as constituting the basic modes of biblical criticism. However, such a delineation of the field restricts biblical criticism to the academy and to “scientific” methods. This classification results in the eclipse of those biblical readings that are located in religious communities and have as their goal spiritual nourishment and theological motivation. Moreover, such an eclipse of biblical interpretations is questionable not just in terms of feminist but also in terms of postcolonial emancipative concerns, for both feminist and postcolonial studies derive their strength not primarily from the academy but from social-political movements for change. Since most biblical readers are not located in the university but in communities of faith, the religiously based paradigm of biblical studies must not be eclipsed. While I agree that disciplinary paradigms are not hermetically closed off from but interact with one another on the level of method, I do not think that this is quite the case with respect to theoretical frameworks or perspectives. These are permeable but in the last analysis exclusive of one another. While one can and must deploy literary, archeological, historical, cultural, sociologi-

and idem, “For the Sake of Our Salvation: Biblical Interpretation as Theological Task,” in Sin, Salvation and the Spirit (ed. Daniel Durken; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1979), 21–39, although I have changed the nomenclature over the years. Such a change in naming always also entails a shift in content and accentuation. 35. Fernando F. Segovia, “Introduction: ‘And They Began to Speak in Other Tongues’: Competing Modes of Discourse in Contemporary Biblical Criticism,” in Reading from This Place: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States (ed. Fernando F. Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 1–32; see also Segovia, “Pedagogical Discourse and Practices in Cultural Studies,” in Teaching the Bible: The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Pedagogy (ed. Fernando F. Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998), 137–67.

38


cal, anthropological, philological, and other methods in the process of interpretation, I do not think that one can “marry” theoretical frameworks such as religious dogmaticism, historical positivism, cultural relativism, or emancipatory theoretical commitment promiscuously with one another without losing one’s theoretical and practical footing. In addition, paradigms are both theoretical and institutional formations that develop not only distinct methodological approaches but also different disciplinary languages and cultures. Practitioners are judged by professional criteria of excellence maintained by the hegemonic paradigm of biblical studies, and students are socialized into its disciplinary practices. For instance, whether a book is “scholarly” is still judged in terms of the dogmatic, historical, literary-cultural paradigms but often not in terms of the emancipative paradigm that would ask for competency in demystifying ideologies and structures of domination. Alternatively, students who are coming from a religious, often biblicist, background to divinity schools or to departments of religious or theological studies must not only learn to skillfully engage philological, historical, or literary academic methods but also should be encouraged to explore the theoretical, often a-religious, self-alienating, and marginalizing underpinnings of these methods. Within the doctrinal paradigm, for instance, they learn to understand biblical authority in terms of kyriarchal obedience often without knowing that this paradigm also has understood biblical authority in terms of salvation. Or, within the historical and literary paradigms, students are socialized into accepting scientific “facticity” and disinterestedness as authoritative without ever reflecting on the kyriarchal tendencies of the scientific ethos to marginalize and objectify the “others” of elite white Western men. 1. The doctrinal-theological paradigm: For centuries the prevalent paradigm of Christian biblical interpretation has been the spiritual-dogmatic paradigm, which understands the biblical record as Sacred Scripture and revealed Word of G*d. This paradigm of biblical interpretation is at home in biblical communities of faith. The Bible is the holy book of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, albeit in very different forms and ways. Hence, I will sketch the different approaches or models of interpretation that Christian Bible study has developed over its long history. In the doctrinal-theological paradigm, the Bible fulfills a revelatory function. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, for instance, insisted


39

that throughout Scripture G*d has spoken to us for the purpose of leading us to the love of G*d and neighbor. Biblical interpretation has the task of decoding what the signs constituting the biblical texts wished to say. In order to get at the revelatory meaning of biblical texts, two methods—that of typology and that of allegory—have been developed. The beginnings of both methods can be traced back to the Bible. The typological method reads biblical figures or events as types of Christ or the church and the believer. For instance, Paul understands Christ as the New Adam or the New Moses. In such a typological interpretation, the Syrophoenician woman, for instance, becomes the prototype of the Gentile church or Mary, the mother of Jesus, becomes the prototype of redeemed humanity. The allegorical method does not so much look for the meaning underneath the text but seeks to establish the deeper spiritual sense to which the text refers. For instance, “the holy hill” from which G*d speaks in Psalm 3:4, is identified as Christ or the church. Or, an allegorical reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan likens, for instance, the one who falls in the hands of robbers to the soul, the priest and Levite who pass by to priests and bishops, the innkeeper to Christ, and the inn to the church. Thus, every feature of a story receives a deeper spiritual meaning. This method seeks to preserve the integrity and sacredness of the text, especially of those texts that speak of G*d in a very anthropomorphic (human) manner. The ancient and medieval method of interpretation was rhetorical insofar as it sought to establish a fourfold sense of Scripture: the literal (historical), the tropological (moral), the allegorical, and the anagogical (future-oriented) meaning of a text. Pope Gregory, the Great, likened the act of reading the Bible to the building of a house: upon the historical foundation we erect the walls with the help of our spiritual readings and we color them by the grace of moral teaching. This method has been summed up in the following ditty: The letter shows us what G*d and our ancestors did, The allegory shows us where our faith is hid, The moral meaning gives rules for daily life The anagogy shows us where we end our life. Jewish hermeneutics developed a similar but distinctive method of interpretation, which was called PaRDeS (Paradise): Peshat seeks for the plain sense of the text; remez means the implied or allegorical sense; derush involve legal and narrative exegesis, comparing terms from different places, and sod is the mystical sense of a text.

40


Beginning with humanism and the time of the Reformation, this open-ended dynamic mode of medieval interpretation, however, changes. The Reformation taught that “Scripture alone” (sola scriptura) is the foundation of faith, that it is self-interpreting and can be understood by everyone. Luther, for instance, used the gospel as “canon” by which he evaluated biblical texts as to whether they belonged to Sacred Scripture. To establish such a canon, he formulated the dogmatic principle “what brings forth Christ” as the measuring rod. The orthodox successors of the Reformers, however, went further by introducing the dogma of “verbal inspiration” and the principle of biblical infallibility. Insofar as they insisted on plenary inspiration and maintained that the Bible was identical with the Word of G*d, they abandoned the rhetorical-theological understanding of the text. By obfuscating the rhetoricality of biblical texts, they could use the Bible as the infallible foundation and proof-text for a set of dogmatic convictions. Interpretation is now a set of rules allowing us to read the text in such a way as to confirm our dogmatic pre-understanding. The so-called pietistic movement, in turn, deplored such an anti-rhetorical, objectivist reading and stressed the personal spiritual experience of interpreters. Literalist fundamentalism again obscures the rhetoricality of the biblical text and insists that the biblical message proclaims universal moral values and truth. Like modern orthodoxy and modern science, it claims that this truth can be positively established and proven. Thus, it stresses verbal inspiration and the Bible as the direct, inerrant Word of G*d to be accepted by Christians without question. This emphasis on verbal inerrancy rather than on human rhetoricality asserts that the Bible and its interpretation transcend ideology and particularity. It obscures the interests at work in biblical texts and interpretations and reduces faith to intellectual assent rather than understanding it as a way of life. Such revelatory positivism promotes belief in the Bible rather than faith in G*d. 2. The “scientific” positivist paradigm: The second paradigm of biblical studies that was developed in the context of the European Enlightenment in protest against the control and authority of the churches was scientistic and antirhetorical. Its social institutional location is the Enlightenment university. The scientific principle of the Enlightenment was institutionalized in the modern university as the empiricist paradigm of knowledge that gives primary import to evidence, data, and empirical inquiry; that is, to the “logic of


41

facts.” This modern logic relies on abstraction for the sake of rigor, evidence, and precision; it strives to establish a single true meaning of the text in order to claim universality for its interpretations. It does so, however, not on theological but on methodological, scientific grounds. Although the scientific paradigm demands objectivity, disinterestedness, and value neutrality in order to control what constitutes the legitimate, scientifically established, true meaning of the text, it is patently Eurocentric. Just as European and American historiography as an academic discipline sought in the last quarter of the nineteenth century to prove itself as an objective science in analogy to the natural sciences, so also did biblical studies. Scientific historiography ostensibly sought to establish “facts” and “data” objectively, free from philosophical considerations or political interests. It was determined to hold strictly to facts and evidence, not to sermonize or to moralize but to tell the simple truth—in short, to narrate things as they really happened. Historical science is seen as a technique that applies critical methods to the evaluation of sources, which in turn are understood as data and evidence. The mandate to avoid theoretical considerations and normative concepts in the immediate encounter with the text had the function to assure that the resulting historical accounts would be accurate and objective, free from any ideology. Since biblical scholarship in the United States developed in the political context of several heresy trials at the turn to the twentieth century—for instance the heresy trials of the Presbyterian David Swing in 1874, Charles A Briggs in 1891, and Arthur Cushman McGiffert in 1900—its rhetoric of disinterested objectivity tends to reject all overt religious, socio-political, or theological engagement as “unscientific.” The aspiration of biblical studies in particular and religious studies in general to “scientific” status in the academy and their claim to universal, unbiased modes of inquiry deny their hermeneutical-rhetorical character and mask their socio-historical location as well as their socio-political or ecclesiastical interests. Insofar as biblical scientism insists that it is able to isolate the “facts” or the universal “truth” from the Bible’s multivalent and often contradictory meanings, it denies its own particular Eurocentric perspectives and kyriarchal rhetorical aims, which are indebted to the European Enlightenment. By objectifying, antiquating, reifying, and privatizing biblical scriptures it is in danger of playing into the hands of fundamentalist biblicism, which also claims that it can prove with certainty the univocal “word of G*d” in the Bible as a

42


“fact.” Since this positivistic “mindset” of scientific biblical criticism is not just at home in the academy but has become popularized by literalist fundamentalism, it is especially important to explore how much we have internalized the presuppositions of the scientific-fact paradigm. 3. The hermeneutic-cultural paradigm: This third hermeneutic-cultural paradigm underscores again the rhetorical character of biblical knowledge and acknowledges the symbolic, multidimensional power of biblical texts. It either ascribes personified status to the text in order to construe it as a dialogue partner or it sees the text as a multicolored tapestry of meaning. This third cultural-hermeneutical paradigm likens the reading of the Bible to the reading of the “great books” or classics of Western culture, whose greatness does not consist in their accuracy as records of facts but depends chiefly on their symbolic power to transfigure human experience and symbolic systems of meaning. This hermeneutic-cultural paradigm is not so much concerned to prove dogmas or to establish “facts” as to understand alien texts and peoples. It does not assume that the text represents a given divine revelation or a window to historical reality. It also does not understand historical sources as data and evidence but sees them as perspectival discourses constructing a range of symbolic universes. Since alternative symbolic universes engender competing definitions of the world, they cannot be reduced to one single, definitive meaning. Therefore, competing interpretations are not simply either right or wrong. Rather, they constitute different ways of reading and constructing historical and religious meaning. Texts have a surplus of meaning that can never be fully mined. A postmodern model of interpretation seeks to move beyond the ethos and mindset of the modern hermeneutic model not in order to abolish the achievements of modernity but in order to deepen and enhance them. Modernity—a deeply European event that took place at many levels from the mid-sixteenth century onward—questions all conventional ways of doing things, substituting authorities of its own that are based in science, economic growth, democracy, or law. It sought to conquer the world in the name of Reason on which the social order would be founded. The scientific principle of modernity has engendered three major correctives that underscore the complexity, particularity, and political corruption of reality. The esthetic corrective stresses experiential concreteness and intuitive imagination over rationalist abstraction;


43

the cultural corrective insists, over and against the universalizing tendencies of the Enlightenment, on cultural autonomy and on tradition as the wisdom and heritage of a particular community; and the political corrective asserts that there is no pure reason as instrument of knowledge that could lead to a just society. In the beginning was not pure reason but power. The institutions of so-called pure reason—the sciences, scholarship, and the university—hide from themselves their own complicity in societal agendas of power. These three correctives of the hermeneutic-cultural paradigm seek to move scholarly discourses beyond Western modernity without relinquishing its emancipatory achievements. Most importantly, by critically demonstrating that the standard for the Enlightenment’s claims about selfhood, reason, and universality was the elite Western Gentleman, feminist thinkers have shown that the rights and knowledge of the modern elite male subject, the “man of reason” [Genevieve Lloyd], were underwritten by the negation of such rights to his devalued others, such as wives, children, slaves, aliens, natives, and other disenfranchised wo/men. At this crossing point, postmodern hermeneutic-cultural and emancipatory-postcolonial analyses meet in their critique of modernity, whose achievements have been bought at the price of colonialism and slavery. Like the modern scientific paradigm of biblical criticism, the hermeneutic-cultural approach to biblical interpretation is also located in the university, divinity schools, and other cultural institutions. Whereas a decade ago the historical-positivist and literary-formalist paradigms of scientific biblical interpretation were reigning in the Anglo-American academy, today hermeneutical and postmodern epistemological discussions abound that are critical of the positivist scientific ethos of biblical studies. Feminist and liberation theological interpretation have played a great part in the postmodern hermeneutical transformation of academic biblical scholarship. While the postmodern hermeneutic-cultural paradigm has successfully destabilized the certitude of the scientific objectivist paradigm in biblical studies, it still asserts its own scientific value-neutral and a-theological character. Since it rejects any attempt to move from kyriocentric text to the socio-historical situation of struggle that either has generated the text or determines its function today, it tends to result in a playful proliferation of textual meanings that is not only pluralistic but also relativistic and seemingly eschews all truth claims. Hence, just as the scientific-positivist so also this third hermeneutical-postmodern paradigm of biblical studies is

44


not capable of addressing the increasing insecurities of globalized inequality or of accepting the constraints that the ethical imperative of emancipatory movements places on the relativizing proliferation of meaning. Moreover, it must not be overlooked that in modernity all three hegemonic paradigms of biblical studies have developed, in conjunction with not only modern rationalism but also European colonialism. The American Heritage Dictionary defines colonialism as a “policy by which a nation maintains or extends its control over foreign dependencies” that are called “colonies.” Without question, the Bible and biblical studies have worked hand in glove with Western colonialism. This is aptly expressed in the pithy saying ascribed to Bishop Tutu and others: “When the missionaries arrived they had the Bible and we had the land. Now we have the Bible and they have the land.” Missionaries came to Asia or Africa not only in order to preach the gospel and to make converts but also in order to civilize and educate the heathens. 4. The rhetorical-ethical or emancipatory paradigm: In the past two decades a new paradigm of interpretation has been evolving that inaugurates not just a hermeneutic-scientific but an ethical-political turn. This paradigm of biblical interpretation is not new but has a long history in political and religious radical democratic struggles for emancipation. This paradigm is not so much interested in the rhetoric of dogmatic proof, spiritual edification, scientific facts, or cultural sublimation. Rather, it investigates the ways in which biblical texts exercise influence and power in social and religious life. Since this fourth paradigm is still in the process of emerging and for the most part has not yet been able to create its own institutional structures, I have vacillated in giving it its proper name. I have, for instance, alternatively dubbed it the “pastoral-theological,” the “liberationist cultural,” the “rhetorical-ethical,” or the “rhetoricalpolitical” paradigm. In Rhetoric and Ethic I settled on the label “rhetorical-emancipatory” in order to articulate its method and goal. It deploys a critical rhetoric of inquiry in order to assess the emancipative implications and impact of biblical texts and contemporary interpretations of the Bible. However, just as the expression “feminist,” so also the term “emancipation” is often used in a derogatory fashion, for instance in German feminists are often labeled negatively Emanzen. “Emancipatory” recalls the process of liberation from slavery. It is therefore an appropriate word for an interpretive


45

approach that has as its goal overcoming structures of domination and achieving well-being for everyone. Whatever its proper name turns out to be, this fourth paradigm seeks to redefine the self-understanding of biblical scholarship in rhetorical, ethical, political, cultural, religious emancipative terms and to understand the scholar in religion as a “public,” “transformative,”36 “connected,” or “integrated” intellectual who is able to communicate with a variegated public with the goal of personal, social, and religious transformation in society for justice and well-being. This fourth paradigm understands biblical texts and biblical studies as rhetorical discourses that must be critically investigated as to their persuasive power and argumentative functions in particular historical and cultural situations. It rejects the Enlightenment typecasting of rhetoric as stylistic ornament, technical skill, linguistic manipulation, or “mere words,” and maintains not only “that rhetoric is epistemic but also that epistemology and ontology are themselves rhetorical.”37 At the heart of rhetoric is both the ethical and the political. Hence, this fourth paradigm utilizes both theories of rhetoric and the rhetoric of inquiry in order to display how, as political and religious discursive practices, biblical texts and their contemporary interpretations involve authorial aims and strategies, as well as audience perceptions and constructions. In this paradigm biblical interpretation is not understood as doctrinal, scientific-positivist, or relativist but rather seen in rhetorical-ethical terms. Such a critical rhetorical understanding of interpretation investigates and reconstructs the discursive arguments of a text, its socio-religious location, and its diverse interpretations in order to underscore the text’s possible oppressive as well as liberative performative actions, values, and

36. For the expression “transformative intellectual,” see Henry A. Giroux, “Teaching and the Role of the Transformative Intellectual,” in Education Still under Siege (ed. Stanley Aronowitz and Henry A. Giroux; 2d ed.; Westport, CT, and London: Bergin & Garvey, 1993). 37. Richard Harvey Brown, Society as Text: Essays on Rhetoric, Reason, and Reality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 85. See also, for example, J. Nelson, A. Megills, D. McCloskey, eds., The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987); Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978); John S. Nelson, “Political Theory as Political Rhetoric,” in What Should Political Theory Be Now? (ed. J. S. Nelson; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 169–240.

46


possibilities in ever-changing historical-cultural situations. This approach understands the Bible and biblical interpretation as a site of struggle over authority, values, and meaning. Since the socio-historical location of rhetoric is the public of the polis, the rhetorical-emancipatory paradigm shift seeks to situate biblical scholarship in such a way that its public character and political responsibility become an integral part of its contemporary readings and historical reconstructions. It insists on an ethical radical democratic imperative that compels biblical scholarship to contribute to the advent of a society and religion that are free from all forms of kyriarchal inequality and oppression. Hence, biblical studies as critical public discourse has to be concerned not just with exploring the conditions and possibilities of understanding and using kyriocentric biblical texts but also with the problem of how, in the interest of wo/men’s liberation, one can critically assess and dismantle their power of persuasion. Critical biblical scholarship must construct a theoretical model and epistemological framework that allows one to move toward the articulation of a critical ethics and rhetorics of inquiry. The fourth paradigm of biblical interpretation is in the process of being articulated today all around the world, insofar as in interaction with postmodern critical theory emancipatory postcolonial and feminist discourses have problematized the Enlightenment’s notion of the universal transcendental subject as the disembodied voice of reason. They have done so in order to insist that the others excluded by the elite Western white man be recognized.38 These discourses have elaborated that the political-social and intellectualideological creation of the devalued “colonialized” others goes hand in hand with the creation of the “man of reason” as the rational subject outside of time and space.39 He is the abstract knower

38. Brian K. Blount, Cultural Interpretation: Reorienting New Testament Criticism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 3, correctly argues “that if one wants to achieve a non-ideological method of biblical interpretation, the perspectives of the societal marginal must be included.” Such an inclusion will result in a multicolored rainbow of biblical interpretation. However, insofar as he positions his new approach as “cultural” interpretation, which has as its explicit goal the production of a non-ideological reading, he remains within the third paradigm of biblical interpretation. 39. See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “The Politics of Otherness: Biblical Interpretation as a Critical Praxis for Liberation,” in The Future of Liberation Theology: In Honor of G. Gutiérrez (ed. Mark H. Ellis and Otto Maduro; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 311–25.


47

and disembodied speaker of Enlightenment science and knowledge who has arrogated to himself a “G*d’s eye view” of the world. In contrast to postmodern criticism, the voices from the margins of biblical studies insist that the colonialized others cannot afford to abandon the notion of the subject and the possibility of knowing the world differently. Rather, they maintain that the subordinated others must engage in a political and theoretical process of constituting themselves as subjects of knowledge and history. Those previously excluded from the academy have to use what they know about the world and about wo/men’s lives for critiquing the dominant culture and for constructing a heterogeneous public that allows for the recognition of particular voices and fosters appreciation of difference. This fourth paradigm shift in biblical studies thus articulates a change in the aims and goals of critical exegesis and biblical interpretation. The task of interpretation is not just to understand biblical texts and traditions but also to analyze their power of persuasion in order to change and transform Western malestream epistemological frameworks, individualistic apolitical practices, and socio-political relations of cultural colonization. It seeks thereby to engender a self-understanding of biblical scholarship as a critical communicative postcolonial praxis. Biblical interpretation, like all scholarly inquiry, is a communicative practice that involves interests, values, and visions. Hence, it must develop a rhetoric and ethic of inquiry that can stand accountable for all practices of biblical studies. To sum up: Although all four paradigms of biblical interpretation are situated within the university, three of them do not subscribe to the value-free disinterested ethos of the university in terms of positivist natural science. Whereas the first and the last paradigms openly recognize their particular location and interests, the third paradigm seeks to engage biblical hermeneutics, but it often does so in terms of the second modernist paradigm, which advocates a scientific value-neutral ethos of religious and biblical studies. The emerging fourth paradigm, which conceptualizes biblical studies as a rhetoric and ethic of inquiry, utilizes together with traditional methods the analytical and practical methods of ideology critique and rhetorical inquiry. Since language not only creates a polysemy of meaning but also transmits values and re-inscribes social systems and semantic patterns of behavior, this paradigm insists on the rhetoricality of biblical studies and calls for a critical socio-politicalreligious ethos and ethic of inquiry. In and through a critical rhetorical process of interpretation and ethical deliberation religious and

48


biblical studies are constituted as public discourses that are sites of struggle and conscientization. The transformation of biblical studies into such theo-ethical-political sites of interpretation calls for a rhetoric and ethics of inquiry that is able to articulate the dehumanizing power relations and rhetorical visions of power for well-being inscribed in biblical texts, interpretations, and religions.40

40. See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Unterscheidung der Geister: Schriftauslegung als Ideologiekritik, theologische Rhetorik und Interpretationsethik,” in Interdisziplinäre Ethik: Grundlagen, Methoden, Bereiche: Festgabe für Dietmar Mieth (ed. Adrian Holderegger and Jean-Pierre Wils; Freiburg: Herder, 2001), 149–64; idem, “The Words of Prophecy: Reading the Apocalypse Theologically,” in Studies in the Book of Revelation (ed. Steve Moyise; London: T&T Clark, 2001), 1–19; idem, “The Ethos of Interpretation: Biblical Studies in a Postmodern and Postcolonial Context,” in Theological Literacy for the Twenty-first Century (ed. Rodney Petersen with Nancy Rourke; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 211–28.

3 Reading Scripture as/for Public Knowledge GARY D. SALYER

INTRODUCTION: INTERPRETING SCRIPTURE FOR A MARKET-DRIVEN CULTURE Today, the Scriptures must earn the respect of its readers. Gone are the days when people revere the Bible as an authoritative book whose claims are beyond discussion. No longer can interpreters depend on an audience that accepts the logic, the argumentative structures, or even the starting points that biblical authors took for granted. What this creates rhetorically for the Bible is a situation that is competitive to say the least. Jewish and Christian Scriptures are located in a postmodern ideological marketplace and must hawk their wares to the readers who come to it for life’s guidance. The Bible competes for cultural prestige along the very same lines as does any other ideologically motivated group. As such, the “market-driven” economy that constitutes late capitalism may function as a metaphor for how life in general operates these days. This all-encompassing rhetorical reality changes the way we interpret the Scriptures and go about our task as interpreters. Rhetorically motivated interpreters must now seek to reinvent the image of the Scriptures. Rhetorical exchange and adaptation are mandatory for biblical interpreters if they desire to retain an element of cultural relevance. Further, such rhetorical reinvention should not be seen as strange or alien to the nature of Scriptures. The Bible is a document that spanned the Bronze, Iron, Persian, and Hellenistic ages during its writing. In each era, its writers were forced to deal with a new culture, and in the process reinvented old traditions for use in a new setting using insights gained from the new culture. When one takes a close look at the canonical process, the interpreter is constantly struck by the numerous instances whereby later writers utilized 49

50


concepts from their current culture to make understandable the insights of a previous generation. As such, we see that rhetorical reinvention is the very essence of what James Sanders calls “canonical hermeneutics.”1 Further, we may also learn another lesson from the composition history of Scripture, namely, that this is exactly the way it should be. As Walter Brueggemann observes, the scriptural authorial community has not “characteristically been able to live in isolation, nor have they been intended to, nor does their character, vis-à-vis the God who claims governance of the world, permit such isolation . . . [scripture] is always addressing, belatedly, a second listening community: the larger public that is willing to host many alternative construals of reality”2 (emphasis mine). The same could also be said for the subsequent reading communities who interpreted these writings as sacred canon for later cultures. Both the reading and composition history of the scriptures demonstrate that the public is the Bible’s constant hermeneutical and rhetorical sparring partner. Because this is the case, this essay shall take the position that the emphasis on rhetoric in general and the concept of a public rhetoric in specific is demanded by the very nature of the Scriptures themselves. When one thinks of doing biblical rhetorics, the interpreter must always be aware of the public dimension. Rhetorical interpretations of the Bible should always be market-driven hermeneutics, as they have been since their inception some three millennia ago. The purpose of this paper is to explore how Lloyd Bitzer’s concept of “public knowledge” may be gainfully applied to the quest for the public’s attention, ideological adherence, and loyalty. It is my contention that only by paying attention to how texts interact persuasively in a postmodern context that we will know where cultural relevance is located, and, therefore, how to approach the current religious and cultural market of our day. To achieve this, I will offer the neo-Aristotelian method of analyzing argumentative discourse offered by Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca as a tool for gaining a better understanding of the logical foundations of biblical texts, and, therefore, the ear of the public whom we serve. 1. For more on the concept of canonical hermeneutics, the reader is referred to the classic enunciation by James Sanders in Canon and Community: A Guide to Canonical Criticism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). See also his collection of essays found in From Sacred Story to Sacred Text (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), especially the chapter “Canonical Hermeneutics,” 61–73. 2. Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 9, 87.

Reading Scripture as/for Public Knowledge

51

A case study of the Pauline resurrection account in 1 Corinthians 15 will be adduced as an example of how to utilize these concepts and methods for New Testament interpretation.

THREE KINDS OF CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE— PRIVATE, PUBLIC, AND PEER KNOWLEDGE According to Lloyd Bitzer, there are two basic kinds of knowledge in terms of understanding the rhetorical process: private knowledge and public knowledge. Moreover, these two kinds of knowledge have very different rhetorical properties when it comes to persuading an audience. In a classic article “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge,” Bitzer, who relies on John Dewey, argued that the true aim of rhetorical analysis is to provide society with a fund of knowledge that he terms public knowledge. Public knowledge is a kind of knowledge needful to public life and actually present somewhat to all who dwell in community. . . . It may be regarded as a fund of truths, principles, and values which could only characterize a public. A public in possession of such knowledge is made competent to accredit new truth and value and to authorize decision and action.3 By public, Bitzer refers to “a community of persons who share conceptions, principles, interests, and values, and who are significantly interdependent. This community may be further characterized by institutions such as offices, schools, laws, tribunals; by a duration sufficient to the development of these institutions.”4 Public knowledge is the fund of beliefs regarding collective human experience that a society deems to be “a legitimate source of some truths, and, thus, the authoritative ground of a class of decisions and actions.”5 This type of knowledge must be distinguished from “private knowledge,” or as I have argued elsewhere, “private insight.”6

3. Lloyd Bitzer, “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge,” in Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Literature (ed. D. Burks; Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1978), 67–93, 68. He relies upon John Dewey for this seminal insight. See John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems: An Essay in Political Inquiry (Chicago: Gateway Books, 1927), 12. 4. Bitzer, “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge,” 68. 5. Bitzer, “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge,” 69. 6. See Gary D. Salyer, Vain Rhetoric: Private Insight and Public Debate in the Book of Ecclesiastes (JSOTSup 327; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001).

52


Public knowledge “is located and can only be located in the public, and is authorized and can only be authorized by the public.”7 In contradistinction to this, private insight “consists of truths that can be known to individuals my means of observation and inquiry.”8 Private insight owes its existence to human participation in common experiences. The fundamental axiom here is that all private insight originates in personal experience, and without personal experience, there is no possibility of knowledge for the individual. Such personal facts owe their existence to subjective experience.9 Private insight, therefore, tends to be isolationist in nature. Public knowledge, on the other hand, is expansive. It is experience, whether it be subjective or empirical, that has been validated through the prism of various societal groups and often, intergenerational testing. Bitzer states: A person, group, or a document from the past may present a new principle or value of potential worth, but that principle or value will become authoritative only when submitted to the public and accepted by it. Of what does this power of authorization consist? It consists, first, of the recognition by the public of the essential truth, rightness, or fitness of its personal facts and of the items of the inherited knowledge; and second, of the continued affirmation of that knowledge which merits continued affirmation because it contributes to the public’s achievements.10 Given this configuration of how knowledge is validated in a society, rhetoric “generates truths and values . . . gives voice to interests and principles whose locus is a public, serves as an instrument with which to test public truths and values and to select and justify public means and ends. In general, rhetoric at its best sustains wisdom in the life of a public.”11 Private knowledge is, therefore, the knowledge of the individual, the isolated group, and the newly gained insights from research facilities that lack sufficient intersubjective validation to warrant their general acceptance as true. Such new insights, which Bitzer

7. Bitzer, “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge,” 84. 8. Bitzer, “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge,” 83. 9. Bitzer, “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge,” 85. 10. Bitzer, “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge,” 89. 11. Bitzer, “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge,” 68.


53

calls private knowledge, are untested in the sense that other groups in society have not thoroughly considered them and as yet, await the sanctioning power of the larger society. However, once a private insight is sifted through the authenticating grid of public consciousness and scrutiny, it is either validated as true or relegated to the epistemological scrap heap of mere private opinion. I want to supplement Bitzer’s taxonomy by arguing that there is a third form of knowledge for professional interpreters that also hovers somewhere between these two general modes of knowing. This level of knowing may be termed “peer knowledge.” Many forms of potential public knowledge emanate from centers of academic and scientific inquiry. However, such knowledge tends to be highly regulated by the norms of a limited or specific group or groups whose responsibility it is to determine what passes for successful scholarship. The “peer-reviewed” manuscript is the chief instrument by which academic guilds determine whether the insights or results of any given scholar will pass for mere private insight/research, or can be deemed a responsible and representative example of the sort of knowledge that may be espoused by the guild. Immediately a problem confronts the scholar who desires to elevate such peer knowledge to something more publicly accessible. Group knowledge is not the same as public knowledge inasmuch as no single group can stand in for the general public. All groups have limited and self-interest related values. Therefore, a group must submit its findings, even as the individual must, to the public for validation. In the great forum of public knowledge, both peer knowledge and private insight must be validated by appeals to the dominant rhetoric of society. The reason that public forums such as the mass media have rejected biblical scholarship of late is that our peer knowledge has lost touch with the attitudinizing conventions and precepts that have conditioned society’s stance toward experience, knowledge, tradition, language, and other people. In other words, it has been found to be no more valuable than private insight to many. Seen rhetorically, the malaise that traditional biblical scholarship suffers in public venues may be due to the fact that we have lost view of the audience and society we serve. In other words, our interests are not as widely shared as they once were and are not counted as the sort of relevant insights our culture expects from public knowledge. Many of us are so worried about being accepted by our peers that we forget the pervasive role of society in validating all forms of knowledge—whether it be scientific, philosophical, or religious. In systematic theology circles, a call to “public theology”

54


has been heard since David Tracy’s classic, The Analogical Imagination, and his subsequent article in The Christian Century in 1981.12 Since then, others such as William Placher, Ronald Thielmann, and Linell Cady have all written important contributions regarding how theological reflection must have a truly public perspective.13 As the philosopher John Hartwig summarizes the postmodern rhetorical situation: “any achievement of moral rationality or knowledge how to live necessarily includes a public, cooperative enterprise.”14 I would presume as a matter of course that the Scriptures should be included in the meaning of the phrase “moral rationality,” and, as such, must entertain a public dimension in its interpretation as well.

THE NEO-ARISTOTELIAN PERSPECTIVE OF THE NEW RHETORIC Most rhetorical interpretations of biblical texts to date have been based on models established in the ancient Hellenistic world, that is, classical rhetoric. However, there is another perspective besides that 12. See David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981), esp. 3–98, and his classic article, “Defending the Public Character of Theology,” ChrCent 98 (1981): 350–56. Tracy distinguishes for theological purposes three publics: a public of the society, a public of the academy, and a public of the church. The public of the society is where reason is reduced to sheer instrumentality. The public of the academy is wryly defined as the place where “Plato is preached while Hobbes is practiced.” The public of the church is where the gift of God’s liberating word is preached (see “Defending the Public Character,” 354). However, I would not see these as three separate “publics.” While the church and the academy participate in the public, they are not independent of the larger public or society that is the focus of Bitzer’s article. For this article, “public” refers to the overarching society that encompasses many groups such as the church and the academy. However, I agree with Tracy when he says, “To speak in a public fashion means to speak in a manner that is disclosive and transformative for any intelligent, reasonable, responsible human being.” In that sense, Tracy is very close to the spirit of Bitzer (see “Defending the Public Character,” 351). He refers to this as “breaking through the swamp of privateness” (see “Defending the Public Character,” 352). 13. See William Placher, “Revisionist and Postliberal Theologies and the Public Character of Theology,” The Thomist 49 (1985): 392–416; Ronald Thiemann, Constructing a Public Theology: The Church in a Pluralistic Culture (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991); and Linell Cady, Religion, Theology and American Public Life (SUNY Series in Religious Studies; Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993). 14. John Hartwig, “The Achievement of Moral Rationality,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 6 (1973): 171–85, 171.


55

of classic rhetoric as a way to understanding biblical rhetorics and how scriptural texts may again become public knowledge for our audiences. Although classic rhetorical theory can tell us a great many things, it does not address the argumentative, logical, and persuasive properties of a discourse for today nearly as well as does the neoAristotelian approach of the New Rhetoric as presented by Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca.15 The New Rhetoric is a theory of practical reasoning. It has been defined as a theory of argumentation that has as its object the study of discursive techniques that aim to provoke or to increase the adherence of men’s minds to the theses that are presented for their assent. It also examines the conditions that allow argumentation to begin and to be developed, as well as the effects produced by this development.16 Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca seek to identify how authors claim rationality in the verbal structures that they generate.17 They argue that what had previously been treated as merely ornamental, such as metaphor or metonymy, actually contains powerful means of rational argumentation. According to Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca, it is not the author but the audience that is central. This is the central tenet of the New Rhetoric. Classic theory begins with whatever premises the author/rhetor has, and then catalogues the various means that may be employed to convince an audience. This is quite the opposite of what the New Rhetoric understands as the beginning point of rhetorical theory. “In argumentation, the important thing is not knowing what the speaker regards as true or important, but knowing the views of those he [sic] is addressing.”18 Thus, according to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, argumentation must build on the premises that an audience accepts. To do other-

15. Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (trans. J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969). See also the abridged version of this treatise: Chaim Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric (trans. William Kluback; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982). 16. Thomas Sloan and Chaim Perelman, “Rhetoric,” in Encyclopedia Britannica (15th ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987): 26:808. 17. For an excellent summary of the New Rhetoric, see Carroll Arnold, “Introduction,” in Chaim Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric (trans. William Kluback; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), vii–xx. 18. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 23–24.

56


wise is to “beg the question”19 and so to court rhetorical disaster. All effective argumentation begins with what the audience will accept as valid premises. Authorial intentionality takes a second place in the New Rhetoric. Perelman states: “The aim of argumentation is not to deduce consequences from given premises; it is rather to elicit or increase the adherence of the members of an audience to theses that are presented for their consent.”20 David Hester (Amador) summarizes this essential view: In this respect, it is vital that the rhetor first seeks out those premises to which the audience already commits itself, and to transfer that adherence through argumentation to the conclusion s/he wishes them to reach. When this transfer does not take place, it is likelier that the audience will reconsider and dismiss one or more of the premises than to accept an odious conclusion. Therefore, to be unconcerned with the audience’s adherence to certain premises is to commit a grievous error in argumentation, the error of petitio principii, “begging the question.”21 Thus a key element to successful argumentation is to choose those premises that the audience already holds. Anything less is to court rhetorical incompetence, and possibly, disaster. Only in this way will a “meeting of the minds” truly occur.22 Thus, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca offer the interpreter an exhaustive explanation of how market-driven hermeneutics works in actual practice. So central is the audience in their view that “the worth of an argumentation is not measured solely by its efficacy but also by the quality of the audience at which it is aimed.”23 In order to ward 19. Perelman calls this petitio principii. He defines begging the question as “wanting to assume as true that which is under debate” (see The Realm of Rhetoric, 22). Max Black defines this type of logical fallacy as follows: “This fallacy occurs when either the same proposition is used both as premise and conclusion, or when one of the premises could not be known to be true unless the conclusion were first known to be true. In either case, the fallacious argument assumes as true what it needs to prove” (see Critical Thinking (2d ed.; New York: Prentice-Hall, 1952), 236, cited by Anne Minas, “Why ‘Paradigms’ Don’t Prove Anything,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 10 (1977): 217–31, 217. 20. Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, 9. 21. J. David Hester (Amador), Academic Constraints in Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament (JSNTSup 174: Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 72. 22. Hester (Amador), Academic Constraints, 79. 23. Chaim Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its Applications (trans. W. Kluback; Boston: D. Reidel, 1979), 14.


57

off attacks that this is radical pluralism, Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca invoke the concept of the universal audience. The universal audience includes all competent and reasonable folk. Thus, while a particular argument may persuade a given audience, its validity is measured by whether it can “convince” the universal audience.24 By universal audience, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca mean the entire “college” of reasonable and educated people across the broadest spectrum that is humanly possible. Truth and validity have more to do with acceptance by this universal audience than with the validity of the argument per se. Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca thus apply the term persuasive “to argumentation that only claims validity for a particular audience” while they apply the term convincing “to argumentation that presumes to gain adherence of every rational being.”25 They state: Is the strong argument the one that persuades effectively, or is it the one that must convince every reasonable mind? Since the efficacy of an argument is relative to the audience, it is impossible to evaluate it above and beyond reference to the audience to which it is presented. On the other hand, validity is relative to a competent audience, most often to the universal audience.26 Thus, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca correctly draw a distinction from reasoning that may convince a specific audience, and the type of reasoning that can appeal to the broader community of reasonable humans.27 This is an important distinction for anybody approaching biblical texts. Simply because an interpretation or argument can convince a local audience does not mean it is valid in the sense that it has the capability of appealing to the broader human community of rational folk. Local acceptance of an argument does not guarantee

24. Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, 18. 25. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 28. 26. Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, 140. 27. For an interesting explanation of the meaning of Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca’s concept of the universal audience, see Allen Scult, “Perelman’s Universal Audience: One Perspective,” Central States Speech Journal 27 (1976): 176–80. He paraphrases Perelman: “It is a construct in your own mind—an ideal audience composed of all those competent to understand your argument and therefore give their assent to your conclusions” (178). Later, he refers to the universal audience as one’s “rhetorical conscience” (179).

58


an idea of a shot at becoming public knowledge. Unfortunately, as Brueggemann has aptly warned us, “knowledge is notoriously local.”28 Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s concept of the universal audience broadens our focus, and is, therefore, a useful perspective that enables the biblical critic to partially escape the trap of religious parochialism. Of course, the universal audience is something of a “virtual concept,” and is, therefore, something very hard to utilize in practice. For even the concept of a universal audience does not allow the rhetorically minded interpreter to escape the narrow epistemology of the human experiment. As David Hester (Amador) reminds us, “the particular qualities of ‘universality’ that are chosen [assumed!] depend not only on the individual perspectives of the rhetor, but on the social, cultural and historical ‘context’ in which both rhetor and argumentation are embedded and which may be shared across space/time contexts.”29 However, it does at least alert the critic to the norms of a higher rhetorical power, so to speak, than simply the audience for which they are writing. This would also apply to the historically reconstructed original audience of a text. When the appropriate premises have been singled out on which to build an argument, the rhetor must decide on techniques that will establish a liaison, or a link that allows for the transference to the conclusion the adherence that is already accorded to the premises. Thus, in any argument there are two poles: the premises one begins with, and the conclusion one draws from those premises once coupled with other facts and observations. However, something must link those two poles. That something is any number of argumentative strategies. The key to building the successful argument is to find an argumentative strategy that will allow the audience to transfer the confidence they have in a given premise to the conclusions the rhetor has drawn. Quite often, this will entail the technique of giving “presence” to the various ideas and values on which the argument is built. Presence is the drawing of attention to certain data.30 It is made by such techniques as repetition, amplification, aggregation, synonyms, and figures. The rhetor focuses attention on the elements that lend rhetorical force to his or her argument. After the rhetor has finished the above tasks of inven28. Walter Brueggemann, Texts under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 1–25. 29. Hester (Amador), Academic Constraints, 70. 30. Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, 35.


59

tion, there remains the task of deciding which technique of argumentation will be most effective. Liaisons, or connections between premises and conclusions, are created and dissolved by various verbal techniques. Thus, there are two broad categories of argumentative strategies; those that make a link or liaison, and those that break a link. Those strategies of argumentation that create links are quasi-logical arguments, arguments based on the structure of reality, arguments that establish reality, and association of one theme with another. Dissociative argumentation, or argumentation that breaks already-established links between premises and conclusions, entails the disconnecting of one theme from another in the mind of the audience. Finally, a rhetor may resort to amplification or abridgement of an idea depending on the context.31 Briefly, these argumentative strategies may be defined as follows: a. Quasi-logical arguments resemble patterns of formal reasoning. However, unlike formal reasoning, quasi-logical arguments cannot be proved. Instead, they mimic certain logical functions without their certainty. Examples would be arguments from division, contradiction, incompatibility, the rule of justice, identity, definition, etc. For instance, one might argue that there are only two alternatives to a certain situation. Such would be an argument by division. Or, an argument might progress by positing that two essentially the same persons or categories should be treated the same. This is a quasi-logical argument based on the rule of justice. The argument from reciprocity equates two situations and shows that they ought to be treated in the same fashion. Perelman offers an illustration of the indignant beggar who argued: “I don’t understand how begging can be a crime in a society where charity is a virtue.”32 These types of arguments are similar to formal reasoning in philosophy, except that the terms are not exhaustively defined and no attempt is made therefore to remove the possibility of multiple interpretations.33 b. Arguments based on the structure of reality work on the principle that certain ideas are true because that is how reality works. Examples are arguments that claim that certain phenomena always follow one another, that distinct causes produce specific effects, means and ends arguments, double hierarchy arguments, arguments from authority, etc. A double hierarchy argument expresses an idea of direct or inverse proportionality, or at least a term-to-term relation. 31. Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, 141. 32. Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, 68. 33. Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, 53.

60


For instance, one may argue that one person’s arm is longer than another based on the height of the two. They cite the argument from Leibniz that “since God cares for the sparrows, he will not neglect reasonable creatures who are far dearer to him.”34 Another common rhetorical tactic is what Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca call “liaisons of succession.” These arguments join elements of the same nature, such as events and phenomena that are linked by a causal connection, like means/ends or arguments of direction. Another common argument based on the structure of reality is one based on “liaisons of coexistence.” These types of arguments “establish a tie between realities on unequal levels: one is shown to be the expression or manifestation of the other. . . . Such are the relations between a person and his actions, his attitudes, and his works.”35 Of course, not all of these sorts of arguments are valid. Most social vices, ranging from slavery to sexism, have been argued on the basis of some presumed order in reality. c. Arguments that establish reality are those such as examples, illustrations, and models that represent the operation of overriding rules or laws or principles. These types of arguments are devoted to the analysis of the relations that establish reality by resort to the particular case. As Perelman states, “To argue by example is to presuppose the existence of certain regularities of which the examples provide a concretization.”36 Such arguments play a wide variety of roles. An example makes generalization possible. An illustration provides support for an already-established regularity. Models encourage imitation and facilitate regularity.37 A common form of such argumentation in the Bible can be found in proverbial literature. Proverbs presuppose the order that is established in creation, often citing an example of such order with a moral lesson either implied or attached. Some of the parables and gnomic sayings of Jesus would also be examples of such argumentation. d. Association of one idea (theme) with another (phoros) in an attempt to clarify the nature of the theme is yet another means of argumentation. Examples are analogy and metaphor. Such types of arguments facilitate development and extension of thought. They call attention to how the scientists who first described electricity as “current” forever shaped the way people thought of electrical 34. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 339. 35. Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, 89–90. 36. Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, 106. 37. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 350.


61

energy.38 In theological circles, metaphors like “word” of God have likewise shaped the conceptualizations of the Scriptures in primary and lasting ways. e. Dissociation of some feature(s) of an idea from a primary idea so that it may be seen as unobjectionable is another category of argumentation. Examples are arguments that build on such philosophical pairs as appearance/reality, spirit/flesh, opinion/ knowledge, model/anti-model, and so forth. The key to this argumentative tactic is to posit a distinction between things that have been taken together. There are two primary methods in dissociative argumentation. Breaking of connecting links “consists in affirming that elements which should remain separate and independent have been improperly associated.”39 Dissociation, on the other hand, “assumes the original unity of elements comprised within a single conception and designated by a single notion.”40 The difference between such argumentative maneuvers depends on whether the connecting links are regarded as “natural” or “artificial.” Thus, if a liaison is unnatural, according to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca one “breaks” a connecting link. On the other hand, if the connection is a “natural” one, he distinguishes it as “dissociation.” They admit one’s perception of natural/unnatural will vary.41 f. Amplification or abridgment of ideas or values is the heightening or attenuation of an argument in conjunction with other arguments. Most good arguments consist of multiple strategies in actual practice. Thus, an argument based on reality may also be joined with a dissociative technique. Arguments by amplification are, therefore, ways of modulating the strength of an argument being presented, often in relation to other arguments being presented. Sometimes, of course, an argument needs to be attenuated. As Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca observe, “The central principle in this connection, is always adaptation to the audience and the propositions it admits, with due regard to the intensity of the adherence to these propositions.”42 The value of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s work is important for the biblical rhetorician in two essential ways. First, it enables the 38. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 385. 39. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 412. 40. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 412. 41. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 412. 42. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 460. For a fuller treatment of these arguments, the reader is referred to either The New Rhetoric or The Realm of Rhetoric. An annotated list of Perelman and Olbrecht-Tyteca’s analysis of argumentative strategies can be found in the Appendix.

62


reader to understand the various ways that non-formal techniques can persuade an audience/reader. These are almost always the sort of techniques used in the Scriptures. As such, the New Rhetoric has a natural home in biblical interpretation. Second, it is an excellent, and almost exhaustive catalogue of the ways in which people reason about values and other preferred beliefs. In doing so, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca demonstrate the rhetorical limitations of “an ideology of scientific reasoning in which objectivity becomes the only standard of rationality.”43 They show how “common” forms of reasoning are powerful means of persuasion, even in the absence of scientific proof. In particular, they demonstrate “the means by which people reason concerning values and judgments that have no self-evident means of securing certainty and adherence.”44 Precisely because such argumentative strategies are often the heart of various scriptural arguments that deal with a theological reality that defies scientific analysis, the utility of the New Rhetoric for the biblical interpreter becomes readily apparent. Any genre of biblical text can be analyzed in terms of these categories and thus understood in a more comprehensive manner as regards a text’s persuasive abilities. Through such an analysis, the rhetorical critic is enabled to understand the structure of reasoning that lies behind a given text. The critic is also better able to determine the premises that a specific text may build upon. In this way, rhetorical criticism could help lay the foundation for hermeneutics. Ultimately for modern audiences, it is the persuasiveness of a text’s manner of argumentation that determines whether it will retain utility for the modern audience. If a text builds on premises that are contested by the modern audience, or uses a means of argumentation that is foreign or specious, then it will be highly likely that this text will encounter opposition from the modern reader. Such a text will not be able to function as public knowledge in any real sense. A rhetorical analysis of texts using the New Rhetoric would give the interpreter a better handle on what exactly constitutes the hermeneutical impasse between a given biblical text and the modern reader, and so, help us recover the layer of what may reliably be termed potential public knowledge in a text. In terms of scriptural exegesis, finding the level of public knowledge in texts via the New Rhetoric will be a way of recovering our scriptural heritage for the postmodern world. As Bitzer has eloquently put it: 43. Hester (Amador), Academic Restraints, 85. 44. Hester (Amador), Academic Restraints, 82.


63

Rich funds of public knowledge in our cultural pasts must be rediscovered; the public knowledge that now exists just below the surface of our awareness must be announced by persons of insight and eloquence; and the knowledge which would characterize a universal public must be organized and created by those capable of seeing and voicing the conditions and interests, the values and truths of a public capable of overcoming hazards to be encountered. It is not inevitable that contemporary spokesmen and publics will tap the best of public knowledge: there is the danger that the best will remain unavailable to them.45

RHETORIC RESTRAINED VERSUS RHETORIC REVIVED IN RECENT ANALYSES OF 1 CORINTHIANS 15 George Kennedy distinguishes two levels of rhetoric. Primary rhetoric is the art of persuasion. Secondary rhetoric is the apparatus of rhetorical techniques, listing tropes such as allegory, irony, metaphor, hyperbole, or metonymy, which one can analyze and define in elaborate writing.46 Kennedy’s distinction between primary and secondary rhetoric can be helpful in terms of understanding what a rhetorical perspective entails. Rhetoric is in its simplest manifestation the persuasion we all feel or sense in a powerful television ad, an edifying sermon, a political speech, a great novel, or any other form of communication in which we feel an urge to do or think in a certain way. Without the emphasis on persuasion, the critic is confusing stylistics, narrative techniques, or some other textual/literary manifestation with rhetoric. It is precisely this mistake that lies at the heart of many biblical studies that have been termed by their authors as some sort of rhetorical analysis of the Scriptures. Many rhetorical studies of scriptural texts lack cultural relevance because they are enamored with secondary rhetoric rather than primary rhetoric. This is lamentable since the public is usually more concerned with the logic as well as the things the text takes for granted as true when beginning its argument (premises), than they are with a listing of what specific

45. Lloyd Bitzer, “Public Knowledge,” 92. 46. George Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 5.

64


tools of presentation are being utilized to make any given point. Telling an audience that Paul is using a metaphor or a litotes in a passage does little to help them understand the persuasive power in a text. However, that is precisely what many rhetorical studies of the Scripture are content to deal with, with little or no interest in dissecting the logic of a given passage in an attempt to find a bridge between the writer’s mindset and that which we find today. If one looks at many of the rhetorical analyses of 1 Corinthians 15 that have been offered in the last ten to fifteen years, it is almost as if the only audience that ever mattered is the ancient Hellenistic one. Most of these works are patent examples of what Wilhelm Wuellner calls “rhetoric restrained.”47 By that, he means, “the fateful reduction of rhetorics to stylistics, and of stylistics in turn to the rhetorical tropes or figures.”48 Wuellner advocates for a “rhetoric reinvented” or perhaps, a “rhetoric revalued,” by which he means a rhetorical analysis that keeps the social nature of all ideological discourse clearly in mind. In this he reminds the critic that the primary goal of rhetorical criticism is to make “us fully aware of the whole range of appeals embraced and provoked by rhetoric: not only the rational and cognitive dimensions, but also the emotive and imaginative ones.”49 Wuellner’s timely critique of the professional interpreter on this point has been given a comprehensive treatment by J. David Hester (Amador) in his book Academic Constraints in Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament. He summarizes the trend in New Testament rhetorical scholarship: “rhetorical interpretation restricts its notion of persuasion and power to the immediate context of historical performance, and thereby becomes a means for something other than rhetoric.”50 By this, Hester (Amador) is referring to the ubiquitous habit of professional interpreters who may look at how a given text’s logic might have been persuasive to an ancient Hellenistic mind but never asks the question in any rigid manner, “how might this logic be accepted today?” Such an analysis may deal with persuasion per se, but not in any culturally relevant manner. We find that this situation very much typifies the perspective of many rhetorical analyses of the passage. An example would be Insawn Saw’s treatment of the passage at hand, Paul’s Rhetoric in

47. Wilhelm Wuellner, “Where is Rhetorical Criticism Taking Us?,” CBQ 49 (1987): 448–463. 48. Wuellner, “Rhetorical Criticism,” 451. 49. Wuellner, “Rhetorical Criticism,” 461. 50. Hester (Amador), Academic Constraints, 31.


65

First Corinthians 15.51 He acknowledges the significance of rhetorical theories such as that of Perelman, yet still prefers an analysis based on classic rhetoric and is pleased to catalog the various texts according to whether they are epideictic, deliberative, or forensic. This, however, does little to tell us how these rhetorical genres would interact persuasively in a non-Hellenistic culture such as our own. Another classical approach to the rhetorical situation of 1 Corinthians can be found in Stephen Pogoloff’s work, Logos and Sophia: The Rhetorical Situation of First Corinthians.52 This work too follows in the same classical rhetoric tradition. R. Dean Anderson, Jr., in his book Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Paul, has offered yet another example of the dominance of classic rhetoric in terms of understanding the Pauline rhetoric.53 Probably the quintessential example of rhetoric restrained is that of Kieran O’Mahony in his 1998 article “The Rhetoric of Resurrection (1 Cor 15): An Illustration of Rhetorical Method.”54 He analyzes every trope found in the chapter, but leaves the perceptive reader wondering if cataloguing Pauline argumentative techniques by their various Ciceronian terminologies has any rhetorical value at all in terms of understanding the passage’s persuasive qualities today. This is not to say that it does not serve some use among professional interpreters. Anybody who has read the Scriptures knows how much historical and linguistic competency these texts demand. Nevertheless, such treatments are classic examples of what I term peer knowledge. Unfortunately, its utility for the public is limited to say the least. Occasionally, some do utilize Perelman’s perspective with its emphasis on the contemporary persuasive properties of a text. A good example is Antoinette Wire’s reconstruction of Pauline rhetoric in The Corinthian Women Prophets.55 Another example is Anders Eriksson’s work Traditions as Rhetorical Proof: Pauline Argumentation in First Corinthians. Eriksson’s work is seminal and very finely

51. Insawn Saw, Paul’s Rhetoric in 1 Corinthians 15: An Analysis Utilizing the Theories of Classical Rhetoric (Lewiston: Mellen Biblical Press, 1995). 52. Stephen M. Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia: The Rhetorical Situation of 1 Corinthians (SBLDS 134; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992). See especially his comments on pp. 26–28. 53. R. Dean Anderson, Jr., Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Paul (Kampen: Kok, 1996). 54. Kieran J. O’Mahony, “The Rhetoric of Resurrection (1 Cor 15): An Illustration of Rhetorical Method,” Mils 43 (1998): 112–44. 55. Antoinette Clark Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul’s Rhetoric (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1990; repr. 1995).

66


argued. Nevertheless, the shadow of peer interests, and, therefore, peer-oriented knowledge, limits the value of his work in terms of achieving a level of public knowledge for the texts under consideration. In an interesting aside, Eriksson voices the typical attitude of many professional interpreters by eschewing the value of a synchronic approach to rhetoric. He minimizes the value of a neoAristotelian approach by arguing, “the implicit assumption is often that human communication is a universal, time-less phenomenon which can be analyzed with generally applicable tools from our time.”56 In other words, he seems to be suggesting that the only valid way to analyze a passage rhetorically is to use only the rhetorical methods of that era. This criticism seems strange since the classic works of Aristotle, Cicero, and others all analyzed their contemporary manner of argumentation with a view to understanding how the general phenomenon of human argumentation reaches its most effective means. After all, Aristotle himself defined rhetoric as “an ability, in each [particular] case, to see the available means of persuasion.”57 I doubt that he meant simply “Hellenistic cases,” though no doubt, that social setting has influenced his own formulation of these issues. To his credit, Eriksson does build on Perelman’s emphasis that successful argumentation must start with the premises of the audience.58 Still, he limits Perelmanian categories to analyze the original Corinthian audience with no attention to the textualized Corinthian audience as created by the text of Corinthians.59 To my knowledge, only Johannes N. Vorster’s treatment of

56. Anders Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof: Pauline Argumentation in 1 Corinthians (ConBNT 29; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1998), 26. 57. Aristotle, On Rhetoric (trans. with notes by George A. Kennedy; New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 36. 58. Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof, 33. 59. By “textualized Corinthian audience” I refer to the generations of readers who have read 1 and 2 Corinthians subsequent to the actual historical recipients. It is roughly equivalent to the “implied reader” of narratological studies, except, I am speaking of the countless generations of actual readers who have been willing to become the implied reader of the Corinthian correspondence. Unlike the term, “implied reader,” a “textualized reader” is an actual flesh-and-blood reader who has allowed him or herself to become the reader envisioned by a text. Whereas an “implied reader” is a virtual concept that is never to be confused with the quotidian, flesh-and-blood reader, a “textualized reader” is the human manifestation of those virtual properties, and as thus, is capable of real life persuasion. Thus, the “textualized Corinthian audience” for today refers to those readers who, though thoroughly immersed in their own postmodern milieu, have also agreed to share in the values of the implied Corinthian reader for at least during the process of


67

this passage, “Resurrection Faith in I Corinthians 15,” extensively utilizes the paradigm of the New Rhetoric to understand the passage, and so, stresses the text’s persuasive properties for the postmodern audience.60 Perspectives like these, while rich in peer knowledge, are very much deficient in terms of understanding the level of public knowledge in a text. As such, they are in many respects classic examples of rhetoric restrained. All of these studies deal with the diachronic aspects of reading ancient texts and are therefore quite necessary for attaining the sort of competency a reader needs to understand scriptural literature. However, something more must be attained. That something is what Wuellner describes as “rhetoric reinvented.” A rhetoric reinvented must have a diachronic component as well as a synchronic one. Speaking of the relationship between synchronic perspectives such as the New Rhetoric and diachronic rhetorics such as classic Aristotelian theory, Stephen Pogoloff summarizes the need for both rhetorical perspectives; “the modern critic often must “intertwine” them, since ancient rhetorical theories are simply inadequate for certain hermeneutical task.”61 The traditional view of the “rhetorical situation” as practiced by the professional interpreter to date could, therefore, profitably benefit from the expanded definition brought to bear on the discussion by Robert Branham and W. Barnett Pearce. Arguing from a Ricoeurian point of view, they argue that texts are constituted as texts by interpretation.62 Since all texts possess a “surplus of mean-

reading. In turn, textualized readers who have allowed themselves to be affected by the linear reading of the text of the Corinthian letters begin to share the values of the implied author, and so become a part of the “Corinthian audience” by the gift of textuality. Such readers are “textualized” precisely because they are created not by the ancient Hellenistic cultural and historical situation as were the original recipients, but rather, are thoroughly fashioned by the text of 1 and 2 Corinthians as well as whatever reading conventions their particular reading culture allows and encourages. 60. Johannes N. Vorster, “Resurrection Faith in 1 Corinthians 15,” Neot 23 (1998): 287–307. 61. Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia, 25. 62. Robert Branham and W. Barnett Pearce, “Between Text and Context: Toward a Rhetoric of Contextual Reconstruction,” QJS 71 (1985): 19–36, 20. By Ricoeurian point of view, we refer to the literary philosophy of the French Protestant thinker Paul Ricoeur. Ricoeur argues that since texts are separated from their authors, the dialogical properties that are inherent in speech communication are not available to recipients of written communication, especially once the original authors are deceased. This basic feature is what constitutes the essential dynamic

68


ing” over and above what their authors intended, they reconstruct the rhetorical situation of a text to signify “the perception of it by various interpretative communities, not the features of the historical situation in which it occurs.”63 Branham and Pearce summarize this Ricoeurian view regarding the rhetorical situation/context of a text: Defining “context” in relation to the “world” of an interpretative community rather than objective properties of the situation, encourages rapproachment between some aspects of the social sciences and some forms of literary and historical studies. . . . Texts are constituted by their enmeshment in contexts, but contexts are themselves created and sustained by texts.64 Thus texts are constituted in the act of interpretation by a variety of historical contexts, the original situation being just one of those contexts. As such, utilizing classical categories of rhetorical analysis without much attention to its neo-Aristotelian offshoot does a grave injustice to understanding the perpetually unfolding contexts that are created by biblical texts as they themselves march through history. Such a restrained view of rhetoric can hardly be termed rhetoric at all since it lacks any real focus on the present persuasive properties of the text. A further value of this perspective rests in that it holds strong possibilities for the continual dialogue that biblical studies has developed with the humanities during the last of textuality. Because the pipeline mentality between a speaker and a listener cannot be reduplicated in written communication, texts have different performance abilities than speech-acts. Texts isolate and distance the author from the reader. Therefore, sense and referentiality lose their grounding in authorial intentionality. Dialogue is replaced by reading, creating something Ricoeur calls “distanciation.” Distanciation is the inherent property of all texts that renders the text autonomous from strict authorial intentionality. All literary and classic texts such as the Scriptures gain a “surplus of meaning,” by which he refers to the bounty of legitimate interpretations that surround every literary text. This means that all texts are constituted as texts by interpretation. Due to textuality and distanciation, all texts are “liberated” from 1. what the author intended, 2. the historical situation in which it occurred, and 3. the immediate audience to which it was addressed. Because we cannot ask the author what he or she intended, every text becomes a “limited field of possible constructions.” See Branham and Pearce, “Between Text and Context,” 20, citing Paul Ricoeur, “The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text,” Social Research 38 (1971): 529–662, 550. For my own explanation of Ricoeur at this point, see Vain Rhetoric, 41–61. 63. Branham and Pearce, “Between Text and Context,” 20. 64. Branham and Pearce, “Between Text and Context,” 21.


69

three decades. As such, the text of the Corinthian correspondence has two inextricable rhetorical situations: that of the original Corinthians, and, also, every generation of “Corinthian readers” as created by the text of 1 and 2 Corinthians. An example of how the New Rhetoric may contribute to our understanding of the synchronic properties of a text and, therefore, its contemporary meaning and relevance must now be shown.

PAULINE RHETORIC IN 1 CORINTHIANS 15 IN LIGHT OF THE NEW RHETORIC Like any rhetorician, Paul has an argumentative strategy in 1 Corinthians 15. An effective way to understand the text’s persuasive properties is to understand Paul’s logic, premises, and argumentative strategies. When this text is read in terms of the New Rhetoric, one perceives a text shaped by the following argumentative strategies: 15:1–8

15:9–11

15:12–19

15:20–28

15:29–34

15:35–41 15:42–50 15:51–58

Argument based on the structure of reality. Verse 3 is an argument from authority or prestige. The overall is an argument from witnesses. Argument based on the structure of reality, specifically, the argument based on co-existence and the person as example. Quasi-logical argumentation, specifically, the argument from inconsistency and the absurd. It too is an argument based on the structure of reality. There is also a causal link argument here. Argument that establishes reality, specifically, the argument regarding a model and its anti-model, and the perfect being as model. Quasi-logical argumentation, specifically, the argument regarding contradiction and the ridiculous, and the argument from sacrifice or perhaps, waste. Argument based on reality, specifically, the argument from division or stages. Argument based on reality, specifically, the argument from direction. Paraenesis built on previous argumentation.

One of the first things that the rhetorical critic notices is the fact

70


that most of Paul’s argumentative strategies are based on “the structure of reality” as Paul understands Christian reality. He begins the chapter by reminding the Corinthians that he had passed on what he had received (vv. 1–2). As such, Paul begins with a premise that was established during his initial visit by his preaching to the original Corinthian audience. He starts by reminding the Corinthians that what follows was “proclaimed to you, which you in turn received.”65 The subtle hint of believing in “vain” in v. 2b, which recurs in verses 10, 14, and 58, lends a texture of seriousness to Paul’s opening salvo. Verses 3–11 recount the substance of this tradition. Paul is simply expanding on this tradition in verses 3–11, recalling details for the Corinthian audience. He begins by affirming that the apostolic tradition that he handed down to them is in accordance with the Scriptures (v. 3). In citing the apostolic tradition, Paul invokes an argument from authority or prestige, assuming of course, that the apostles were esteemed as such by the Corinthians. By invoking a rhetoric based on authority, Paul begins with a rhetorical strategy that was widely practiced by both First Testament writers in general, as well as the rabbinic community in which Paul received his theological training. Following the rhetorical tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures, especially the Book of Deuteronomy, Paul’s rhetoric is initially based on “the structure of reality.”66 Following the brief account of Christ’s death and resurrection (vv. 4–5), Paul immediately lists the various witnesses to this event, most of which were still living at the time: Cephas, the twelve, the five hundred brethren, James, the apostles, and last of all, to Paul himself (v. 8).67 A confessional interlude regarding the unworthiness of Paul’s 65. If one consults any good commentary, one will find that the word paradidomi (“received”) used here is a technical term for passing down authoritative oral tradition. While this essay will not concentrate on the various diachronic issues involved with this text due to its synchronic interests, it should not be assumed that such should be the manner of a full reading of the text. It is assumed that in actual practice, the method being described here would be used in tandem with the appropriate historical-critical methodologies. Ascertaining the meaning of a text is a necessary prolegomena for the critic before one can discuss the synchronic significance of a text via methods like the New Rhetoric. 66. Ronald Katz, The Structure of Ancient Arguments: Rhetoric and Its Near Eastern Origin (New York: Shapolsky/Steinmatsky, 1986). 67. For an alternative treatment of Paul’s logic in these verses, the reader is referred to Jan Lambrecht, “Line of Thought in 1 Cor 15,1–11,” Greg 72 (1991): 655–70. He argues that this list of witnesses refers to experiences that rely upon both sight and insight (670).


71

having received such an appearance himself ends the first section of this chapter (vv. 9–11). He resorts to an argument based on coexistence and the person as an example. The example of Paul’s own life is held up before the Corinthians to consider as they weigh the veracity of his words. This adds the dimension of ethos to Paul’s rhetorical strategy, that is, the argument at this point depends on the perception of Paul’s character by the reader to achieve a measure of persuasion. Paul reintroduces the theme, embedded within these verses, of efforts having been done in “vain” (v. 10). The reintroduction of a texturing word like “vain” at this point in his argument keeps the discourse fully focused on the pathos level with which he began the chapter (v. 2). At this point, Paul is keeping both the logical and the emotional aspects of persuasion firmly in mind as he continues to match wits with the Corinthian doubters. The overall argument is a classic argument from witnesses. Moreover, Paul “frames” his list of witnesses with the word “vain” (vv. 2 and 10), by which he lends an emotional tenor to his major argument. This has a powerful effect on the textualized reader who experiences both the logical and the emotional effects of Pauline argumentation in these verses. Verses 12–19 argue how inconsistent and absurd it is for the Corinthians to have accepted this tradition but now to refute its veracity. Based on the above tradition, Paul asks the Corinthians, “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” The ensuing argument is a classic quasi-logical argumentation. Specifically, he argues against the inconsistency of the Corinthians, who hold that there is no resurrection of the dead, yet have held to Christ’s own resurrection (vv. 12–14). Further, he shows the absurdity of testifying in an untrue manner regarding God. In verses 15ff., Paul invokes the argument from absurdity to show that the line of thinking invoked by the Corinthians is not only inconsistent but also not logical either. Verses 16–19 demonstrate not only that their denial of the resurrection is illogical given their previous faith, but also that it renders life and faith meaningless. By taking such a position, hope is swallowed up in negativity, with the result being a nugatory and empty faith that destroys even the very possibility of hope. From a biblical point of view, such a position is the very essence of absurdity. These verses also express a classic causal link argument. Paul draws attention to the fact that the reality of Christ’s resurrection is inextricably tied to a general belief in a resurrection. One cannot have the one without the other. Furthermore, it is not

72


possible to break that link without drastic ramifications for one’s own life of salvation (vv. 17–19). Once again, the texturing word “vain” is invoked to render an emotional as well as a logical appeal to the reader (v. 14). However, there is a more weighty rhetorical issue contained in these verses for the postmodern interpreter. Many modern readers come to the text thinking that these verses “prove” the resurrection. However, it is more accurate to say that Paul’s essential argument here is fully predicated on the acceptance of an inherited apostolic tradition by the original historical audience. Paul therefore begins from a starting point that cannot be counted on for the succession of non-authorial readers who have consumed this text. Anders Eriksson summarizes as follows: theologizing is a legitimate undertaking for a Christian theologian attempting to appropriate Paul’s teaching for his/her own time, but it is also a risky undertaking since the interpreter’s hermeneutical horizon easily is read into the original situation. Many interpreters today read Paul’s rhetoric as an attempt to prove the resurrection, among them Bultmann, who claims that Paul’s argumentation thus turns out to be fatal since the facticity of the resurrection cannot be turned into an objective fact in which to believe. In contrast to these later theological interpretations, the original situation presupposes the theological significance of the resurrection of Christ as a known and accepted premise shared by the audience. . . . The unity of Christians with Christ is assumed throughout and used as a basis for Paul’s argumentation.68 (emphasis mine) Immediately, one begins to understand that the rhetorical situation for the original Corinthian audience is very different from the textualized Corinthian audience of today. In its original setting, Paul is depending on an extra-textual and shared social situation to support his premises. The apostle invokes a social situation that he shared with the Corinthians to bolster their faith. However, the contemporary textualized Corinthian audience has only the text to depend upon. The modern reader has never shared in that original social situation in which actual historical witnesses could be mustered to document the fact of Christ’s resurrection. Therefore, some of the power of Paul’s argumentation in verses 1–19 is weakened in 68. Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof, 242.


73

terms of its functioning as public knowledge for today. We do not have historical witnesses to consult, rather, only the witness of this text to ancient historical witnesses. The performance context of this text is quite different than the original historical performance context that it describes. This creates a very different rhetorical situation for all the successive readers of the Pauline resurrection account. As such, this passage “proves” something that is not widely believed by the general public of our day. According to the Gallup organization, during the fifty-year period following World War II, American belief in an “afterlife” fell from 75 percent to 55 percent. The conclusion reached by that poll was that many Americans seem to “hope for life after death, but are not that certain that it exists.”69 To fill in this gap, the last decade has seen a dramatic rise in a belief in “reincarnation.” As a result, we must realize within this increasingly secularized audience that we cannot keep repeating Paul’s initial recalling of the apostolic witness to the resurrection as a proof of its reality. What he says in verses 1–19 can be accepted only by somebody who has already come to believe in the possibility and therefore the reality of a resurrection, and second, that of Christ’s specific resurrection. To keep repeating verses 1–19 as “proof” to the modern audience is risky to say the least from a rhetorical point of view. This is not how public theology can accomplish its goals today. On the other hand, there is a theological vision of potentiality in this chapter that has “grabbed” audiences for millennia. What has tantalized readers for centuries is the vision of the resurrected body and self that Paul expands on in verses 35–58. Beginning in verses 20–28, Paul switches argumentative tactics and begins to argue in a manner that establishes reality rather than builds on his specific social reality. The heart of Pauline rhetoric regarding the resurrection rests in these verses. Although Paul can begin with the apostolic tradition as recounted in verses 1–19 in the original Corinthian setting, in order to do a responsible public theology for our day we may need to begin in the middle of the chapter where the basic theological vision of the passage exists. For most people on the streets, it is these verses that have the greater potential for persuasion. In other words, a rhetorical rehearsing of Pauline rhetoric

69. See Anonymous, “Comparing U.S. Religious Beliefs with Other ‘Christian’ Countries.” Cited March 22, 2002. http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_ comp.htm.

74


for our day may need to begin in a different place than this chapter starts (esp. vv. 1–11). Paul uses the Adam typology in verses 20–28 as a way to remap both the social reality of his day and the theological reality of succeeding generations.70 These verses are where Paul begins to loosen the sociological moorings of his own setting, and begins to lay the logical foundations for a visionary way of looking at the potentialities that a resurrection faith brings to the table of human mortality. He begins this flight into visionary theology in verses 20–28 by describing Christ as the perfect model of ontological possibilities. Although the historical background to the Adam traditions that lie behind this text are important, we are only considering the logical aspects of Pauline argumentation for the purposes of this essay.71 Seen logically, what we find in this Adam/Christ typology is an argument regarding a model and its anti-model. Surely, ancient historical understandings of these two figures influence the meaning of the passage, yet it is the structural relationship between these two personas that dictates the argumentative, and, therefore, potentially persuasive properties of these verses. Paul begins with the metaphor of the firstfruits (v. 20), linking the concept of Christ’s resurrection to an ancient First Testament tradition. The metaphor is a powerful agricultural symbol of how the harvesting of crops necessary for the sustenance of existence creates life out of death. Further, by using an agricultural metaphor, he completely “grounds” the concept of the resurrection in an earthly reality. This creates a thoroughly subliminal, yet lingering, sense of logical irony for the entire passage. Andy Johnson fully captures the rhetorical effect of the metaphor of the firstfruits when he states, “Paul’s use of this metaphor is nothing less than a new semantic event which has the 70. On the concept of social mapping, see the relevant comments by Jerome Neyrey regarding these verses in Paul, In Other Words: A Cultural Reading of His Letters (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), 33–37. He calls attention to the social impact of Paul’s model of “order” here and its implications for group behavior. Note the explicit use of “each in its own order” in verse 23. Verses 24–28 then re-map the implicit social ordering that should result from the temporal ordering of reality established in verse 23. 71. Relevant texts that are necessary to understand the diachronic scriptural reading contract contained in these verses regarding ancient views on Adam include: 4 Ezra 7, II Baruch 48, 54, Testament of Levi 18, CD 3, and I Enoch 46, 49, and 51. See also the excellent summary of the issues surrounding the Adam Christology of this passage by C. Marvin Pate, The Glory of Adam and the Afflictions of the Righteous: Pauline Suffering in Context (Lewiston, NY: Mellen Biblical Press, 1993), esp. 183–209.


75

power to re-describe reality for the audience. The use of metaphor as a tool of argumentation may be the best way of reconstructing reality, one that allows certain connections to be made that are not logically necessary in the audience’s present view of reality.”72 As Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca observe, metaphors are more than artistic and stylistic devices. They are powerful means of achieving a persuasive impact on an audience. In fact, they may be the most primal means of persuasion that humanity knows. David Williams observes: Metaphor lies at the very root of our language. All language, it seems, like the writing in which it often is expressed, began with the picture. Languages live by adding new pictures to old. It is probably true to say that most of our words started out as figures of speech that with use moved from the category of conscious metaphor into the ranks of ordinary words.73 The effect of such a use of metaphor is to begin to extend Paul’s thought in a way that captures the earthly imagination. It is a wonderful example of “metaphorical imagination.” By metaphorically laying the First Testament story of the firstfruits over of the story of Christ’s resurrection, “Paul is able to persuade them to view Christ’s story through the lens created by the new metaphor of firstfruits . . . reality will be restructured for the audience in such a way that Christ’s resurrection makes them expect a future resurrection as a matter of course.”74 Both stories presume the existence of a similar narrative structure in which a “seed” has died, has been “buried,”

72. Andy Johnson, “Firstfruits and Death’s Defeat: Metaphor in Paul’s Rhetorical Strategy in 1 Cor. 15:20–28,” WW 16 (1996): 456–464, 460. He further observes how the “narrative” quality of this metaphor forges “a correspondence between the already known (the phenomenon of firstfruits) and the unknown (the connection between Christ’s resurrection and the future resurrection of the dead). . .it creates for the audience a possible way of viewing the world as they had not viewed it before this speech event.” (460) In essence, the metaphor of firstfruits functions by making the text a semantic palimpsest, in which one story is laid over another, enhancing the meaning of both. The use of metaphor affords Paul the opportunity to create a “new lens through which to view part of the narrative world they share in common with him.” (460) 73. David J. Williams, Paul’s Metaphors: Their Context and Character (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 2. See also his discussion of the metaphor of firstfruits, 40–41. For my own analysis of how metaphor works, see Vain Rhetoric, 128–132, 74. Johnson, “Firstfruits,” 460.

76


and then raised up as a crop.75 The metaphor as such is filled with hopeful logic in the most profound, yet subtle, of ways. In addition, the use of this metaphor sets the emotional tone for the rest of the passage by granting Paul’s narrative world a sense of implicit earthly possibilities. Paul then quickly contrasts the anti-model of Adam and his legacy of death with that of Christ the firstfruits, the true model of life-giving possibilities. The apostle argues that just as death came through a human being, so too the possibility of resurrection has come through a human being (v. 21). In the verses that follow (vv. 22–23), Paul fully exploits the structural components of this antithesis.76 On one hand is placed the death-bearing anti-model of Adam. On the other side is the life-giving model of Christ. In this manner, Christ can be seen in argumentative terms as “an exception which invalidates the rule of the present, namely, that people die.”77 What we discover in verses 21–23 is a robust antithesis that on the deep structural level of human consciousness strikes us all where we live, as every generation of readers finds itself caught between death and life. Whether it is the famed Freudian dichotomy between eros and thanatos, or Marcuse’s splitting of the human condition into that of forfeiture and authenticity, the postmodern reader has thought of this essential conundrum that we face as human beings. While we may not think of Adam as a historical individual anymore, as Paul probably did, we do understand the symbolic nature of what the Adam figure/symbol stands for in terms of human existence. Rhetorically, it is the powerful symbolic


77

the human condition of mortality. Adam, seen as a symbolic representative of general humanity, stands for the condition of forfeiture and inauthenticity that fills our experience of human mortality. Opposite this, standing as the perfect model, is Christ, who offers us an authentic life that can escape the boundaries of human finite possibilities and death. Paul ends this section by extending the logical ramifications of his contrasting existential symbols. On the basis of his role as the bearer of true life after death, Christ becomes the perfect being as model in verses 24–28. As that perfect being and model, all things will be subjected to him, and the last enemy to be subjected is human mortality (v. 26). By arguing on the basis of a model and its anti-model, Paul switches his essential rhetorical strategy in these verses. Whereas the first section (vv. 1–19) argued on the basis of the structure of reality, these verses literally create a new vision of what reality looks like vis-à-vis the specter of death. It is a classic re-mapping of social and theological reality that majestically fashions a new structure of reality for the believing Christian. The world is no longer seen as simply the realm of bios and its limitations. This new vision of the world sees two dimensions where once only one stood: that of temporal death and that of the life-giving Christ. No more can humanity say, along with Qoheleth, “the fate of humans and the fate of animals are the same; as one dies, so dies the other” (Qoh. 3:18). Nor may they say, along with the anonymous interlocutors of Isaiah whom Paul quotes later, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (v. 32b).78 While that may have been true for Adam/humanity, such is no longer the case with life as revealed in the resurrection of Christ. As the perfect model of ontological possibilities, Christ changes our perception of the nature of this world and indeed, the possibilities of life, by revealing to us a new side to existence that may be found only in the realm of faith. The model of reality that Christ’s resurrection presents to the believer is nothing less than a Copernican shift for natural theology such as we see in Qoheleth and Menander. No longer is death the center of this universe, controlling the fate of all who inhabit this world. Rather, there is more to reality than meets the eye. There is another aspect of reality that is utterly shaped by and revealed in Christ’s resurrection. In the end, it is Christ’s resurrection that is at the center of this map of the world, making it a realm of unbridled existential possibilities for the believer. Such is the rhetorical power of these contrasting symbols of humanity 78. See Isa 22:13.

78


and existence. As Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca note, “whereas reference to a model makes it possible to encourage a particular kind of behavior, reference to an anti-model or foil serves to deter people from it.”79 From the Pauline point of view, the behavior being encouraged by the Christ model is the life of faith and a “sober and right mind” (v. 34). In addition, the existential futility of the natural point of view and its proverbial boasting, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (v. 32b), is fully exposed for what it is—a nihilistic, fatalistic, and nugatory point of view. Although Paul seems to get a bit sidetracked in verses 29–34 regarding baptism and his fighting with beasts in Ephesus, he makes his moral point handily in verses 32–34. The essential argument of verses 29–34 is the argument from waste. It argues from the point of view of Christian faith that even as the believer has already begun the task of Christian existence and made sacrifices (such as Paul’s fighting with beasts in Ephesus), such would be wasted if it were given up. Just so, one should continue in the same direction of faith. The argument from waste is especially noticeable in verse 29, which essentially posits what a waste Christian baptism would be if all this were found to be false.80 For the postmodern audience, verses 35–58 present the real case for the resurrection. What Paul does in essence is to argue from what we know about existence, to what we can never prove but may responsibly believe based on what we can perceive about the way things are. It is a classic example of the sort of “non-formal” argumentation that characterizes typical human reasoning. In particular, Paul “introduces an argument from analogy designed to answer the questions of “how” and “what” of the resurrection body.”81 Verses 35–41 are a classic argument based on reality. In 79. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 366. 80. Vorster also sees the importance of the essential argument from waste in these verses. He states, “the sequential type of argumentation occurs again in 15:39–32, although now as an argument from waste. An argument from waste also concerns an event-consequence or means-to-an-end relationship, that is, a succession of events. The succession strives for completion. The notion of waste appears when the completion is prevented by robbing the sequence of events of its end. If completion cannot be reached, what has happened so far is rendered useless or a waste” (see “Resurrection Faith,” 299, which depends on Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca, The New Rhetoric, 279–81). 81. Normand Bonneau, “The Logic of Paul’s Argument on the Resurrection Body in 1 Cor 15:35–44a,” ScEs 65 (1993): 79–92, 79. He rightly observes the rhetorical problems of Paul’s argument for the postmodern reader (79, 91). For a feminist perspective on these verses, the reader should consult Claudia Janssen, “Bodily Resurrection (1 Cor 15): The Discussion of the Resurrection in Karl Barth, Rudolf


79

doing so, Paul returns to an argumentative strategy based on reality. And yet, its more important rhetorical goal is to establish the logical possibilities of the resurrection reality. Specifically, Paul utilizes an argument from direction, and also stages, with startling rhetorical results.82 The metaphors used here once again come from the natural world—he speaks of how seeds germinate and grow into a form unlike their present state. By doing so, Paul seeks to ground the logic of the resurrection in common earthly experiences for the reader. Thus, he continues the earthy tenor that he struck earlier in verse 20 when he first invoked the metaphor of firstfruits. In particular, he stresses an argument from stages in verses 38–41 when he argues “not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.” Paul begins to lay the hermeneutic foundation for a resurrected afterlife by logically blending the metaphors of the seed and the different types of “flesh” that can be seen in any natural setting. The logic is startling. First, he provides the reader with a division of life on this planet into types of “flesh.” In other words, he gives a structure to his argument by laying a taxonomical foundation for understanding the order of existing life in verses 38–41.83 There is a different type of flesh for humans, another for animals, birds, fish and so on. Then he concludes in verses 42–49 that the great variety of life on this planet strongly suggests that there exists a God whose vast creative resourcefulness is not to be limited to what we can perceive with our senses. In modern terms, it is an argument from biological taxonomy and phylogenetic reality, namely, that life is always extending itself to the next level. Just as one level of life leads to the next, so it is logical to think that there is a “next level” beyond that of the biosphere in which we live. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca explain the logic of such an argumentative tactic:

Bultmann, Dorothee Solle and Contemporary Feminist Theology,” JSNT 79 (2000): 61–78. She argues that “resurrection does not promise a better life after death; rather, it indicates how the present life can be transformed” (78). 82. See also the relevant comments of Vorster regarding the device of stages used in these verses. He states: “The device of stages entails the fragmentation of a situation in time with the objective of smoothing out difficulties which might be encountered in a particular situation. In order to solve these incompatibilities, a situation is extended by means of fragmentation” (see “Resurrection Faith,” 301). 83. The concept of “glory” in these verses also has a pronounced diachronically based meaning. See Pate, The Glory of Adam, 66–77.

80


it is possible to split up the pursuit of an end into several stages and to consider the manner in which the situation is transformed: the viewpoint will be incomplete, but dynamic. It is often found to be better not to confront the interlocutor with the whole interval separating the existing situation from the ultimate end, but to divide this interval into sections, with stopping points along the way indicating partial ends whose realization does not provoke such a strong opposition. Though the passage from point A to C may cause difficulties, it might happen that no objection may be seen passing from point A to B, from which C will appear in a quite different light. We may call this technique the device of stages. The structure of reality conditions the choice of these stages but never imposes it.84 In this passage, Paul lists several stopping points whose realization would not provoke a strong opposition. It is important to observe that Paul does not argue from point A to B, that is, from mortal body to immortal body. Rather, he posits a range of bodies from point A to D before he jumps to point E, the heavenly body. Only after establishing those stages does he jump to point F, the resurrection body. Although he argumentatively reverses the order of his points for presentation purposes, logically he posits an argument that jumps from point A (fish) to point B (birds) to point C (animals) to point D (humans). These points are made in verses 38–39. Only then does he jump to heavenly bodies to make point E of his argument (vv. 40–41). Verse 40, “but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, but the glory of the earthly is another,” continues the distinctions he has made in his basic taxonomy established in verses 38–39. Finally, just for good measure, Paul adduces the differing “glory” or light of the sun, moon, and stars to show that stages and divisions are to be found everywhere in nature (v. 41). It is the broad-based way that creation is ordered, that is, the way things “work,” according to Paul. By concluding so, Paul analogically lays the ground for anchoring the reality of the resurrection body in the orders of nature. Once one has argued from points A to E as Paul has done, the leap of faith to point F, the resurrection body as described in verses 42–49, no longer seems like an unreasonable leap of faith.85 For as Paul argues the case, readers have already been prepared for it by all that we have observed as true 84. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 282. 85. Vorster also observes in this regard that the “possibility of the resurrec-


81

about this reality. As Perelman observes, once the interlocutor has passed from point A (fish) to B (birds) to C (animals) to D (humans) to E (heavenly) with Paul, the leap to point F, the resurrected body, appears very much smaller and different than it did before considering Paul’s viewpoint. In fact, it appears wholly possible and, therefore, logical given the taxonomy Paul has established. The description of the resurrection body in verses 42–49 is an argument from direction, in particular, the logical direction established by Paul’s visionary taxonomy in verses 35–41. Perelman observes that the “argument of direction always aims at making a stage and later developments interdependent.”86 Thus, we see that the description of the resurrection body, while fully indebted to ancient traditions for its specific content, is logically interdependent with the natural taxonomy that Paul finds in the world and which subsequently becomes the basis for positing a further stage of “flesh” beyond the visible human stage. The phrases Paul uses to distinguish the two stages for human existence, the earthly and the resurrected, come from the Hellenistic philosophical environment of his day. Thus, Paul distinguishes the two realities in verses 42–44 along lines that are consistent with the Middle Platonic worldview of his era: perishable/imperishable, honor/dishonor, weakness/ power, physical/spiritual. In these verses, Paul initiates a technique from the arsenal of dissociation to make his point about the fundamental newness that Christ’s resurrection introduces to the frailty of human life. He invokes several philosophical pairs to make a qualitative distinction between the two stages so that, however logically interdependent they are, the final stage retains an inherent existential and theological independence from the others. However, and quite fortunately for the postmodern interpreter, the general meaning of these pairs still renders the passage quite functional from a hermeneutic point of view.87 Existentially, these terms still make sense to the reader who is grappling with the limited nature of their existence, the onslaught of old age, and the host of experiences that sum up human mortality. In verses 45–49, Paul returns to the Adam typology he established in verse 22. The distinction between the tion of the deceased is made dependent upon a change in stages affected only by Christ’s subjection of all powers” (see “Resurrection Faith,” 305). 86. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 283. 87. Johnson also makes this essential point; see “Firstfruits,” 457. However, for the interpreter interested in historical matters, see the recent work of Jeffrey Asher, Polarity and Change in 1 Corinthians 15: A Study in Metaphysics, Rhetoric and Resurrection (HUT 42; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000).

82


“being of dust” and the “being of heaven” forms yet another dissociative means of arguing his point about the qualitative difference between these two stages of existence. Once again, his use of the term “dust” to describe Adam renders a metaphorical quality of earthiness to text. This continues his subtle ironic “grounding” of the resurrection in earthy metaphorical categories. Continually in these verses, Paul weaves a textual fabric that is as much earthy as it is heavenly. Rhetorically, he clothes the resurrected Christ and his believers in garments of earthly descent. While the concept of stages establishes the basis for Pauline argumentation in these verses, he is clear that the next stage is quite different, and does not just “grow out” of the former stage. Verse 49 ends the passage on a note of hope, as he assures his readers that “just as we have borne the image of the being of dust, we will also bear the image of the being of heaven.” Verses 50–58 end the chapter with a variety of practical admonitions based on the preceding arguments.88 The tenor of these verses has a very pronounced hopeful quality, especially when he states, “but we will all be changed” (v. 51). After giving a description of how this change will occur (vv. 52–55), verse 58 ends the argument by closing on the same note that he began, as he adjures the Corinthian reader to not labor in “vain.” The use of “vain” as a framing device gives the chapter a 88. An exhaustive analysis of these verses, in particular v. 56, lies outside the scope of this essay. For an excellent treatment of the problems raised herein, as well as the Hellenistic cultural background which informs Paul’s logic, the reader is referred to H. W. Hollander and J. Holleman, “The Relationship of Death, Sin, and Law in 1 Cor 15:56,” NovT 35 (1993): 270–91. However, there is an important aspect to these verses that pertains to the need for exegetes to address the public of our day. Hollander and Holleman argue that Paul’s argument here, relying on current Hellenistic philosophies such as the Cynics, is informed by the view that laws are the result of “sick cultures” (286–87). Thus, in speaking about the future resurrection, Paul found it useful to tie such negative views of law as expressed in thencurrent Hellenism with the power of death to speak in culturally relevant ways to his audience. I refer to such historical issues to point out how biblical authors are constantly in dialogue with the publics of their day. Behind the scenes of this passage, the exegete once again perceives the Scripture’s constant dialogue partner, the public. In that sense, 1 Corinthians 15 helps to serve as a model for the very thesis under discussion, that is, the constant need for interpretation to address the public of one’s day beginning from the premises they are willing to accept. Just as Paul incorporates the public into his argument here, so should we in our attempt to interpret this passage today. The diachronic issues that lay behind this text show evidence of the synchronic impulse which characterized the canonical process at every junction. As such, these historical issues provide the postmodern interpreter with a paradigm for doing synchronic hermeneutics in our day as well.


83

fitting emotional tenor to supplement the startling visionary logic Paul adduces herein. Such reasoning as we find in the latter half of this chapter is a classic example of what David Tracy would call the “analogical imagination.”89 The beauty of Paul’s rhetoric at this point is that he builds on premises the postmodern audience usually learns in his or her biology courses in high school or college. The basic premise of this section is that life is progressive in nature. What could possibly be more postmodern than that? This type of thought dovetails quite nicely with the evolutionary mindset of the general public today. Paul argues that what we see in the countless forms of flora and fauna is that God has created an open-ended biosphere of evolutionary possibilities. The “open-endedness” that we see in our biosphere thereby becomes the basis by which Paul can proclaim the logical possibility of a resurrected body. According to the logic we perceive in these verses, the bodily resurrection is a higher manner of fleshly existence that partakes of the same progressive and developmental nature as we see here on earth. Just as there are stages of life that we can observe and catalogue on earth, so it is that the resurrected afterlife as seen by Paul is simply another stage that is fully consistent with the created world as we know it. As such, the concept of a bodily resurrection is not as foreign to life on this planet as the specter of death often would make it seem. If Paul is correct, the resurrection body is simply the logical extension of the sort of progressive or evolutionary growth that has characterized life on this planet since the pre-Cambrian era. Today, for a public theology, we might reformulate Paul’s argument along the following lines. Just as viruses came to form small 89. Tracy argues that a classic text “is produced only when imagination is at work, in a work, and impels, drives, frees the creator to express the meaning” of the text. See Analogical Imagination, 128. However, he goes on to argue that the main cognitive maneuver involved in theological expression and imagination is the use of analogy, or more precisely, exploiting analogical relations. By analogy, he means the “language of ordered relationships articulating similarity-in-difference” (see Analogical Imagination, 408). Analogical imagination refers to the bold creative freedom of theological reflection to utilize and exploit the prospects and powers of analogy to express its tenets. Thus, we can see where much of Pauline argumentation, especially in these verses, is analogical in terms of its basic cognitive approach, though he can also utilize metaphorical imagination when it serves his purposes (see vv. 20–28). As such, verses 35–41 function by arguing for analogies that are already present in reality and extending them to the reality of the resurrection and the afterlife.

84


single-cell protozoa that lead to multiple-cell protozoa, which lead to higher levels of protozoa, eventually spawning fish, and afterward, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals in their phylogenetic and evolutionary progression, eventually culminating in humanity, just so the type of bodily existence or “flesh” that Paul envisions here is simply the next step in that very same evolutionary progression. The major difference is, of course, that this evolutionary leap is not predicated on normal evolutionary processes, but, rather, rests in the creative sovereignty of God to effect. (Paul would be very clear about this distinction as seen in his use of dissociative reasoning in verses 42–44.) However, it is also clear from these verses that whatever else this process entails, it is still very much analogically grounded in the created schema of life here on earth, and reflects the general parameters of how God has ordered life to evolve from “flesh to flesh.” As such, it would appear that Darwin and Paul have a lot more in common in terms of their way of looking at life than would first appear. The difference is that Paul sees in these natural processes a paradigm for how God will effect the next level of personal existence for believers. The bodily resurrection is therefore an extension of the ways God has ordered creation from “flesh to flesh.” Paul’s basic progressive logic in verses 35–41 may be summarized very succinctly. If we can see a phylogenetic progression of life on this earth from A to Z, then, perhaps, it is logical to assume there is more to this progression beyond Z. Moreover, that pattern of “extension” becomes the basis for understanding the afterlife in the most paradigmatic of fashions for Paul. This concept is the basic level of potential public knowledge that I find in this passage. That said, I do not mean that Paul understood these matters in the same sense as Darwinian evolutionism understands the process. Paul is not thinking in terms of natural selection or survival of the fittest. Nothing could be further from Paul’s mind at that point regarding the resurrection. His thought is far too theocentric for that line of reasoning. He clearly reminds the reader that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (v. 50). However, there is a latent sense of evolution here in that the flesh of the resurrection body appears to be a higher level of flesh than that which we see in the various types found in the earthly sphere. As such, there exists a progressive, or if I may, a latently evolutionary mindset in this form of argumentation which dovetails with our postmodern point of view. Further, Paul seems to understand a basic taxonomy in these verses that is wholly compatible with, or, at least, shares some of


85

the same foundational observations that Darwin would use to build his famous theory. In that way, Paul is latently evolutionary in the sense that his taxonomy, though simple and primitive by modern standards, expresses a categorization that can be utilized for the typical postmodern evolutionary mindset. To put it another way, though the fully evolutionary mortar is missing in Paul’s formulation, he certainly seems to express a progressive or perhaps better, developmental mindset here. This type of logic is potentially compatible with the postmodern mindset that has been brought up on Darwin’s theories. As such, Paul is “evolutionary” in a more naïve manner than the postmodern mind would understand evolution. However, that lingering naïve sense may help the rhetorical critic to forge a liaison with the postmodern audience that should not be missed as we strive to exegete this text for its own peculiar level of public knowledge for our day.90 90. Such a recontextualization may seem strange to the reader. Nevertheless, our age is not the first to struggle with how one may conceptualize the resurrection body as Paul describes it in this passage. At the turn of the previous century, Charles Hallock noted that Paul’s psychology was “crude” and that “his exposition does not satisfy.” Based on then-current ideas, he suggested that perhaps given the phenomena associated with the resurrection body in the New Testament, the body was “electrical” in nature. See “The Body of the Future Life: Is it Electrical?” Open Court 17 (1903): 657–61. I mention this suggestion to show how every generation has struggled with some New Testament conceptualizations. As I argued earlier, rhetorical exchange and cultural adaptation are constant features of both the canonical process whereby we gained our Scriptures and the subsequent reading history whereby they retained their original significance. Our own culture’s struggles with the Pauline description of the afterlife is, therefore, not a new thing. As science and philosophy progress, so too must our understandings of biblical descriptions remain current, and indeed, connected to contemporary cultural understandings of reality if the Pauline description of the afterlife is to make sense to our audiences. We must realize that this rhetorical dynamic has been with us since allegorical readers such as Clement of Alexandria in the second century utilized concepts from Middle Platonism to make the New Testament understandable to a later Hellenistic world. For more on this specific historical precedent of rhetorical and cultural adaptation to make the New Testament culturally relevant, see David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 1–21, 183–240. A good example of postmodern theologizing on the problem of resurrection from a modern scientific viewpoint is offered by Robert John Russell, Cosmology, Evolution, and Resurrection Hope (Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Goshen Conference on Religion and Science, March 18–20, 2005; ed. Carl S. Helrich; Goshen, IN: Pandora Press/ATF Press, 2006). See also Ted Peters, Robert John Russell, and Michael Welker, eds., Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2002). In fact some of the best resources for doing a public theology today can be found

86


In that regard, I am reminded of a conversation I once had with a world-renowned physicist. While discussing quasars and black holes, this physicist reminded me that all physics begins with the assumption that the laws of nature we can describe here are valid anywhere in the cosmos. However, this may or not be true, given the difficulty explaining the physics of things such as pulsars, but it seems “logical” to do so. In its simplicity, Pauline logic argues that we can extend the progressive/evolutionary nature of our biosphere to the ontological possibilities beyond our senses. This has some structural similarities to what we find in more common forms of public knowledge, such as modern physics, and also, evolutionary theories. There is a caveat to this line of reasoning though. I am not saying these are the same types of logic, but merely that both need to posit things that cannot be strictly proven. Paul does it, and so do some scientific theories when pressed by the need to explain difficult things. It is only being pointed out that by analyzing the structure of Pauline and postmodern logic, and thereby calling attention to the developmental impulse that both share, the rhetorical critic can make a “liaison” with the postmodern audience by building on the progressive or, perhaps, evolutionary characteristics of both in order to construct a more public reading of this passage. At the least, such an interpretation of Paul at this point allows the interpreter to experience the full “surplus of meaning” which seems to be lurking just beneath the surface of this text, as Branham and Pearce have noted is the case for most persuasive rhetorical texts. To sum up, Paul establishes the logical possibilities for a resurrected body in verses 35–41. Then, in verses 42–58, he turns from biological possibilities to the existential possibilities that are inherent in this newly mapped taxonomy of physical existence. The metaphors of perishable and imperishable, power and weakness, physical and spiritual dominate the reality Paul is describing. These are powerful metaphors for a baby-boomer generation that is growing more intensely aware of its corporate mortality every day. Rogaine and resurrection are beginning to coalesce in the concerns the reader brings to this text. It does not matter if these words originate in a Middle Platonic worldview or not. The reality remains that these gerontological realities are universal and powerful reminders that mortality is the great enemy of all forms of at the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, which publishes these books. See http://www.ctns.org.


87

“expressive individualism,” as Robert Bellah has so ably described the dominant rhetoric of our day.91 Erich Fromm once described the existential experience of the individual as he or she realizes the certainty of their eventual encounter with human mortality as “ego chill.” Verses 42–58 describe a reality that will grab any person who is in touch with the ontological limits of expressive individualism. Herein Paul builds on premises that the human heart knows only too well. While verses 35–41 appeal to logic, verses 42–58 strongly appeal to the emotions. Paul indeed knows the wisdom of building on both logos and pathos in his manner of argumentation. By doing so, Paul has laid the foundation for an argumentative strategy that is infinitely more powerful for our postmodern audience than the rhetorical strategy with which he begins his peroration. The appeal to values that are more consistent with the values of expressive individualism and progressive/evolutionary imagination in the latter half of the chapter is far better suited for making a rhetorical liaison with the values that the contemporary audience brings to these verses. As a result, verses 35–58 have a much enhanced chance of forming the starting point for a genuine public theology than a venture that begins with the apostolic tradition Paul relies on initially. The postmodern audience, as I read it, will be far more predisposed to accepting the values of progressive possibilities for the self, as argued in verses 35–58, than the simple rehearsing of historical witnesses we find initially in the chapter. This is not to say that verses 1–19 are unimportant for Christian theology. Quite the contrary! These witnesses form the historical bedrock for proclaiming Christ’s specific resurrection. However, it will be the progressive logic of the latter half of the chapter that will enable and prepare the public to buy into the premises contained in those initial verses today. In regards to shaping a genuinely public theology for today, verses 35–58 form a necessary logical and rhetorical prolegomena for the Christian witness to the resurrection as found in verses 1–19. Moreover, it is a prolegomena that postmodern exegesis cannot afford to slight. While this rhetorical situation may or may not have been neces91. See Robert Bellah, et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), esp. 32–35. Other insightful studies that delineate the values of the postmodern context are Emil Wcela, “Who Do You Say That They Are? Reflections on the Biblical Audience Today,” CBQ 53 (1991): 1–17; Walter Truett Anderson, Reality Isn’t What It Used to Be (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1992); Maureen O’Hara and Walter Truett Anderson, “Welcome to the Postmodern World,” The Family Therapy Networker 15, no. 5 (1991): 18–25.

88


sary in Paul’s day, the sort of logic our audience is prepared to share has shifted quite dramatically over the centuries. The effects of “effective historical consciousness,” as it is termed by Hans-Georg Gadamer, have changed the rhetorical properties of this passage. What could once begin the passage cannot do so in our day and age.92 However, Paul did not leave his audience or ours without a logical explanation for such possibilities. It behooves the postmodern critic to begin with these later verses and their progressive logic, and by so doing, prepare the modern audience for the sort of visionary logic that is necessary in order to responsibly believe in the reality attested by those ancient witnesses in verses 3–11. In so doing, we may enable this passage to function again as public knowledge, and hopefully, be able to reclaim it from the past, as Bitzer has admonished the rhetorically minded interpreter to do. To summarize my rhetorical treatment of this passage, the central and most persuasive rhetorical strategies for the postmodern reader are to be found in the middle and concluding sections of this chapter, at least in terms of the textualized Corinthian situation of our day. The initial strategies found in verses 1–19 constitute “inhouse” rhetorics. They can be used only when the essential premises and theological reality of the resurrection have been accepted by a person of faith. If one begins with these verses in a postmodern setting, or perhaps better, a public setting, one has but a faint hope of not “begging the issues” for many in our audience. Fortunately, we do not need to begin where Paul started. In our day and age, as we more and more look to find ways to address the public, we may find that how Paul finished his argumentation is perhaps the way we need to start. That is, by addressing the possibilities that the Christian vision of resurrection presents to the person who is vitally invested in continuing one’s own “expressive individualism” beyond the limits we all face. In paying attention to the persuasiveness of Paul’s analogical imagination and progressive logic as found in the last half of this chapter, the rhetorical critic finds a link to the postmodern mindset and, thereby, a means whereby this passage can begin to have a more profound impact on our culture. In such a manner, we may begin to shape a genuinely postmodern Christian faith that can replace the dying public theology of the 1950s, which was predicated on simple proclamation. In its stead, a close attention to Pauline logic redirects our attention to the ways 92. Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (trans. G. Barden and J. Cumming; New York: Seabury, 1975) 267–74.


89

in which analogical imagination, rather than simple proclamation, opens the rhetorical possibilities that can persuasively influence infinitely more people. Only when we as interpreters have done the text this rhetorical favor will it again be able to function as public knowledge for the postmodern reader.

CONCLUSION Biblical interpreters need to listen to and take the best insights from our postmodern culture’s repository of ideological positions and accumulated knowledge. The major rhetorical task and risk will be to make them complementary without sacrificing the core values of the biblical tradition. For at least the last thirty years, interpreters have stressed the need to broaden the way we reason and think when interpreting texts. The call to a more public perspective began in the late 1960s with the rhetorical work of Chaim Perelman. His emphasis on the universal audience as the ultimate validating authority found a sympathetic ear among other similar-minded rhetoricians. Ten years later, Lloyd Bitzer would emphasize a comparable concern with his call to find the level of public knowledge in traditional texts. David Tracy, Linell Cady, William Placher, and Ronald Thiemann issued a similar call for a more public theology in theological circles. In biblical studies, the works of Wilhelm Wuellner and David Hester (Amador) have echoed these postmodern concerns to the professional biblical interpreter. What we see is that nearly simultaneously, in a variety of fields located across the general humanities, parallel concerns have been voiced with the advent of postmodernism. All of these theoreticians clearly perceived that with the death of modernism arose the need for a more public and a more genuinely universal rhetorical perspective for interpreters. Rhetorics for the new millennium will inevitably mean many, many things, given the intrinsic diversity of the postmodern mindset. The call to a more public perspective when analyzing texts, with its broadening point of view, is surely to be counted as one of them. Looking for the level of public knowledge in scriptural texts is just one way we may again reclaim the power of these texts for our new millennium. Therein lies the great promise of the New Rhetoric for the biblical interpreter. As Lloyd Bitzer summarized the aim of rhetorical criticism:

90


Man [sic!] alone, so far as we know, has the capacity to find and create truths which can serve as constituents of the art of life. But there are obstacles and tendencies which thwart generation and recognition of this knowledge. The first is limited individual existence. As individuals we are granted but a short and precious span of existence, hardly enough to acquire the wisdom we need. . . . The second is the countervailing forces of false opinion, poverty of sentiment, and bleak physical conditions. The third is our tendency to yield to the claims of present circumstances, needs, and desires which, while valid in themselves, distract us from enduring truths and separate us from the wisdom of tradition. The fourth is our habit of regarding as true—as knowledge—those propositions which issue from accepted scientific procedures of investigation and confirmation. As a result, principles of moral conduct and maxims of political and social life—indeed all of humane wisdom that may guide civilization—have been regarded as opinion found wanting then put to tests of confirmation. A fifth and related cause is the widespread current belief that truth is to be found in this slice of time—in the here and now, in this set of experiences, during this present inquiry, this year. We seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge that some truths are not to be found in these kinds of time frames, but rather become, over time, and perhaps pass in and out of existence. Why should we not acknowledge that some truths exist as faint rays of light, perceived perhaps dimly in a near-forgotten past, but which light up again and again in the experience of generations? Finally, our general suspicion of tradition cuts us off from a rich fund of knowledge. We lose important wisdom which ought to be brought into the present where it may enrich culture and assist the resolution of problems. . . . The great task of rhetorical theory and criticism, then, is to uncover and make available the public knowledge needed in our time and to give body and voice to the universal public.93 (emphasis mine) If this were the situation some twenty years ago, how much more is it likely to be the case now? We stand at the door of another great reformation, or, perhaps, evolutionary leap called postmodernism. Let us therefore embrace both that beckoning and the Scriptures that have guided us to this point in time and history. By looking for 93. Bitzer, “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge,” 92.


91

the level of public knowledge in a text, the professional interpreter of the Scriptures will go a long way toward ensuring that the Scriptures may continue to accompany our generation as skilled and relevant voices of wisdom in this fabulous evolutionary trek called humanity. So, let us embrace the challenge of postmodernism. By doing so, we will join a long line of biblical writers and interpreters who have preceded us in this age-old task.

4 The Pre-Christian Paul and Rhetoric WILHELM WUELLNER

In this essay my interest is not limited to the critical recognition of the important role that rhetoric played in the synagogue education of the pre-Christian Paul, as already noted in the works of Martin Hengel1 and others. Nor is it limited to a variation of the already well known theme, “What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?” a theme that is frequently and regularly pondered on both Jewish2

 Presentation made before the semi-annual meeting of the Schweizerischen Neutestamentlich Doktoranden Kolloquiums on November 21, 1992 in the Institut für Jüdisch-Christliche Forschung at the Theologische Fakultät Luzern. Published as “Der vorchristliche Paulus und die Rhetorik,” in Tempelkult und Tempelzerstörung (70 n. Chr.): Festschrift Clemens Thoma (ed. S. Lauer; Judaica et Christiana; New York: Peter Lang, 1994), 133–65. Adapted from the original German manuscript by J. David Hester. Dr. Wuellner, a founding member of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric, passed away in 2004. He considered this article among one of his most significant. It was published in German several years ago. David Hester only recently came across the manuscript of the article that Wuellner had sent to him while he was Wuellner’s graduate student. The editors have received permission from the original publishers to translate and publish it here.

1. Martin Hengel has published two works on this theme: Zum Problem der “Hellenisierung” Judäas im 1. Jahrhundert nach Christus (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1989); Eng. trans.: The “Hellenization” of Judaea in the First Century after Christ (trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989); and “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” in Paulus und das antike Judentum (ed. M. Hengel and U. Heckel; WUNT 58; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991), 177–293. He understands these contributions to be parergon to his earlier works: idem, Judentum und Hellenismus: Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter des Berücksichtigung Palästinas bis zur Mitte des 2 Jh. v. Chr. (WUNT 10; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1969); Eng. trans.: Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974). Cf. also the work of Edouard Will and Claude Orrieux, Ioudaismos-Hellénismos: Essai sur le Judaisme judéen à l’époque hellénistique (Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1986). 2. Philip S. Alexander, “Quid Athenis et Hierosolymis? Rabbinic Midrash and Hermeneutics in the Greco-Roman World,” in A Tribute to Geza Vermes: Essays

92

The Pre-Christian Paul and Rhetoric

93

and Christian3 sides. Rather, my interest lies in developing a critical formulation of what we in this century have recently come to understand as “rhetoric.” In particular, I wish to explore how our modern critique of traditional concepts about rhetoric is creating an impact today on exegetical and hermeneutical work. In other words, my interest lies in a significant and far-reaching turning point in the history of biblical studies. The theme introduces two distinct but interconnected critical reflections: (1) the role of rhetoric in the development of the ”building-blocks and thought structure” of Paul reflecting his participation in Pharisaic-Judaic theology, and (2) the assessment of the importance of rhetoric for the study of the beginnings of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. The importance of rhetoric for an understanding of the controversial role of Paul in early Christianity and contemporary Judaism is being intensely discussed as of late.4 In the first section of this paper I will consider the critical evaluation of the distinctiveness of Jewish rhetoric in the controversy with the unremitting Hellenization of Palestinian Judaism before and after 70 c.e. The focus here will be on a proper evaluation of the life and work of Paul, something Martin Hengel has worked on with respect to the issue of the pre-Christian Paul and his Greeksynagogue education in Greek-speaking Jerusalem. In using the notion “rhetoric” one should distinguish between (a) that which is specially developed within the system of education as a prescriptive, normative theory of rhetoric (rhetorica docens), and (b) the rhetoric used in oral and written exchange (rhetorica utens). With this distinction, we must avoid any reduction of the essence and function of rhetoric to but one of many arenas within Jewish culture before 70 c.e. in which claims to value or ideologies came to expression, for example, elementary education, rabbinic houses, Temple, administration and application of law, synagogue preaching, and prayer. In this first section we will initially consider the problems resulting from an educational policy and practice in Greek-speaking synagogues of Jerusalem in the twilight of the Herodian cultural

on Jewish and Christian Literature and History (ed. P. R. Davies and R. T. White; JSOTSup 100; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), 101–24, esp. 116–17. 3. See G. Weltin, Athens and Jerusalem: An Interpretive Essay on Christianity and Classical Culture (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). 4. For an overview of relevant works, see Carl Joachim Classen, “Paulus und die antike Rhetorik,” ZNW 82 (1991): 1–33.

94


agenda and the self-intensifying struggle of Jewish cultural identity in all its spiritual/intellectual variety before 70 c.e. Here, five necessarily brief sections will be sketched out which will elaborate and explain the so-called rhetorical standard of pre-70 c.e. The first four sections have already been more or less explicitly laid out or at least alluded to by Hengel: (1) elementary education, (2) the discourse and the halakic controversies of the Houses (3) synagogue preaching, (4) the administration and application of law. To these we will add (5) prayer and religious service. Already at the beginning it will be apparent how much the development in education and schooling depends on temporal and social phenomena, as is the case in every time and in every culture. This is exactly the case with rhetoric, as can be seen in the codification of rhetoric5 by the first century and the institutionalization of rhetoric since Aristotle.6 In the second section we will make explicit how the whole discussion over the role of rhetoric—whether by Paul (pre- or postChristian), or in the education of Jerusalem synagogue houses before 70 c.e.—is burdened and overshadowed by the constraining and problematic notion of rhetoric reflected in the modern scholarly study of early Christian literature. Here the problem lies in scholarly practices where literary study is carried out as either literary history or literary theory. In contrast, we will offer suggestive comments regarding what the re-invention of a suitable notion of

5. Karl-Heinz Göttert, Einführung in die Rhetorik: Grundbegriffe, Geschichte, Rezeption (UTB 159; Munich: Fink, 1991), 123, speaks of the anchoring of rhetoric in school as the definitive backbone of the development of rhetoric and education in the Roman Empire of the first century. Concerning rhetoric “as an element of education which little by little became a set routine,” see Der Kleine Pauly. Lexikon der Antike vol. 4 (ed. K. Ziegler and W. Sontheimer; Munich: Druckenmüller, 1972), 1406. Hengel (“Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 224) “estimates” that the Torah school before 70 c.e. was less institutionalized and freer “in contrast to the relatively quickly paced “standardization” of Palestinian Judaism after 70 c.e.” The development in Christian schools and Roman legal schools was astonishingly similar during the same period. By “mis-instruction” [Verschulung] Göttert understands, along with rhetors such as Toulmin and Habermas, the detachment of rhetoric from the arenas or spheres of public life in which claims were rationally, that is, rhetorically (interactively, intersubjectively) justified and legitimated. See Göttert, Einführung in die Rhetorik, 204–7, for “geltungstheoretischen Ansatz” of rhetoric in arenas such as economics, politics, medicine, education, science and research, law, art, religion. 6. See C. Jan Swearing, Rhetoric and Irony: Western Literacy and Western Lies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991 index s.v. “Institutionalization.”


95

rhetoric, both historical as well as theoretical, promises to offer our scholarly study of such literature.

THE ROLE OF RHETORIC IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF “BUILDING BLOCKS AND THOUGHT STRUCTURE” OF PAUL AS A THEOLOGICAL THINKER WITHIN PHARISAIC JUDAISM These building blocks and the thought-structure of the Jewish thinker Paul are altogether determined by and through rhetoric. The Jewish thinker Paul is the Jewish rhetor Paul. Here we note two cultural trajectories which are often distinguished, sometimes connected, but often completely confused with one another: (1) the results of the aggressive cultural agenda under Herod and his descendants, and (2) the consolidation of Jewish cultural inheritance coming to expression in the following phenomena and institutions: (a) in elementary instruction (bet sefer) of the synagogues (even in the Greek-speaking ones in Jerusalem!) and in the progressive development in bet midrash or bet talmud;7 (b) in the controversies “for heaven’s sake” (Abot 5:17) in the tradition of the “pairs” or “Houses”;8 (c) in the halakic legal decisions which could be institutionally binding on both the Houses, just as with the Sanhedrin,9 and, (d) last but not least, in prayers and liturgies of religious services in home, synagogue, and Temple. In principle, this consolidation of the Jewish cultural inheritance manifests itself not as an anti-Hellenist, anti-Roman tendency, as one can show regarding the proven Hellenization of the Pharisaic house of instruction in Jerusalem. However, what one can say about the cul7. For Jewish schooling prior to 70 c.e., in distinction from Tannaitic times, see H. L. Strack and G. Stemberger, Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch (7th ed.; Munich: Beck, 1982), 18–24. Schmuel Safrai, The Literature of the Sages (CRINT II/3.1; Assen/ Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1987), 60–61, points out that education and upbringing, and thereby rhetoric, not only nor exclusively took place in schools, but also in manifold public and private, but always collective, opportunities. 8. See S. Safrai, Literature of the Sages, 63–66 and 168–75. For a tradition-history classification of New Testament controversies, see Wolfgang Weiss, ”Eine Neue Lehre in Vollmacht”: Die Streit- und Schulgespräche des Markus-Evangeliums (BZNW 52; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989). 9. For a discussion concerning the changing fate of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin, in distinction to the many local or regional gerousiai or boulai, see Martin Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt against Rome A.D. 66–70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 113–17.

96


tural elite of the high priestly families of Jerusalem (namely, that Greek education and loyalty to Rome go hand in hand)10 cannot be said of the Pharisaic house of instruction. Hengel only occasionally spells out this difference, but often mixes it up with the overall effectiveness of the long-term Hellenization of Palestinian Judaism, which according to Hengel spread unceasingly wider and deeper after the Hasmonean revolts: Herod only further developed what was already explicit since the time of the Hasmoneans. What proved itself to be “new” with Hellenization under Herod was that education and rhetoric were subsumed under Roman aspirations in culture as well as politics. Hengel correctly remarks, “Presumably the state authority had a particular interest in grammar and rhetorical instruction in Jewish Palestine, where it sought to broaden the ruling imperial culture.”11 But one cannot even say this much about grammar and rhetorical education in the Houses, and wherever else rabbis taught. Under Hellenistic-Roman education, Hengel understands in a wider sense technology, military presence, sport and gymnasiums (to this one should add above all the architecture and symbolism in the Herodian temple and in other public buildings, and certainly also the development of music of the Herodian temple). In a narrower sense Hengel understands by paideia the rhetorical, literary, and philosophical education.12 This Hellenization should have been, according to Hengel, an integral component of both Jewish elementary education as well as Pharisaic scribal education— whether in the Greek- or Hebrew-speaking Houses. However, he also maintains that Hellenistic-Jewish rhetoric “oriented to synagogue preaching” is “very much distinguished from the literary style of customary Greek education.”13 Along with the Hellenization of education in Hebrew/Aramaicspeaking as well as Greek-speaking Jerusalem and Judea, a distinction must be made between cultural compromises (cf. Norden’s so-called four under- and alternative-currents)14 and cultural con10. Hengel, The “Hellenization” of Judaea, 40. 11. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 263 n. 276; cf. idem, The “Hellenization” of Judaea, 37: Herod’s ambition to integrate the “disputatious” Jews to the ecumen of the Roman Empire. 12. Hengel, The “Hellenization” of Judaea, 20 13. Hengel, The “Hellenization” of Judaea, 265 14. See Eduard Norden, Die Antike Kunstprosa vom VI. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis in die Zeit der Renaissance (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1958; reprt. of the 2d ed. from 1909), 460–65.


97

trasts (i.e., the “irreconcilable mainstream forces”).15 Even if Josephus criticizes and avoids the presentation style of some of his Jewish contemporaries who speak or write in the “Elegant Style” (glaphyrótêti léxeôn) on the basis that even slaves could manage such a rhetorical manner,16 nevertheless one should not conclude, as does Goodman,17 that there was Jewish contempt for rhetoric. Rather, the presence of any Jewish contempt for rhetoric existed only insofar as there were certain groups among the multitude of intellectual/spiritual movements before 70 c.e. who held contempt for a minimal passive resistance taken against the extension of Roman imperial colonial culture that paideia ostensibly served to foster. Additionally, along with all Hellenization, whether in the Pharisaic Houses or with Josephus or even in Qumran itself, one should not simply bring together the critique of Hellenistic education with the critic of Atticism on Asianism (or vice versa), or with the traditional distinction between classical (i.e., Hellenist or Roman) rhetoric, or even better, “school” rhetoric and folk literature. Finally, as with everything “barbaric,” all rhetoric should be dispensed with and be once more revalued in all research, best of all under the category “rhetoric of the heart.”18 Martin Hengel’s contribution to the discussion is his assertion that the role of rhetoric for Paul and in contemporary Judaism must be viewed as having arisen under Hellenistic influence, while also 15. Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, 452–60. 16. Pseudo-Longinus, a chronological if not in fact ethnic contemporary of Josephus, lets an interlocutor remark that even with slaves one finds the art of rhetorical flattery, though a slave could never become a rhetor (On the Sublime, 44.3–5). 17. Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea, 47: “Jews despised rhetoric as unimportant.” 18. Norden (Antike Kunstprosa, 458) traces back the rebirth of the “speech of the heart” only secondarily as its objective “to have an effect upon the masses” which both Jews and Christians allegedly pursued; primarily it is traced back to the “struggle between form and content.” He compares this struggle, however, with that of the “beginning of the hopeless struggle of philosophy against rhetoric.” The “rhetoric of the heart” is for Norden “written in unfiltered speech” (502), which nevertheless “made use of the fluent means of delicate Greek rhetoric” (506–7), which however “was fluent in the ’Asianic‘ Sophistic of the time” (507). “Dependency upon Hebraic means of expression,” found among both Jews and Christians as an “inner ardor and passion which freed itself from the fetters of expression,” should be distinguished, according to Norden, from a “deficient stylistic ability” of both Jews and Christians—as well as naturally possible of both Greeks and Romans (510). Norden is very much aware that such a judgment goes back to the “standpoint of a strict Kunstprosa.”

98


appreciating the cultural uniqueness in Palestinian Judaism. Wifstrand noted correctly that in the Hellenized synagogue, “in the mode of the times one or another Greek rhetorical stylistic trend was accepted, or indeed could have come to rich expression, because similar elements of style in Hebrew literature and in Aramaic preaching was present beforehand.”19 The execution of Hengel’s description of the Greek education of the pre-Christian Paul—as paradigm of the Hellenization of (Pharisaic) Judaism—is so clearly outlined that it establishes as the central theme of the discussion the location and related institutions of this Hellenization in Jerusalem and Judea before 70 c.e. It has been a truism of scholarly research for quite some time that “the way of Christianity to the Greeks was very often through Hellenized Jews.”20 As a result of Hengel, the emphasis of research is now upon the distinctive characteristics of each of the various groups (priests and aristocrats, members of the Houses and synagogues, elementary educational instructors and students, and so forth), each taking advantage of Greek education in Jerusalem, whether through adherence or avoidance or a mixture of both. The old alternative between Judaism and Hellenism, as between Palestinian and Diaspora Judaism, is no longer defensible. Hengel has cleared up the misuse of the catchword “Hellenism/Hellenistic.” We can only be thankful for that. What he did not clear up, however, is the misuse of the catchword “rhetoric/rhetorical,” which is not any less a flashpoint than Hellenism, whether in today’s usage or in the first century.21 We now turn to the meaning that rhetoric has in Hengel’s interpretation, whether as theory (e.g., rules of argumentation) or in praxis (e.g., means of argumentation). (1) Grammar instruction in Jewish elementary education, promoted through the institution of the synagogue for the instruction of the people in the Law, is based on the use of the Bible (“and related religious texts”) as a written text, in distinction from oral text, which stands in the center of the education of the Houses. The synagogue elementary schools for children, with Greek as the 19. Albert Wifstrand, Die alte Kirche und die griechische Bildung (trans. Richard Mautner; Munich/Bern: Francke, 1967), 13. 20. Wifstrand, Alte Kirche und die griechische Bildung, 11; so already Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, 471–76. 21. Günter Richter speaks in his introductory overview of the importance of rhetoric: “The terminus of rhetoric is in many ways unfocused, incongruent with itself and contradictory” (“Rhetorik: Systematik” [Europäische Enzyklopädie zu Philosophie und Wissenschaft; Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 1990), 4:143–46.


99

primary language and Aramaic as the second language, were to have been, as Jewish education itself in Jerusalem, “a good Greek elementary-level education.” Paul was to experience this portion of his education, however, in Tarsus, which for his development must have lagged behind Jerusalem in import.22 And while the Greek learned in Jewish elementary education, even by Paul, was to be “indeed independent,” other Greek-writing Jews of the first century were to be more literary with more expert command than Paul. Such observations concerning the individual character of the oral expression of (at least some) Greek-speaking Jews stands in tension with Hengel’s other assertion that “the Roman authorities [had] a particular interest in grammar instruction in Jewish Palestine, where it sought to broaden the impact of the ruling imperial culture.”23 The interest of the Greek-speaking synagogue in grammar instruction obviously services the goals of Palestinian Jewish culture. An additional issue is the relationship of grammar to rhetorical education24 and this relationship to the difference, indeed the clash, between Atticism and Asianism, to which Hengel often refers or alludes.25 In grammar education the rhetorical basis of (oral and written) communication is quite clear: education in reading and writing in the primary language, whether Greek or Hebrew, prepared for three speech-related disciplines—grammar, logic or dialectic, and rhetoric. This “classical” trivium arose from Greek, but never, or rarely, from Hebrew. It gives one pause for thought, therefore, when a historian of the liberal arts in Christian educational development (which was itself founded upon paideia, but with clearly distinguishable alterations) comes to the following conclusion: “The roots of this process [i.e., “the frightening totality of the upheaval” in the late patristic and the early Middle Ages] lies in the Old Testament.”26

22. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 238. 23. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 232–37. 24. For Göttert, Einführung in die Rhetorik, “the passage from grammar to rhetoric is slippery, cases in particular are exceptionally hard to identify. Each grammatical deviation can seem weak, exaggerated, etc., through the addition of (superfluous) or the subtraction of (unimportant) vocabulary, or through (daring) compensation or (dramatic) accumulation” 25. Grammar and logic were the foundation of rhetoric in Greek education, which led in the Enlightenment to the discussion of the logical basis of grammar and rhetoric (cf. Göttert, Einführung in die Rhetorik, 174). 26. H. M. Klinkenberg’s essay in Artes Liberales: Von der antiken Bildung zur

100


Special problems such as the use and appraisal of loan words,27 the difference between Greco-Roman and Semitic parallelismus membrorum,28 or training in meter29 and colometry,30 or even the appraisal of orthography and calligraphy in Jewish elementary education,31 and many other similar issues, deserve critical attention when dealing with the so far limited discussion of the difference between Atticism and Asianism.32 (2) The instruction format in Pharisaic Houses in the threefold formula in 1 Cor 1:20, with reference to the instructional activity of the sophós/hakam, or the grammatéus/sopher, and the syzêtêtês/darshan, is assessed by Hengel against an “autobiographical background.” A “certain rhetorical basic training” was transmitted in the Houses which was, however, often and expressly distinguished from the “current Attic school rhetoric of the time” and (in reference to Norden’s work) that which is characterized by the “controversy with ‘Asian sophistic.’”33 That the sophistic was the first and only development in ancient rhetoric which helped to promote feminism is

Wissenschaft des Mittlelalters (ed. Josef Koch; Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, vol. 5, 1959; reprt. Leiden: Brill, 1976), 16 27. From Hengel, The ‘Hellenization’ of Judaea, 51 n. 273, mentioned as desideratum for an unrevised research project from 1898. 28. See Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, 509 n. 1, and 816–18; and idem, Agnostos Theos, 355–64, concerning Hellenistic sentence-parallel structure in distinction from Hebraic thought-parallel structure, and the uniting of both stylistic variations “as product of a Hellenistic-Oriental stylistic syncretism.” Among educated Jews and Christians it must have come to a unity “in spite of all contractions [of both cultural forms of expression].” “Paul must undoubtedly have had this problem, and he was in fact the first for us” (261). However, according to Hengel and others it had already become united before the pre-Christian Paul. 29. See the survey of important literature by Folker Siegert, “Mass Communication and Prose Rhythm in Luke/Acts,” in Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Thomas H. Olbricht; JSNTSup 90; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993). 30. Norden (Agnostos Theos, 364) speaks of the “praxis of colometrically written Greek Bibles.” See Hengel, The ”Hellenization” of Judaea, 24, for the possible contribution of the Jewish scribal school in Jerusalem upon this praxis. 31. See José Faur, Golden Doves with Silver Dots: Semiotics and Textuality in Rabbinic Tradition (Jewish Literature and Culture; Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 84. 32. See Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, 251–343. 33. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 242; on the Pharisaic House in Jerusalem before 70 c.e.; cf. 239–42.


101

relevant only for Hellenistic culture but not for Jewish culture of the early Roman Empire.34 As with any New Testament critic speaking about rhetoric, though, even Hengel brings into this discussion the “often-noted diatribe style of Paul.” Here Hengel stresses that this “rhetorical training” in the Pharisaic Houses had “in essence an unliterary” character, and was exclusively “directed toward the oral synagogue presentation.”35 However, what is not so important here is that we are considering a rhetoric of oral culture. Rather, it is much more important, especially with respect to halakic instruction, that according to Safrai we are dealing with a taught and learned House community (a “learning community” with its own individual “teaching situation” and vice versa). In this cultural unity, this arena, the rhetor/teacher stands in a reciprocal relationship with both the narrower and broader community, including outsiders, among whom Safrai also includes women and Gentiles.36 One must much more so emphasize the unique character of this public Houserealm in distinction to the non-Jewish culture so as not to fall victim to a misleading unified portrait of Jerusalem education. (3) Synagogue preaching is for Hengel a “rhetorical arsenal.”37 He does not emphasize the fact that the Houses also had other directions, that is, areas of interest (study as well as prayer; writing as a part of legal interpretation; administration and applica34. See Susan C. Jarrat, “The First Sophists and Feminism: Discourses of the ‘Other,’” Hypatia 5 (1990): 27–41; and C. Jan Swearingen, Rhetoric and Irony: Western Literacy and Western Lies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). But it is a possible warning to consider in this connection the controversial figure of Beruriah, the wife of the Tannaitic Rabbi Meir. 35. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 261. 36. Safrai, The Literature of the Sages, 167. 37. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 184 n. 27. Cf. Folker Siegert, Drei hellenistisch-jüdische Predigten: Ps.-Philon, “Über Jona,” “Über Simson,” und “Über die Gottesbezeichnung ‘wohltätig verzehrendes Feuer.’” Ein Kommentar (WUNT 20; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1992). Earlier works include C. Clifton Black II, “The Rhetorical Form of the Hellenistic Jewish and Early Christian Sermon: A Response to Lawrence Wills,” Harvard Theological Review 81 (1988): 1–18; E. Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, 471–76; Lewis M. Barth, “Literary Imagination and the Rabbinic Sermon: Some Observations,” in Proceedings of the Seventh World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1981), 29–35; Arnold Goldberg, “Die Peroratio (Hatima) als Kompositionsform der rabbinischen Homilie,” Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 8 (1978): 1–22; Brigitte Kern, “Fragen in der Homilie: Ein Mittel der Text- oder der Formkonstitution?” LB 61 (1988): 57–86; David Stern, “Literary Criticism or Literary Homilies? Susan Handelman and the Contemporary Study of Midrash,” Prooftexts 5 (1985): 96–103.

102


tion of law). The education of the Houses was supposedly directed toward synagogue preaching on the Sabbath, that is, “toward efficacious teaching and preaching.”38 To speak of a “rhetorical art” here is all the more confusing. Indeed rhetorical training is spoken of again and again, but the origins from which it sprang is never clearly determined outside of the reference to the “controversy with ‘Asian sophistic,’” the reference to the not unknown roll of irony,39 and to the “minor national [rhetorical] publicality of popular philosophy.”40 Whether the Hebrew Houses offered “rhetorical basic training,” in distinction from the Jewish-Hellenistic schools, is not considered by Hengel. Such a distinction is hardly justifiable, even if one presupposed another kind of community in the Greekspeaking Pharisaic Houses.41 The following fourth point (and fifth) will show further charges. (4) The halakic controversies and the administration of justice are well understood when Hengel touches on the “juridical speech forms,”42 which, together with the interrelated “speech forms and thought categories,” go back to the Houses. But they are not fittingly understood as a “rhetorical arsenal,” although he knows about numerous technical rhetorical ideas from the legal sphere of the rabbis after 70 c.e. In discussions about questions of law (e.g., Sabbath laws and Pesah offerings) Hengel sees, for example, the following lines of argumentation, which correspond to the tradition of rhetorical argumentation, or “successive means of proof”: (1) argumentation from analogy, (2) proof from scripture (gezer shawa; and qal wa-homer), (3) appeal to handed-down tradition.43 On the one hand, it can be emphasized that these and other means of argumentation, such as, for example, the seven “rules” of Hillel, belong to other examples of argumentation in Hellenistic rhetoric, 38. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 261. 39. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 184 n. 27. 40. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 183. 41. Hengel (“Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 262) speaks of “the large and continuously changing number of Jews and ‘God-fearing’ pilgrims from the Diaspora,” and of “exact instruction of the Festival pilgrims from the Torah only in its authentic meaning, completely different that in the Diaspora among the Gentiles, where one could not correctly keep the Torah because a number of laws were not valid there” (260). 42. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 251. 43. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 255. Günther Mayer, “Midrasch,” TRE 22 (1993), adds to a fortiori argumentation and several kinds of argumentation from analogy an additional seven other rules, all of which originate in the treasury of common exposition and argumentation tradition.


103

that is, to the theory of rhetoric. On the other hand, it should be noted that the major means of proof customary at that time were “in a certain sense public knowledge.”44 David Stern sees the rhetorical function of parables (as part of the argumentative means of proof customary at that time) as belonging to the genre or the subgenre of epideictic rhetoric.45 Therefore, again, as with the use of rhetorical figures or other stylistic peculiarities, it is, on the one hand, accepted that the “collected rules and terminology” of the rules of interpretation or the means of argumentation in Jewish jurisprudence go back to Hellenistic influences. On the other hand, however, it is properly emphasized that a direct adoption of the rules of legal interpretation from the Hellenistic world is not provable. As far as a critical assessment of the Hellenistic influence on Jewish legal interpretation goes, it should still be considered that already in the time prior to 70 c.e., and more still afterward, the miseducation [Verschulung] of rhetoric had a stagnating, or at least an uninformative, effect on the area of controversies.46 For the time prior to 70 c.e., though, Hengel’s warning stands correct, that the traditional educational dichotomy of the controversies, considering the spiritual multiplicity in Judea of the first century, “covered up a huge diversity.”47

44. For the historically unproven connection of these rules with the historical Hillel, see H. L. Strack, Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch (Munich: Beck, 1921), 26–30; for the “historical location” of the Middot and their associated midrash, see also Mayer, “Midrasch.” Mayer sees a point of connection in Hellenistic rhetoric where midrash and Greco-Roman culture meet. 45. David Stern, “Jesus’ Parables from the Perspective of Rabbinic Literature,” in Parable and Story in Judaism and Christianity (ed. C. Thomas and M. Wyschogrod; Mahwah, NY: Paulist, 1989), 42–80; for a discussion with Daniel Boyarin over the rhetorical function of the meshalim, see idem, “Rhetoric and Interpretation: The Case of the Nimshal,” Prooftexts 5 (1985): 269–76, and Stern’s reaction, 276–80. 46. Göttert (Einführung in die Rhetorik, 123) numbers among the anchors of rhetoric in school that contributed, along with the progymnasmata and suasoria (declamations over historical or fictive themes) to the decay of rhetoric in the first century, the controversies (solutions to legal questions). See Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neill, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric. Vol. 1: The Progymnasmata (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), on progymnastic rhetorical training and the rhetorical nature of culture-transmitting school traditions. Concerning progymnasmata and rhetoric in the gospel tradition, see Vernon Robbins, “Writing as a Rhetorical Act in Plutarch and the Gospel,” in Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament Rhetoric in Honor of George A. Kennedy (ed. Duane F. Watson. JSNTSup 50. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 142–68. 47. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 214 n. 157; cf. 218, 245, 251, 254, 256. For the general theme of the cultural and religious diversity in Judea in the context of Roman provincial politics, see Daniel R. Schwartz, Studies in the Jewish Back-

104


One understands the rhetorical standard in the legal sphere not only in the manner and means by which questions of law were brought up and presented. Rather, one also understands how legal decisions were justified and legitimated. The unique Roman cultural tradition of responsa48 developed apparently at the same time as, although independently from, the Jewish tradition of the halakic letter, the tradition of sche’elot and teschuvot. Legal decisions concerning the “works of the Law” in the form of a halakic letter (such as 4QMMT), and not only in presentation in the Houses, offer a large and broad reservoir for the rhetorical arsenal that came thereby into use. The legitimation by the pre-Christian Paul for the use of force against the circle around Stephen in the “inner-synagogue persecution” also points to the legal consequence to which the “lawabiding majority” was thereby provoked, when “the advocate of a law-breaking fanatical group did not give in.”49 In the legal dispute (antilogía, diákrisis, zêtêsis/syzêtêsis, dialogismós, diaparatribê) it comes not only to antithesis, antilogía, or even to logomachía, philoneía and paroxysmós, but it can also come to éris or stásis. The sought-for argumentative solution to the problem, in which the pre-Christian Paul took part during the “internal argument within the Greek-speaking synagogue of Jerusalem,” foundered and led to a “brutal application of force.”50 Legal decision became legal application, which for its part had to be argumentatively justified and legitimated. When the conflict as a continuation and result of diplomacy is evaluated alongside other means, one must not then ask in connection with which system does the brutal application of force by the persecutor

ground of Christianity (WUNT 60; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1992), 27–153; Shaye Cohen, “The Significance of Javne: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the End of Jewish Sectarianism,” HUCA 55 (1984), 27–53. Insights and surveys in the diversity of Jewish legal development and legal interpretation before and after 70 c.e. are offered by Elliot N. Dorff and Arthur Rosett, A Living Tree: The Roots and Growth of Jewish Law (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988); and Peter J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles (CRINT III/1; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). Similar things can be said about the diversity of Roman legal discussion of the Late Republic, which was covered up by the division into controversies between Sabinians and Proculians; see Bernhard Kübler, “Rechtsschulen,” Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft II/1 (ed. W. Kroll and K. Witte; Stuttgart: Metzler, 1920), cols. 380–94. 48. See Frederick Parker Walton, Historical Introduction to the Roman Law (4th ed.; Edinburgh: Green, 1920), 264–66, 281–82. 49. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 265–91. 50. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 275.


105

Paul stand as continuation of a rhetoric learned by him by other means. (5) Speech and literature in synagogue prayer and liturgy (as in House and Temple) should also be appropriately valued as a “rhetorical arsenal,” which Norden and Wifstrand do more so than Hengel. Wifstrand sees the origins of “the presence of so-called rhetoric in ancient Christian literature [as being] predominantly in the style of Jewish liturgy.”51 According to Safrai, prayer as the form of daily service to God was one of the things the multitude of groups before 70 c.e. held in common.52 In this connection it would be profitable to pursue a broader, larger problem: that of the rhetorical character of religious speech, whether as the speech of Torah or of kerygma, as speech of prayer and liturgy or preaching. In Pseudo-Longinus’s essay On the Sublime, this problem first came to full expression. Here the principal problem of the relationship between rhetoric and religion forces its way into the center of our observations on the role of rhetoric in the education of the pre-Christian Paul. Historically and systematically this problem was viewed not only as the relation of rhetoric to mysticism53 but as the questionable relationship of rhetoric to the irrational,54 and as a traditional reproach of the connection between rhetoric and magic.55 51. Wifstrand, Alte Kirche und die griechische Bildung, chap. 34. 52. Safrai, Literature of the Sages, 63–66. Among other things held in common he also reckons the authority of the Mikra, certain socio-ethical values, such as family, social justice, and so forth. 53. For the oxymoron of religious speech as “literary mysticism” in which the unspeakable comes to speech, see Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950), 324–28; and Franco Bolgiani, Mistica e Rhetorica (Florence: Olschki, 1977). For the rabbinic tradition, see Susan Handelman, The Slayers of Moses (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1983). For the tradition in Hellenistic late antiquity, see Frank Thielman, “The Style of the Fourth Gospel and Ancient Literary Critical Concepts of Religious Discourse,” in Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament Rhetoric in Honor of George A. Kennedy (ed. Duane F. Watson; JSNTSup, 80; Sheffield: JSNT Press, 1991), 169–83. For the application of biblical studies, see Lynn Poland, “The Bible and the Rhetorical Sublime,” in The Bible as Rhetoric: Studies in Biblical Persuasion and Credibility (ed. Martin Werner; London: Routledge, 1990), 27–47. 54. See Klaus Dockhorn, Macht und Wirkung der Rhetorik (Bad Homburg: Gehlen, 1968). 55. Cf. John O. Ward, “Magic and Rhetoric from Antiquity to the Renaissance: Some Ruminations,” Rhetorica 6 (1988): 57–118; and Jacqueline de Romilly, Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975).

106


In summary and in conclusion to this first section, I wish to emphasize the following: (1) Not everything that appears to be rhetorical (whether in Greek- or Aramaic-speaking Jerusalem) must necessarily be attributed to Hellenistic influence. (2) Not everything that is rhetorical must be judged to be “art” or paideia. (3) While everything that is rhetorical is transmitted through tradition, education, and disposition, the timely and socially dependent character of the phenomenon rhetoric is thereby suitable for neither the Hellenistic-Roman nor Jewish culture in the first century, that is, is not critically enough appreciated. (4) Rhetorical arsenals are found not only in traditions of public (or private) instruction or preaching. Rhetorical arsenals are also found in the following traditions: (a) in the prayers and liturgies of religious services in house, synagogue, and Temple; (b) in grammar instruction in elementary education; and (c) in legal administration, decision and enforcement. In connection with this, as with preaching, lecture, and grammar instruction, the cultural individuality of Jewish rhetoric must be distinguished from that of Hellenistic and Roman rhetoric, and even more so with respect to terminological (and other) influences. In connection with the influence of rhetoric on Jewish as well as Pauline epistolography,56 Hengel wisely states57 that “recognition and influence of rhetoric on later rabbis” is still to be researched. It should not be overlooked that there is another side to the issue that Hengel does not get into: research into the influence that rabbis had on rhetoric and hermeneutics. (5) Not only was rhetoric as it was practiced (and from out of practice, taught) in the Pharisaic house of instruction in Jerusalem principally immune from the rhetoric of paideia of Roman provincial policy. It also possessed on its part a power of adherence that neither the Romans nor the Christians could undermine. Pseudo-

56. John L. White, Light from Ancient Letters (Foundations & Facets: New Testament; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986); and Irene Taatz, Frühjüdische Briefe: Die paulinischen Briefe im Rahmen der offiziellen religiösen Briefe des Frühjudentums (NovTSup 16; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990). For the meaning of 4QMMT for the urgently necessary enlightenment of the darkness of the beginnings of the halakhic letters, see Elisha Qimron and John Strugnell, “An Unpublished Halakhic Letter from Qumran,” in Biblical Archaeology Today (ed. J. Amitai; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1985), 400–407. 57. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 234 n. 188.


107

Longinus may serve as an example for the first century.58 Just as the Jewish cultural imagination from biblical times to the present maintained and developed its individuality on the basis of its various cultural arguments, so did the American literary theorist Harold Bloom explain the essence of Jewish literary theory.59

RHETORIC IN THE STUDY OF THE LITERATURE OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND CONTEMPORARY JUDAISM The indifference, even horror, that alone the word “rhetoric” already excited among many exegetes at the turn of the century60 has given way to an apparently more sympathetic opinion of rhetoric. But a certain discomfort, if not in fact a certain irrationality, about rhetoric continues. The Swedish philologist Wifstrand remarked in an Uppsala lecture series in 1951 concerning the ancient church and Greek education: It is easy for us to agree with objective and dry German scholars [in their critique of false rhetoric], who are far from being rhetors themselves and who continually take offense at parallelism and figures when they sit before a Greek text. But there is not only a false and empty rhetoric, but also a true and solid one. It is empty when the thought is trivial or eccentric and the feeling is weak; it is true when it serves to bring about unique and impactful lines of thought, to bestow them with power and adhering effect, to uplift and stimulate the hearer. Demosthenes and the [pre-Christian as well as later] apostle Paul possessed this kind of rhetoric, even if the former had more training. This rhetoric should not be criticized, least of all from

58. See Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism: Edited with Introductions, Translations and Commentary (3 vols.; Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1976–1984); 1:361–65. For a thoroughly negative assessment of the Jewish (as well as Christian) literature, that is, the lack of rhetorical polish, from the point of view of Greek and Roman authors, see the collection of texts from Giancarlo Rinaldi, Biblia Gentium (Rome: Libreria Sacrae Scritture, 1989). 59. Harold Bloom, Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989). Alexander represents a critically different position in “Quid Athenis et Hierosolymis?” 101–24. 60. The words are from Johannes Weiss, noted by E. Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, 355.

108


a Dr. Traubweinstock or the Deputy Faselhans from Verschalgenheim, who otherwise proves that it is profitable to be false without being rhetorical.61 Even Eduard Norden spoke about this true and solid, in contrast to a false and empty, rhetoric, at the end of the last century.62 And Hengel notes Norden with assent when he brings the essence of rhetoric up in the following common denominator: “The subject sought its appropriately moving form,”63—regardless of whether it thereby deals with rhetoric legitimated by paideia or with the “rhetoric of the heart.” However, when exegetes refer to rhetoric in the texts or rhetoric behind the texts, it is always the case that one at all times works with an almost monolithic idea of systems of “the” rhetoric, that is, of “the” classical (Greco-Roman) rhetoric. The one seed of insight into the historically as well as culturally variable character of rhetoric shows itself in Hengel’s explanation of references to the separation between Attic and Asianic or sophistical rhetoric in the first century, especially both in early and late antiquity. It also shows itself in Hengel’s explanation of the distinction between Hellenistic school rhetoric and unliterary Jewish House rhetoric. That a misinformed [verschulte] rhetoric already discloses origins and symptoms of a decline of rhetoric in the first century does not, however, come to expression. In an overview “Toward the History of Rhetoric,” the rhetor Göttert emphasized the revival of rhetoric in late antiquity on the part of Christianity, a surprising revival in view of the circumscription of rhetoric required by Roman culture. However, when Göttert sees this new revival happening through early Christendom (i.e., the meaning of rhetoric for the early church not only or primarily endures in preaching, but rather in the theory of presentation and announcement of the Bible in Christian teaching)64 he overlooks,

61. Wifstrand, Alte Kirche und die griechische Bildung, 38. 62. Just as quality rhetoric, leaving aside for the moment the question of empty rhetoric, came in connection with the literacy of culture, and as the accusation of “untruthfulness” of rhetoric arose directly out of “literacy,” see Swearingen, Rhetoric and Irony. 63. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 261. 64. Göttert, Einführung in die Rhetorik, 126–27. For the importance of rhetoric in the first Christian schools and academies, See Frances Young, “The Rhetorical Schools and Their Influence on Patristic Exegesis,” in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (ed. R. Williams; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989), 182–99.


109

as do almost all historians of rhetoric, the ancient contributions of Judaism, and not only Hellenistic Judaism.65 In point of fact, Hengel’s work makes apparent the phenomenon of rhetoric in Judaism, but his interest remains up to this point almost exclusively oriented to the influence of paideia, that is, GrecoRoman school rhetoric, on Judaism, especially in Jerusalem. Instead of this, or hand in hand with this interest, the unique characteristics of rhetoric within Judaism must be emphasized: in preaching, in schooling as a theory of interpretation and preaching of Scripture, in the administration of justice as a theory of interpretation and application of halakic tradition, and in liturgy and prayer. It is a commonplace of research since the nineteenth century that, in comparison with ancient Kunstprosa, the rhetorical standard of the Jewish literature of the first century is viewed in terms of the rhetorical art of Hochliteratur while the rhetorical standard of the Christian literature of the same era is associated with the unliterary “rhetoric of the heart” characteristic of Kleinliteratur.66 This distinction, which even Hengel’s work grants (as the reference to Norden shows), corresponds to a theory and praxis of rhetoric among today’s scholars that continues to be anchored in classical rhetoric. In contrast, the new rhetoric takes note of and critiques the influence of classical rhetoric on modern exegesis (as well as literary studies, philosophy, and hermeneutics). According to Göttert, there are three areas to consider when concerned with the definition of rhetoric both today as well as in the first century: (1) The critique of classical rhetoric: throughout the history of rhetoric, there exists the ever-increasing critique of rhetoric as “research into the means of the achievement of influence” (the much-loved research into style67 is a residue of the traditionally central position of elocutio/lexis in rhetoric) and the employment of “the research of

65. See William Horbury, “Old Testament Interpretation in the Writings of the Church Fathers,” in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. Martin Jan Mulder; CRINT 2; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 770–76; and William McKane, Select Christian Hebraists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 66. See the important essay by Franz Overbeck, “Über die Anfänge der patristischen Literatur,” Historische Zeitschrift 12 (1882): 417–20. 67. The recent work by Eugene Ruckstuhl and Peter Dschulnigg, Stilkritik und Verfasserfrage im Johannesevangelium: Die johannischen Sprachmerkmale auf dem Hintergrund des Neuen Testaments und des zeitgenössischen hellenistischen Schrifttums (NTOA 17; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), in absolutely no way

110


the grounds of the realization of influence”68 whereby the proprium of rhetoric, the inventio, is rehabilitated. (2) The essence and function of rhetorical argumentation: the turning away of the 2,500-year-long enmity between philosophy and rhetoric, the renewed turning toward an ever-attempted but always failed solidarity between philosophy and rhetoric, on the one side, and theology and rhetoric, on the other. Here we deal with the area of argumentation in a particular arena of culture, whether in the sphere of religion or morals, in science or art.69 Just as the rhetor George Kennedy laid out how the revelatory claim of a religion argumentatively is justified and legitimated,70 systematically the problem is dealt with from two sides: (a) from Gonsalv Mainberger, in that he sees myth and logos brought about in rhetoric;71 and (b) from Chaim Perelman, in that he distinguishes all argumentation between associative and dissociative argumentation.72 That way all forms of dissociative argumentation, such as the use of the tropes irony, oxymoron, catachresis, play a special role in religious discourse: in the didactic speech of ethical instruction no less than in the poetic/liturgic speech (e.g., prayer or hymns), in narrative speech (e.g., the rabbinic meshalim), or in legal speech. (3) The reinvention of the figures of speech,73 and thereby the revision of the way we conceive and execute grammars and dictionaries, hermeneutics and the commentaries74 generated therefrom, and even theology.75

brings such questions into consideration despite all well-intentioned interest in the “wholistic interpretation.” 68. Göttert, Einführung in die Rhetorik, 194–201. 69. Göttert, Einführung in die Rhetorik, 201–9. 70. George Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 6. 71. Gonsalv K. Mainberger, Rhetorica II: Spiegelungen des Geistes. Sprachfiguren beim Vica und Lévi-Strauss (Problemata 117; Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1988), 177–80. 72. See Chaim Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric (trans. William Kluback; Notre Dame, IN/London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982. 73. Göttert, Einführung in die Rhetorik, 209–18. 74. For a revision of the presentation of a dictionary, see Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexikon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (2 vols.; New York: United Bible Societies, 1988). For the relationship between hermeneutics and commentary, see W. Wuellner, Hermeneutics and Rhetorics: From “Truth and Method” to “Truth and Power” (Scriptura, Supp. 3; Stellenbosch: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1989). 75. See the works of the Chicago theologian David Tracy, for example, his


111

What the process of a proper valuation of rhetoric, both historical and theoretic, promises to offer our scientific work on the aforementioned literature can be quickly outlined. A historically proper valuation of rhetoric for exegesis sets itself apart from the concept and use of rhetoric as a closed system of rules, which was caused through mis-education [Verschulung], mistextbooking [Vertextbuchung], and the institutionalization of classical rhetoric. This traditional conception is replaced by the valuation of chronologically and culturally dependent character of the phenomenon of rhetoric. Hellenistic rhetoric has other distinctive qualities from that of Roman, the Roman Republic has others from that of Roman Imperial rhetoric; Western rhetoric is other than oriental or Jewish, and so forth. The multiplicity emphasized by Hengel, which appears in Judea under Herod until the outbreak of the war, decisively modified both the understanding and use of rhetoric in various cultural arenas (Temple and synagogue, law and religious services, etc.), each according to its own kind. A theoretically proper valuation of rhetoric would be worked out in two ways: (1) the theoretical securing of the re-integration of the performative, pragmatic, and applicative with the structural, semantic, and interpretive in exegetical work on texts; and (2) the long-overdue consciousness of the rhetorical character, and thereby the ethical and political responsibility, of all scientific work, especially that of exposition and interpretation by hermeneutical experts.

work Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987).


Part 2

Rhetorical Readings Re-Reading the Power of Persuasion


5 Rhetoric, Culture, and Ideology Socio-rhetorical Analysis in the Reading of New Testament Texts L. GREGORY BLOOMQUIST

One of the most multidisciplinary approaches to the rhetorical analysis of New Testament texts appeared in the final decade of the twentieth century with socio-rhetorical analysis. As envisioned by Vernon K. Robbins and a team of scholars working with him, “socio-rhetorical interpretation is rhetorical analysis of discourse by interpreting social and cultural movement or flow in the narration and ideological interactions among social locations and discourses in the Mediterranean context.”1 In what follows, I present socio-rhetorical analysis in the two phases of its development thus far. In a first section, I look at the form that crystallized Robbins’s two landmark texts for socio-rhetorical analysis, Exploring the Texture of Texts, and The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse.2 Several works have appeared, primarily during the second-half of the 1990s, that build on the insights in Robbins’s works, showing examples of the application of the method there.3

1. “Guidelines for Socio-Rhetorical Commentary.” Guidelines produced by the members of the Religious Rhetoric of Antiquity project, Ashland, OH, 2002. The term has been picked up by others and transformed into alternate uses. See, e.g., Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). The term appears to have been used prior to Robbins in predominately Marxist, ideological analysis (e.g., see http://www.ecu.edu.au/ses/ research/CALLR/onlinejournal/ 1996/imjr96.htm). 2. Vernon K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996); idem, The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society and Ideology (London: Routledge, 1996). 3. See the bibliography of socio-rhetorical analysis found at http://www.emory. edu/COLLEGE/RELIGION/faculty/robbins/SRI/bibliography.html.

115

116


In a second section, I then look at the analysis in the form that it has begun to take as a development from the “textural” form to “topical” analysis, a form that the analysis has started to take during this new millennium. The results of this shift will eventually be seen in the New Testament commentaries that are being produced for the Religious Rhetoric of Antiquity series, a series that will provide commentaries (initially) on the entire New Testament corpus and will then expand to explore postbiblical, Christian materials, as well as materials of other religious traditions.4 The present chapter represents the first public statement of these guidelines and thus a truly unique moment in the rhetorical analysis of the New Testament materials in the third millennium.

SOCIO-RHETORICAL ANALYSIS AS TEXTURAL ANALYSIS It was clear from Robbins’s initial work on socio-rhetorical analysis in the early 90s that he conceived his task as one that was intended to “deepen” the often “flat” interpretation of texts in historicalcritical and literary analysis.5 For Robbins, the key to understanding texts has always been to understand them not as words on a page—be it as a merely literary production or a rhetorical exercise—nor as a Stendahlian reflection of the real-life happening around their author; rather, because texts are much more complex, they themselves evidence a real-life quality that gives them “relief” and “depth” without merely imitating the surrounding world.6 It is for this reason that a fundamental feature of socio-rhetorical analysis has been and continues to be a preference, following Stephen Tyler’s work,7 for seeing these written materials as “textures” rather than as texts, as a tapestry rather than as a mere representation.8

4. The RRA series is to be published by DEO Publishing. It will have a programmatic introductory volume by Robbins, as well as monograph volumes on rhetorical discourses (see below) and on individual New Testament texts. 5. See, e.g., Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Mark (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). 6. L. Gregory Bloomquist, “A Possible Direction for Providing Programmatic Correlation of Textures in Socio-Rhetorical Analysis,” in Rhetorical Criticism and the Bible (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Dennis L. Stamps; JSNTSup 195; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 95. 7. Stephen A. Tyler, The Unspeakable: Discourse, Dialogue, and Rhetoric in the Postmodern World (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987). 8. Robbins, Tapestry, 18.

Rhetoric, Culture, and Ideology

117

AN OVERVIEW From 1992–19969, Robbins sought to show how socio-rhetorical analysis provided the opportunity for a programmatic analysis of these different textures and thus of the different levels of meaning in a text: (1) inner texture, (2) intertexture, (3) social and cultural texture, (4) ideological texture, and most recently (5) sacred texture.10 I shall look at each of these briefly (the only difference from Robbins’s layout being that I shall look at “social and cultural texture” before “intertexture”) in order to show their general value, since the specific value of each is spelled out in greater detail in Robbins’s own work. INNERTEXTURE Analysis of innertexture or intratexture “focuses on words as tools for communication”; as such, it is “a stage of analysis prior to analysis of meanings.”11 Here Robbins highlights ways in which a reader of a text would attend to words, word patterns, voices, structures, devices, and modes in the text as the basic building blocks of any written or spoken text. Following the lead of Kenneth Burke,12 Robbins begins by breaking this stage of the analysis down into analysis of “repetitive texture and pattern,” which can be discerned through attention to the repetition of words, phrases, and topics throughout a text or a textual unit, and “progressive texture and pattern,” in which sequences of words, phrases, and topics—be they the repeated ones or not—form patterns throughout the unit.13 To this Robbins adds the important, but oft-overlooked need to establish the exact text for analysis, identified through “opening-middle-closing texture 9. Robbins, Jesus the Teacher; idem, “Socio-Rhetorical Criticism: Mary, Elizabeth and the Magnificat as a Test Case,” in The New Literary Criticism and the New Testament (ed. Elizabeth Struthers Malbon and Edgar V. McKnight; JSNTSup 109; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 164–209; idem, Tapestry; idem, Exploring the Texture. 10. The five textures are only spelled out as such in separate chapters in Exploring the Texture. 11. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 7. On this point, Robbins follows Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (trans. John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969). 12. The basic rhetorical elements of language according to Kenneth Burke are “the repetitive, progressive, conventional and minor rhetorical forms of language” (Kenneth Burke, Counter-Statement [Berkeley: U of California Press, 1931], 123–83). 13. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 8–14.

118


and pattern,” in which a reader should be able to discern both the limits of a textual unit, as well as the flow of that unit.14 Robbins further identifies three forms of texture within the overall context of innertexture. First, he draws on narratological insights for “narrational texture and pattern,” namely, the patterns formed by the voices of those in the text, including narrator and actors, who configure the action of the text and thus create what we might call a textual world.15 Second, drawing on insights from Aristotelian and neo-Aristotelian rhetorical analysis, Robbins highlights a text’s “argumentative texture and pattern” by showing how arguments are conveyed in the text with a view to persuading an internal audience within the text or an implied reader of the text as the characters and narrator make their points via deductive (enthymematic) arguments or via inductive (paradigmatic) arguments, as well as by elaborations of various kinds (thematic, narrative, etc.).16 Finally, borrowing from Bruce Malina’s cultural-anthropological approach to the New Testament,17 Robbins identifies “sensoryaesthetic texture and pattern,” the form that the action takes in the text as the reader/hearer is presented with bodies, body zones, and motions, including both those external bodily actions—purposeful action—as well as the self-expressive and “internal” or emotionfused actions of the mind, heart, bowels, etc.18 SOCIAL AND CULTURAL TEXTURE/INTERTEXTURE Now, we might say with some justification that thus far, the approach of socio-rhetorical analysis adds little to existing forms of literary analysis or even just of a close reading of the text, readings that would be sensitive to narrative analysis and features of classical rhetoric. It is the next stage, however, of Robbins’s work that suggests how far this would be from the truth and thus how inadequate an assessment of socio-rhetorical analysis that would be. For, as Robbins himself insists, his view of texts was radically 14. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 19–21. 15. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 15–19. 16. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 21–29. 17. Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001). 18. Sensory-aesthetic texture is important because attention to a character’s action—purposeful, self-expressive, or emotion-fused—is to attend to the “stage directions”—witting or unwitting—that provide a reader or hearer with a guide to the positioning, direction, and look of the actors on the stage of the text (Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 29–36).


119

transformed by what he also found in Burke, but now in Burke’s explorations of the social nature of rhetoric. In addition, in the work of the “Context Group” of the Society of Biblical Literature, Robbins discovered the importance of considering the embeddedness of social and cultural meaning in texts. Thus, by means of an attentiveness not only to the way materials within texts stand in relation to one another, nor even only in the way texts stand in relation to other texts (commonly called “intertextuality”), but also in the way texts evidence social, cultural, and historical worlds within which and out of which texts arise, Robbins argues that an interpreter should be able “to begin to address the myriads of ways a text participates in networks of communication that reverberate throughout the world.”19 For example, analysis of the “social and cultural texture” of a text draws the full resources of the social sciences into the environment of exegetical interpretation by using “anthropological and sociological theory to explore the social and cultural nature of the voices in the text under investigation.”20 Robbins, borrowing from the rhetorical terminology of Aristotle, identifies this task as the exploration of specific21 and common22 social topics, as well as final categories.23 Each of these evidence at different levels and in different ways how a text reflects social responses to the world, enactments of social and cultural systems and institutions, and performances of cultural alliances and conflicts. “Specific social topics” are rhetorical resources that authors invoke and that are derived from the larger world of general, human responses to the world around them.24 To identify these resources, Robbins used Bryan Wilson’s taxonomy of religious sects in order to identify the way that people (both real and narrative) respond to the world, either in single or multiple ways.25 Wilson labels religious groups by the way those groups respond to the problem of evil confronting them. Thus, conversionist groups assign the prob-

19. Robbins, Tapestry, 96. 20. Robbins, Tapestry, 144. 21. Aristotle, Rhet. 1.2.21–22, in George A. Kennedy, Aristotle: On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civil Discourse (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 45–47, 50–52). 22. Aristotle, Rhet. 1.3.7–9; 2.19–24, in Kennedy, Aristotle, 45–47, 50–51, 174–213) 23. Rhet. ad Alex. I.1421b,21–1422b,12. 24. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 72–75. 25. Bryan R. Wilson, “A Typology of Sects,” in Sociology of Religion (ed. R. Robertson; Baltimore: Penguin, 1969), 361–83.

120


lem of evil to a problem in the human heart and when the heart is changed, the problems begin to be dealt with. Revolutionist groups believe that the problem faced is so dramatic or cosmic that only a complete overthrow and re-creation of social or cosmic order will remedy the situation. Introversionist groups believe that the problem faced can be dealt with only by withdrawal from the situation, or society or world. For gnostic-manipulationist groups, the problem faced can be dealt with by a rigorous and disciplined ritual introduced into a person’s or community’s life. Groups characterized by a thaumaturgic response believe that the problem can be dealt with by a supernatural or miraculous intervention. Reformist groups assert that the problem can be dealt with by progressive reforms of the individual or corporate life, while utopian groups believe that the problem demands a new order, created in a new space and time, without necessarily requiring the destruction of the old order. “Common social and cultural topics” are those rhetorical resources that authors invoke and that are derived from the way humans implement social activity in particular or “local” settings. To identify these resources Robbins draws heavily on the work of Bruce Malina, and his development of our understanding of common social and cultural systems and institutions in the Mediterranean such as honor and shame, limited good, kinship, hospitality, patron/client/broker, sickness and healing, purity, dyadic personality, conflict, city and countryside, temple and household, and meals and table fellowship.26 Finally, Robbins identifies “final social and cultural categories” as those rhetorical resources that authors invoke and that are derived from significant “cultural alliances and conflicts” over social and cultural meaning. These are the topics that most decisively identify one’s cultural location because they concern those large-scale ways in which people order their propositions, reasons, and arguments. To order this vast material, Robbins relies on the work of K. A. Roberts27 to establish a taxonomy of four “final topics” of cultural rhetoric: (1) dominant culture (an “imperial” rhetoric that imposes itself broadly throughout space and time, for example, the Roman Empire in the first century c.e. or American culture in the twentieth century c.e.); (2) subculture (a rhetoric that mirrors dominant cul26. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 75–86. 27. K. A. Roberts, “Toward a Generic Concept of Counter-Culture,” Sociological Focus 11 (1978): 111–26.


121

ture rhetoric but in subgroups, like the military, the mafia, ethnic communities living in a setting of a dominant culture); (3) counterculture (a rhetoric that proposes an alternative to the existing rhetorics); and, (4) contraculture (a rhetoric that opposes existing rhetorics but with no clear alternative in mind). To this taxonomy Robbins adds a fifth—liminal culture—that, on the basis of Homi Babha’s work,28 Robbins suggests allows for a rhetoric characteristic of moments of transition in individual or corporate lives.29 “Intertexture,” for Robbins, is not the same as “social and cultural texture.” Intertexture is a process that textualizes culture, society, and history. In other words, it is a process in which the interpreter interprets the text as a “work,” the production of an author, but in which the text and its innertexture stand at all times not only in relation to elements within the text but also in relation to elements outside the text, including other texts. While “oral– scribal intertexture” looks at the ways in which authors make use of existing texts through existing approaches to, say, “recitation, recontextualization and reconfiguration of other texts, both oral and scribal, in the foregrounded text,”30 Robbins sees the need for a fuller approach to intertexture that would include the world in the day that the text was written (“historical intertexture”), the larger world of human, social phenomena (“social intertexture”), and the more specific, local world of a particular subset of human, social phenomena (“cultural intertexture”). Robbins shows that “intertexture” cannot be limited to intertextuality, for there are many allusions in texts that are not derived from actual oral–scribal materials as such, but rather from the larger resource base of cultural imagery (often invoked or embedded in texts as “references” and “echoes”). As Robbins writes, “cultural intertexture concerns modes of understanding and belief, like the ideas people have about their importance, their opportunities, and their responsibilities in the world.”31 Furthermore, “cultural intertexture” is enhanced when the interpreter turns to “social intertexture” in which an author invokes or embeds in a text broader social practices and conventions, common 28. Homi K. Bhabha, “Postcolonial Criticism,” in Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of English and Literary Studies (ed. Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn; New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1992), 437–65. 29. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 86–88. 30. Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989). 31. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 3.

122


to larger societies and specific cultures. These include, according to Robbins, practices and conventions as diverse as eating and drinking, governance, and ritual enactments. “Historical intertexture” “‘textualizes’ past experience into ‘a particular event’ or ‘a particular period of time’. . .by its focus on a particular event or period of time rather than social practices that occur regularly as events in one’s life.”32 Here, Robbins urges interpreters to attend to points in the text in which a specific event or figure is highlighted. I would add under “intertexture” the fifth texture that Robbins pointed to only in Exploring, namely, “sacred texture.”33 Robbins added this texture in order to show a particular texture that is apparent in religious texts, the texts with which he was dealing most frequently, though he did so in a way that would make his exploration and vocabulary more useful to students or a variety of religious traditions, rather than just of Christian texts. Accordingly, Robbins urges the need to attend to the way deity is depicted (or not), as well as holy persons (those with special relationships to deity), spirit beings, the deity’s actions on behalf of humanity, humanity’s responses to the deity, and the way religious communities take shape around these features. At this point, I should note that, while Robbins has clearly differentiated intertexture from social and cultural texture, I have argued that this is really somewhat of an artificial distinction. It appears to me that what is of value in Robbins’s exploration of these two “textures” is a need to attend to what specific feature(s) of the entire world of human action or the world that is most accessible to humans is/are in play in the text, that is, the “slice” of that world that a text incorporates. But this assumes that no text or representation of the world ever expresses more than a modest—at best— understanding of the world and certain functions within it. Thus, does it not make sense to talk of “social and cultural texture,” as well as the larger world of oral-scribal, historical, and sacred textures, as the possible “worlds” that are “out there,” both generally (social) and specifically and locally (cultural), worlds on which any authors can draw, while “intertexture” deals with the specific features or ways in which those worlds “intersect” the world of the text, that is, ways in which those worlds appear in or are used in the specific text in question. As such, what “intertexture” reveals 32. Robbins, Tapestry, 118. 33. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 120–31.


123

is a “slice” of the social and cultural world, a slice that is depicted in the text and that naturally and significantly excludes huge tracts of social and cultural “land,” since that exclusion is as important as the land that is included in the text, as well as how it is included.34 In terms of its intertexture, then, the text is a rhetorical subset of social, cultural, oral–scribal, historical, and sacred possibilities drawn from that world, rather than some artificially exhaustive representation of the real world of the author’s day (as historicalcritical study used to argue) or even a faithful one (as positivistic approaches to historical-critical study still argue). IDEOLOGICAL TEXTURE Finally, and again following Burke, Robbins points to “ideological texture” as a crucial factor in a socio-rhetorical understanding of a text. Here Robbins sought to focus on the way an ordering of meaning can create a unified “symbolic universe”35 out of the often fragmented reality of our experience, resulting in institutions and groups that order reality for individuals. Robbins sought to pursue this “social construction of knowledge” in texts, authoritative traditions of interpretation, intellectual discourse (i.e., the way in which the materials begin to be used in, say, theological traditions to create greater spheres of meaning), and individuals and groups. In the end, Robbins focused primarily on ideology as the means whereby authors and readers, characters and narrators, as well as interpreters and their audiences, participated in alliances that would allow them to achieve their ends. Robbins also identifies the specific mechanisms by which this happens under “ideological texture.”36 In recent work, I have tried to reshape this notion by suggesting that too much of what Robbins has identified in his work on ideological texture appears simply to reiterate the material found in the social and cultural sections of his works. For example, various cultures nourish and create, wittingly or unwittingly, groups and alliances that foster the objectives of the culture. This, however, strikes me as different from the rhetorical practice that, by definition, seeks 34. It is for this reason that, in my own work, I have chosen to use the word “intertextural” rather than “intertextual,” which for many authors means only the exploration of the way a text intersects with other texts. 35. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, NY: AnchorDoubleday, 1967). 36. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 95–119; Robbins, Tapestry, 36–40, 192–236.

124


to move audiences in ways that are intended to be somewhat different from—if not at odds with—the direction in which a culture is already moving.37 Thus, what I think the analysis of ideological texture should enable us to get at is how rhetors seek to move audiences away from or in variance to or even to confirm existing cultural practices. They clearly do so through group-formation, but there is much more to it than that. This is not to negate the value of Robbins’s work on ideological texture, only to redirect it rhetorically. AN EXAMPLE Examples of analysis of textures using these insights from Robbins’s work and that of others can be found in Robbins’s study of the encounter between Mary and Martha in Luke 2,38 and his study of Mark 13,39 as well as in a study of apocalyptic in Luke 19–21.40 To illustrate this stage of socio-rhetorical analysis here, I have taken as an example one of Jesus’ best-known parables, that of “the Sower” (Mark 4:2–9). The analysis reveals how important this initial and deceptively simple stage of socio-rhetorical analysis can be. In terms of repetition, those elements of the text that keep hitting the hearer’s ear or reader’s eye can be displayed in a table. (See Figure 1 below.) As this table reveals, a hearer’s or reader’s attention is focused at the outset on the sower but very quickly, and for the reminder of the story, moves to the seed,41 or at least, what we must presume to be seed, since the word itself is never mentioned. Thus, the emphasis is on “some” or “it” (o{) or even by the end “one” (e{n), presumably, “one seed.”42 37. L. Gregory Bloomquist, “Rhetoric of Suffering in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: Socio-Rhetorical Reflections and Further Thoughts on a Post-Colonial Contribution to the Discussion,” Theoforum 35 (2004): 195–223. 38. Robbins, “Magnificat,” 165; Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 8–14. 39. Vernon K. Robbins, “The Rhetorical Ritual: Apocalyptic Discourse in Mark 13,” in Vision and Persuasion: Rhetorical Dimensions of Apocalyptic Discourse (ed. Greg Carey and L. Gregory Bloomquist; St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1999), 95–121. 40. L. Gregory Bloomquist, “Rhetorical Argumentation and the Culture of Apocalyptic: A Socio-Rhetorical Analysis of Luke 21,” in The Rhetorical Interpretation of Scripture: Essays from the 1996 Malibu Conference (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Dennis L. Stamps; JSNTSup; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 173–209. 41. Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 353. 42. Hultgren’s translation “one” for the word o{ in vv. 3–7 is thus misleading. See Arland J. Hultgren The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 184.

4.2 4.3

saying hear

4.4 4.5

Sower, went sow sowing came

Some, it fell some fell

4.6 4.7

Some, it fell

4.8

Some

4.9

saying

Did not Ground, Came ground out have, did not have Did not Came have out

fell

hear

Figure 1: Repetition of Mark 4: 2–9

Thorns, Came thorns up Came up

Gave fruit Gave fruit

One, one, one

126


This observation reveals that the single most demanding focus of attention in the story is on the unnamed seed, which is syntactically, if not lexically, consistent throughout the parable, rather than on the identity of the kind of seed, or on narrative elements of the seeds’ destination (i.e., ground, path, thorns, etc.), which figure necessarily in the parable only to make the story tellable (see below on narration). The narrative elements are not as likely a major focus of attention as is the self-propelled action of the germinated seed, which is lexically tied in 4:6 to the equally “automatic” action of the rising of the sun. These observations also suggest progression within the repetition and thus lead to the next element of innertextural analysis, namely, progression. In other words, in the parable the action moves from an initial focus on the sower to the “seed” itself and the almost mindless process of growth. Furthermore, the repetition on the beginnings of the process, which will eventually be fleshed out (as we shall see) by individual fates of the seeds in the process, lead to a felicitous ending as one seed after another finally comes forth in abundance. The narrational texture of the parable of the sower seems spartan, to say the least. The only voice heard is that of the storyteller himself, Jesus, who is not characterized at all in the parable by any external narration. The narrative characterization by Jesus, though, of the elements of the parable includes primarily the designation of various forms of ground for the (probable) seed. Furthermore, Jesus’ narration stresses some kinds of ground more than others, for example, the shallow ground and thorns more than the path. Surprisingly, perhaps, there is no repetitive focus, nor any progression, nor even any narrational characterization of the good ground. As noted above, all that is stressed is the almost automatic nature of the growing “seed” and the abundance that results from “some” in that ground.43 At the end, as at the beginning, the storyteller addresses the immediate audience. Analysis of the “argumentative texture” reveals that the storyteller’s argumentation is clear though not entirely explicit. The parable of the sower is in fact an excellent example of paradigmatic or inductive argumentation, rather than enthymematic or deductive argumentation. There is no clear conclusion to which the progression leads; rather, one is left to induce the point of the parable. Nev-

43. Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 353.


127

ertheless, though the paratactic nature of the parable appears to confirm in lexical fashion the absence of enthymematic argumentation, surely the parable moves forward on the basis of a kind of topical enthymeme: Seeds sown on a hard path are prey for birds, on rocky ground will be scorched, and among thorns will be choked off; therefore, when the seeds are sown among these three types of land, the result is not surprisingly bleak. But, seed sown on a good land will produce; therefore, when the seeds are sown on good land, they produce. The only question is whether they produce in an extraordinary way or just in a very good way (see below). However, this is clearly not a call to action but to wonder. True, what sensory and aesthetic texture there is in this text between the initial and final self-expression is purposeful action. There is the fourfold sowing, which is the action of the sower. But, the purposeful action is not limited to the sower; action is done to the seed by birds, thorns, and sun. Again, however, the final category is unique: the only time that no action is done to the seed (other than by the sower’s sowing) is when the last batch has fallen into good ground. On this occasion, and uniquely, it does something, namely, it brings forth fruit. Now, when we move from “innertexture” to “intertexture” (as I have described it above), we note first of all that the only social practice that figures in the parable is that of farming. There is no indication whether this is a normal or exceptional activity; merely that it happens. But, there are elements within this story that reveal the “local” nature of the social practice of farming. The process of tilling the land for produce is clearly a widespread social practice, but the uniquely prominent place that it has here suggests social significance. But, in all likelihood, this significance is derived more from the form and meaning that it has in a particular local culture. This point has not evaded previous commentary. For example, scholars have queried the farmer’s practice of sowing, whether, for example, the practice of sowing seed by or on the path is good sowing,44 whether it reveals particular plowing methods involved,

44. Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus (rev. ed. trans. S. H. Hooke; New York: Scribner’s, 1963), 11–12.

128


or order of plowing,45 though this discussion has appeared to conclude that the discussion itself is irrelevant!46 The cultural setting, though, is hardly irrelevant. In fact, it is crucial for a fuller understanding of the parable. There are at least two reasons why this is so. First, the sowing itself would have been done in the first-century eastern Mediterranean by those who were clients of a patron who, via a broker, provided them seed to sow primarily to produce a crop for the patron and just enough for the client to keep himself and his family alive and functioning. Thus, neither the land nor the seed would have been the property of the sower: the sower’s job would have been to do a good job on behalf of the patron, or otherwise risk starvation and removal from the land in his care.47 Unless the sower were a fool or a subversive, then, it was in the sower’s interest to ensure as large a yield as possible from the sowing. Second, and related to this point, the sower would be understood to be carrying out his labors in a society of limited good.48 But, as the innertextural analysis has caused us to note, the parable repetitively emphasizes that the sower wastes three-quarters of the seed by sowing into sterile conditions where there can be no yield. The repetitive texture reveals that this would be construed as representing a loss of three-quarters of the grain entrusted to him, both a significant loss for the patron and a significant loss of a precious commodity. The question must automatically be asked: what will come of this careless action? An element of narrational texture, then, is the drama that appears only when an interpreter from a different cultural setting considers this socially relevant loss in its likely cultural context. Accordingly, we can in fact state the expectation enthymematically. Stated enthymematically, it might be argued that: Rule: Precious commodities are not to be wasted. Case: You have wasted three-quarters of the seed that was entrusted to you.

45. Philip Barton Payne, “The Order of Sowing and Ploughing in the Parable of the Sower,” NTS 25 (1978): 123–29. 46. So Payne. This is also the conclusion to which one comes in Hultgren’s study by the end of his helpful overview of the different positions; see Arland J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 187. 47. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 84. 48. Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 84–85.


129

Result: Therefore, you will have to go without and/or be punished.49 It is here that the conclusion to the parable introduces a plot twist and thus reveals an element of the ideology of the rhetor. For though in Jesus’ telling, the reader hears that three-quarters of the initial seed was wasted, nevertheless one-quarter of the seed falls into fertile ground, and that one-quarter produces an abundance that is either characteristic of good planting (if the increase is of 30, 60, or 100 grains per seed) or outstanding (if the increase is of 30, 60, or 100 stalks of grain, each with its own 30, 60, or 100 grains per stalk). For example, assume that the sower began with, say, 1,000 grains of seed, and that 750 grains were wasted (since the amount “wasted” in each case is described by the same word), while approximately 250 grains (again the same word is used) fell into good soil. If the 250 grains yielded a good harvest, then at the end the 250 grains yielded at the very least thirtyfold (namely, 30 grains per grain), that is 7,500 grains; or a better harvest such that 250 grains yielded 60 grains per grain (i.e., sixtyfold) then 15,000 grains; and, at the very best (namely, one-hundredfold, or 100 grains per grain), 25,000 grains, an excellent return on 1,000 initial grains. In each of the cases the initial investment suffered a 75 percent loss, but in each of the cases the return far outshines the initial loss, since in the first place, the return on the initial investment would have been 750 percent, in the second 1250 percent, and in the third 2500 percent.50

49. For the formulation here see Robbins, “The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the Gospel of Mark,” in The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the New Testament (ed. Duane F. Watson; SBLSymS 14; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002),14. 50. Even assuming that the amounts are not exact, but rather approximate, “some” produced 30, “some” 60, and “some” 100 would still have been an excellent harvest. But, if our text indicates that each grain produced not 30, 60 or 100 grains (e.g., as in the case of wheat) but 30, 60, or 100 stalks of grain (e.g., as in the case of corn stalks with their multiple ears of corn), then the harvest was truly astounding for at the very least (30 stalks of 30 grains per sown grain) the grain that fell into good soil would then have produced 225,000 grains, or better 60 stalks of 60 grains for each grain, that is, 900,000 grains, and at the very best (100 stalks of 100 grains per sown grain), then the client would have been able to return to the patron 2,500,000 grains, to the considerable delight, no doubt, of his patron! The return on the initial investment in this case is hard to believe: 22,500 percent at the least, 90,000 percent better, or at the best 250,000 percent. And this is just one growing season, probably over a six-month period!

130


Now, it is true that this return or yield on the seed planted may not be extraordinary.51 But, what is important is the cultural context of limited goods and perceived waste that is clearly overturned by the rhetorical focus on the yield. For in either of the cases shown above, the limited goods that had been provided to the client would have been abundant on their return to the patron. If we assume only an excellent harvest, the yield would have been such as to enrich the patron and to ensure the client of ongoing food for himself and his family and perhaps even a promotion within the ranks of the clients. What starts off appearing as waste (three-quarters of the initial investment lost) ends up as overwhelming returns on a limited investment. Even if more than three-fourths is wasted, the little that would have fallen onto fertile ground would have produced more than the amount initially invested by if not thousands of percentage points (as in the astounding scenario) at least by hundreds of percentage points (even in a less-than-the-best scenario). Understood in this way, we find a possible link with oral–scribal texture. Assuming that the story narrates an astounding yield at the harvest of grain, this story resembles other stories told about marvelous yields. For example, on the basis of texts such as Isa 27:6, Jewish and early Christian authors wrote of the day of the Lord, the messianic age, in terms of astounding harvests. This is picked up in texts such as 2 Baruch 29:5–6: The earth will also yield fruits ten thousand fold. And on one vine will be a thousand branches, and one branch will produce a thousand clusters, and one cluster will produce a thousand grapes, and one grape will produce a cor of wine. And those who are hungry will enjoy themselves and they will, moreover, see marvels every day. Or again, in Apocalypse of Daniel 10:1: At that time there will be an abundance of grain and wine and olive oil such as has not been since the foundation of the world. And in those times the ear will pour out a half measure of grain. And the vine branch will put out a hundred grape clusters. And the grape cluster will bear ten thousand (grapes) and will pour out a hundred measures. And the seed of the 51. See the oft-cited evidence, helpfully displayed in Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 356–57.


131

olive tree will be complete. And there will be much fruitfulness of all kinds. And the land will be fruitful and will produce her fruits a hundredfold. Scott documents the presence of these expectations as well in both rabbinic and patristic texts.52 It is entirely possible, though, that the theme here is also a cultural echo, since the same motif of abundance appears not only in Jewish and Christian literature but even in Augustan rhetoric, where it is a prominent characteristic of the reign of Augustus. Monumental art, which no citizen in the second half of the first century c.e. could have avoided and which gave visual expression to the Augustan rhetoric of empire,53 was replete with such imagery. For example, the altar of the Gens Augusta from Carthage proclaimed Augustus as the one graced by Victory and before whom the world has poured forth her riches. The altar pictures the “majestic figure of Roma” resting; “war is over, Rome is victorious, there is no need of arms and weapons any more. . . . Peace is restored. Rome looks proudly at the symbols of her world-Empire: the basis is piety, the foundation is religion.”54 Or, again, the Ara pacis in Rome depicts “idyllic scenes with the figure of Terra Mater surrounded by the elements and symbolizing the creative forces of nature as restored and protected by Augustus.”55 The sacrificial procession of priests, with Augustus acting as high priest, and Aeneas—in a front relief—leading the procession of Julio-Claudians and sacrificing, again portends the age of bounty that is dawning for Rome.56 As a principal source of popular, rhetorical propaganda,57 even coins of the epoch suggested that Augustus, portrayed on some coins 52. Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 356. 53. M. I. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon, 1926), 44. 54. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, 44–45. 55. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, 45. 56. Helmut Koester, History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age, vol. 1, Introduction to the New Testament (trans. Helmut Koester; Hermeneia: Foundations and Facets; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), 293. 57. According to Yavetz, “written propaganda addressed to the masses would have to be short, like slogans on coins; it was common knowledge that the average man was more interested in daily news, and piquant gossip, than in the vast array of facts from the past.” See Zvi Yavetz, “The Res Gestae and Augustus’ Public Image,” in Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects (ed. Fergus Millar and Erich Segal; Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), 13.

132


with Mercury (the god of merchants) and the horn of plenty, was truly divi filius and the great restorer of order. In sum, the overarching (or “repetitive”) themes of the “texts” that proclaim an Augustan rhetoric of empire are of a procession of those involved in the restoration of right world-order, with Augustus at the pinnacle,58 and the burgeoning prosperity that was proclaimed as the result of Augustus’s rule. It is not impossible that our parable intersects with those traditions in some way. But, the yield, in the face of apparent waste, is achieved not through any clearly identified figure, not even God. In fact, in our parable, as in the book of Esther, God is not mentioned nor even alluded to. Nor, for that matter, is there any other indication of sacred texture in this parable: it is a parable that would be at home in the most atheistic, earth-loving context: the story, as noted above, focuses not on the sower nor even on the seed but on the action of the falling and the fate of the “seed” that falls; when the seed does produce it is not because of any special attention afforded to it but, as it were, automatic. The automatized process not only does not invoke any human or divine presence but might even be seen as a prescription for lassitude! Of course, this is overturned by the interpretation of the parable that follows in 4:13–20. The overtly sacred interpretation of the parable, which of course makes it useful as sacred literature, and the unusual features of the interpretation jar, however, with the absolutely “barren” sacredness of the parable itself and with the features that Mark elsewhere associates with Gospel preaching. The overtly sacred interpretation that is provided there, like Nathan’s direct address to David at the end of his story (2 Sam 12:1–15), targets one single meaning for this very open-ended parable by noting that what is sown is “the word” (a Markan synonym for “gospel”) and that the different destinations of the “word” are different audiences, namely, those who have the word taken from them by Satan (the soil by the path), those who receive the word with joy but who abandon it when persecution arises (the shallow soil), those who are delighted by riches and things more than by the word (the thorny soil), and finally those who hear the word and receive it (the good soil). Surprisingly, however, the clarity of the interpretation vis-à-vis those who do not hear outshines that of those who do hear. For while the fate of the three-quarters of those who hear the word and 58. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, 45.


133

do not receive it is clear, namely, the word is fruitless among them, it is less clear what the “harvest” consists of: is it that each hearer will produce thirty, sixty, or a hundred more hearers, or is it that each hearer will produce a kind of thirty-, sixty-, or hundredfold series of ethical or spiritual gifts in his or her own life, or is it some other interpretation? Also, perhaps surprising, is the fact that reference to the divine or to holy persons still does not figure in the interpretation, though reference to the spirit being known in first-century Judaism as Satan does. Perhaps the interpretation assumes that reference to God and to his holy servant Jesus is obvious simply in the use of the “word.” That is unlikely, however, for though it is true that “word” is a synonym for “gospel,” it is not entirely clear by this point in the Gospel of Mark what the latter term means. The reference to Satan, who at this point in the Gospel, was known as the “tester” of Jesus while the latter was in the wilderness certainly suggests that the interpretation of the soil by the path indicates that those who have the word taken away from them by Satan are those who are tested and somehow fail in their test. Given that each of the other “soils” also involve people who are in some way tested, we should likely see the three audiences as audiences that fail a test and the fourth audience as an audience that succeeds in the test. This would further move the parable into a cultural framework of challenge and response, specifically by spirit beings, something that is completely absent from the initial look at the parable itself. The absence of any clear internal allusion to paideia within the parable itself is one of the reasons why, with Scott, I am not convinced of the elaboration of the Hellenistic paideia motif in this parable: “yet the parable resists.”59 Nevertheless, I am not at all convinced by Scott’s rationale: “the elaboration of the failure, its gradual extension from the day of sowing to almost harvest, places an emphasis on the seed’s failure that is unique among preserved examples.”60 A socio-rhetorical reading suggests that this conclusion is clearly off the mark. If, as seems likely, the interpretation of the parable is not originally associated with the parable itself, then we are left with a parable about waste and extraordinary (or even very good) production with what is left over. In a society of limited good(s), this is an engaging and hopeful story. 59. Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 359–61. 60. Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 361.

134


CONCLUSION CONCERNING TEXTURAL ANALYSIS At the “textural” level, socio-rhetorical analysis seeks to look at texts as products of human reflection and interaction, at human language and its embeddedness in the ebb and flow of human interaction in the world. We can see, in this way, how socio-rhetorical analysis provides a programmatic identity to the three hermeneutical categories drawn by Paul Ricoeur and affirmed by Sandra Schneiders.61 Socio-rhetorical analysis is a programmatic attempt to grasp (1) the world of the text (i.e., the “innertexture,” the world created by the text itself and independent of any understanding of the “real” world around it), (2) the world behind the text (i.e., the “intertexture” of “social and cultural texture,” as well as “oral– scribal,” “historical,” and “sacred” textures, as the worlds within which that textual world arises and which intersects the world of the text at various points), and (3) the world before the text (i.e., the “ideological texture,” the world into which the rhetor has sought to transform aspects of the existing world through an ideological reconfiguration, transformation, or even confirmation of the present world). Of course, none of these worlds exists on its own, and, as we have seen above, one often cannot be understood without the other. Furthermore, heremeneutically, the clarification of one often clarifies another. Nevertheless, in the same way that a tapestry only exists through the interweaving of separate strands of thread and other materials, so, too, the tapestry that is a text exists and can be analyzed helpfully by noting the part each texture plays.

SOCIO-RHETORICAL ANALYSIS AS TOPICAL ANALYSIS Since 1996, socio-rhetorical analysis continues to use the methodological framework of “the multiple-textural analysis outlined in Exploring the Texture of Texts”62 and its presupposition that a text reflects social, cultural, and ideological communication. The ongoing use of Robbins’s two 1996 texts by scholars around the world, including those not working on the initial New Testament “test cases,” suggests the ongoing value of the textural approach. But, since 1996, Robbins and the team working with him have 61. Sandra M. Schneiders, The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture (San Francisco: Harper, 1991), 97–179. 62. RRA Guidelines.


135

begun to refocus that textural analysis toward a topical analysis of the text.63 Building on the Aristotelian notion that a topos is a landmark on the mental geography of thought, something that evokes a constellation of networks of meanings as a result of social, cultural, or ideological use, something in other words very much like what Carol Miller describes as a “place to which an arguer (or problem solver or thinker) may mentally go to find arguments,”64 Robbins has suggested that the textures of socio-rhetorical analysis are actually analytical tools that can be used to discover topoi in a text and how those topoi have been employed in text, through the argumentative embedding of these topoi in the presentation of the argument(s) of the text. Accordingly, as is clear from the above discussion of textures, what Robbins is now arguing for is not an abandonment of the centrality of textures nor is it an analysis of topics in a way that would suggest that this was never central; rather, what seems to be clear now is that Robbins and his team maintain that the analysis of textures is primarily intended to uncover not disparate and often fragmented threads (or “textures”) in a text but rather the essential, rhetorical building blocks of the text, namely, the topoi, even where these are not directly discernible via one texture or another, which give the text its “look.” Following the reconfiguration of Robbins’s understanding of textures that I suggested in the first part of this essay, I would suggest that these mental landscapes can be discerned through innertextural, intertextural, and ideological ways. One will use the textures identified above to identify topoi as the essential features that characterize any textual unit, and one will use the textures to identify the textual configuration of the topoi. Such an approach should not detract from the initial socio-rhetorical project but rather give it a sharper focus. For example, by attending to the opening-middleclosing texture, one should be able to determine both the dominant topoi to be found in the unit but also be able to determine whether or not the text moves away from the initial mode of discourse with which the text as a physical unit (book, letter, etc.) began, or 63. Robbins has actually insisted that the topological thrust of his analysis was actually there before the textural analysis. He attributes the importance of the topological approach to his study with Thomas Conley. 64. Carolyn R. Miller, “The Aristotelian Topos: Hunting for Novelty,” in Rereading Aristotle’s Rhetoric (ed. Alan G. Gross and Arthur E. Walzer; Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), 130–46; Barbara Warnick, “Two Systems of Invention: The Topics in the Rhetoric and The New Rhetoric” in Rereading Aristotle’s Rhetoric, 107–29.

136


whether the particular unit in question still includes that mode in its ongoing and final reconfigurations. This should be able to be confirmed on the basis of repetitive and progressive textures and patterns, though with the added implication that one will not simply be looking for lexica at this point but for topoi. For example, in Mark’s Gospel the Elijah and kingdom topoi can be found in the opening, specifically in the narrative and self-characterization of John the Baptist, in the middle (e.g., the transfiguration account), and in the closing (e.g., in the final words from the cross). The recurrence of these topoi in such strategic sections might suggest that the same topoi will likely be found through the text. If so, it is possible that one may find topoi that are consistent with this picture throughout Mark’s Gospel, including texts such as the parable of the sower, even if lexically the words “kingdom” or “Elijah” are not present. Nevertheless, and as a caution to an assumption that one will find the opening topoi developed throughout one text, in Luke’s Gospel the topoi associated with Israel experience a profound shift. Thus, in the “infancy narrative” (Luke 1–2), Israel is the focus of the redemptive activity of the deity vis-à-vis Israel alone over against Israel’s enemies (i.e., the Gentiles), but in the chapters that follow— starting with the programmatic statements of Jesus in Luke 4:18ff. and on into Acts—that redemptive activity happens within the very domain of the Gentiles, that is, non-Israelites by definition. Such an abrupt departure from expectations associated with the holy-person-yet-to-appear, namely, Jesus, in Luke 1–2 to the holy person who has appeared, namely, Jesus, in Luke 4–24 and on into his ongoing works in Acts (see Acts 1:1b) suggests a closing that is radically at variance with its opening, even though in Luke the geographical place of the opening and closing of the Gospel is the same, namely, the Temple. As I have argued, the initial topoi are intentionally—and thus ideologically—overturned or reversed.65 If we return to the Markan parable of the sower, what do we find? As has been noted, there is no explicit identification by the narrative character Jesus that the dominant topos in this unit might be called the topos of “God’s kingdom or rule.”66 Thus, an analysis of repetitive texture alone would not confirm the presence here of 65. Bloomquist, “The Intertexture of Lukan Apocalyptic Discourse,” 14. 66. Hultgren is right to point out that the Kingdom of God is not directly mentioned in the context of this parable by the narrative rhetor, Jesus. See Hultgren, Parables of Jesus, 188. Though, pace Hultgren, “kingdom” does appear in 4:11.


137

the opening topoi (God’s rule, Elijah) in Mark. What we do find, however, does confirm the presence of these topoi in other ways. For example, the cultural intertexture of prophetic-apocalyptic expectation of abundance, associated with God’s rule over Israel, strongly suggests that the topoi are in fact present. It also suggests that, if this topos is to be understood in the context of the Elijah and kingdom topoi with which the text as a whole begins, then, the theme of abundance may be a certain evidence of this rule and certainly a salient feature of the Markan rhetorical landscape. That these topoi are in fact present is further confirmed when we turn to other aspects of innertexture. For example, while it is true that the earlier, “textural” form of socio-rhetorical analysis clearly recognized a role for argumentative texture and pattern, the “topical” understanding of socio-rhetorical analysis gives pride of place to argumentative texture. Specifically, and as noted in the RRA guidelines, it should be possible to determine how individual texts use the topoi present in the text to develop or elaborate topoi in pictorial-narrative ways or in enthymematic-syllogistic ways. The development or elaboration in fact configures the landscape of the texture through “topography” (“conventional pictoral-narrative environments associated with particular topoi”) and “topology” (“conventional enthymematic-syllogistic reasonings associated with particular topoi”). 67 Obviously there will be texts in which “topology” is the dominant form for the elaboration of topoi in terms of argumentation. This is, for example, the case in Paul’s letters, for example, Rom 1:16ff. (see below). In the case of the parable of the sower, however, topographical elaboration is what we find: there is no deductive, enthymematic call to action on the basis of certain givens; rather, listeners to Jesus’ parable are asked to imagine possibilities in a pictorial or inductive way. This suggests that the scenario depicted by Jesus is not something tangible and present nor possibly something that can be brought about by human action, but is rather something that is yet to appear and will be brought about by God, who alone is characterized by abundance. Now, these two modes of elaboration are rarely found in isolation from each other; rather, they are consistently brought into regular relationship. And, while elaboration of one kind or the other may be expected to produce multiple argumentative resources, “interaction between the two modes of amplification generates a 67. RRA Guidelines.

138


multiplicity of argumentative resources.”68 Thus, in some instances these modes of argumentation and elaboration support or reconfigure one another as they alternate; in other cases, one mode is embedded within another as noted above in our discussion of the sower. Furthermore, as noted above in our discussion of texture, it should be clear that argumentation, be it enthymematic (topological) or pictorial (topographical), is not merely a matter of innertexture, since, in addition to what one might describe as purely innertextural argumentation, there is also social argumentation, which utilizes topics that function transculturally, and there is cultural argumentation, which embeds and reconfigures social topics in a particular culture’s environment of reasons and rationales. Accordingly, the rich rhetorical environments that the relationship between these two modes of argumentation and elaboration and their social and cultural environments creates produces environments that are somewhat consistent and identifiable in their appearance of these arguments. In the RRA series, this rhetorical environment or rhetorical discourse mode is called a “rhetorolect,” namely, a recognizable reconfiguration of existing topoi and their elaboration, which is intended to create rhetorical conventions that support and promote reasoning in new contexts.69 Put simply, the topoi and the relationship between the modes of elaboration in which the topoi are used create new social, cultural, textual, and sacred locations that are intended to nurture and promote the ethos of those argumentative modes, and these have a certain consistency and constancy and are therefore able to be used in a variety of situations and contexts that are thus identifiable across texts. Furthermore, the identification of a rhetorolect enables rhetorolects to serve as heuristic constructs that enable interpreters to identify other topoi that may form part of a rhetorolect, or even the potential for topoi to evoke particular topographies and topologies. In the particular subset of texts that is formed by the designation “early Christian literature”—a body of texts that can be identified as such in large part due to the priority that Robbins gives in identifying them to elements of “sacred texture” as the key configuration of the grid—Robbins has suggested that there are at least 68. RRA Guidelines. 69. RRA Guidelines.


139

six distinctive Christian rhetorolects (wisdom, miracle, prophetic, suffering-death, apocalyptic, and pre-creation).70 These rhetorolects draw on existing pools of topoi that can be found across the whole of the first-century Mediterranean, pools that are available and employed in specific but identifiable ways. Topoi, then, develop into “resource zones,” that is, pools of topoi (including cultural, textual, and ideological materials) that are regularly drawn on in particular rhetorolects. As noted in the RRA Guidelines, . . . conventional topoi from traditional modes of discourse available in the first-century Mediterranean world, recontextualizing and reconfiguring them into new conventions that generated reasoning in new social, cultural, and ideological contexts. These rhetorolects provided resources for particular authors to use as they continued to nurture Christian discourses and Christian minority cultures. But of course, these rhetorolects are not static. Early Christian authors could have and almost certainly did embed the topology of one rhetorolect within the topography of another rhetorolect, and they interwove topographies or topologies from different rhetorolects, creating new interactive environments of picturing and reasoning. “Early Christian authors would regularly weave together several Christian rhetorolects, even as they continued to draw on topics from the broader modes of discourse.”71 Accordingly, a socio-rhetorical interpretation will seek “to understand how a text selects topics that evoke particular rhetorolects, and then amplifies topoi and utilizes them in argumentation to generate new configurations of meaning.”72 The analysis should, then, be able to “highlight the topological and topographical shifting, interweaving, and interaction as the discourse proceeds.”73 This interweaving, of course, is what analysis of ideological tex-

70. Vernon K. Robbins, “The Dialectical Nature of Early Christian Discourse,” Scriptura 59 (1996): 353–62. It should be clear that were one to privilege other textures for exploring first-century literature, other configurations of rhetorolects would arise. 71. RRA Guidelines. Robbins has now replaced “suffering-death” with “priestly” as a rhetorolect. See his “Beginnings and Developments in Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation,” http://www.religion.emory.edu/faculty/robbins/Pdfs/SRIBegDevRRA.pdf. 72. RRA Guidelines. 73. RRA Guidelines.

140


ture should be able to highlight. In my mind, an excellent example of the ideological transformation of social, cultural, oral–scribal, and sacred topoi, as well as their argumentative status, can be found in Paul’s argument to a Roman, Christian community. As I have suggested elsewhere,74 in Romans Paul takes both an existing topos, “Gentiles,” as understood by a particular cultural community, Jews, and even more particularly, as configured within Wisdom of Solomon 13–14, and both recites and reconfirms aspects of that picture in Rom 1:16–32 in order to bring an audience (real or fictive) of Roman Jews to a rhetorical judgment: “do you agree that this is a recognizable picture of Gentiles, who, because of their idolatry and consequent immorality, are rightly deserving of the just wrath of God?” Of course, the ideological force of his argument is not simply to have made this argument, but to have reconfigured the resulting implications of the argument found in Wisdom 15:1, in which the Jews recognize themselves as profoundly different from Gentiles in terms both of their actions toward the deity and the deity’s actions toward them. Accordingly, in Rom 2:1–3:8, Paul turns his attention to showing how, in fact, the Jews, understood in light of the Gentile topos, are really no different in terms of the fate that they will suffer. The Gentiles suffer the just wrath of God without the Law; the Jews suffer the just wrath of God when they violate the Law. In the face of God’s justice, all that differentiates them from Gentiles is the cause of their fate, not their fate. In a profound ideological twist, Paul goes on to show how and why God does not, then, save either Jews because of their status or Gentiles because of their abject hopelessness; God, in Christ, saves both Gentile and Jew from a common fate. Analysis of ideological texture reveals that another primary component of socio-rhetorical commentary is the emphasis on the rhetorical form of the community of production and/or reception shaped by the full range of socio-rhetorical insights. This is obviously different from the results of traditional historical-critical investigation alone. Here one will ask not about the actual but about the potential formative, sustaining, or corrective effects of the discourse of this text. What kind of worldview and value system does

74. L. G. Bloomquist, “Paul’s Inclusive Language: The Ideological Texture of Romans 1,” Fabrics of Discourse: Essays in Honor of Vernon Robbins (ed. D. B. Gowler, L. G. Bloomquist, and D. Watson; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International, 2003), 165–93.


141

it reinforce or inculcate? What kinds of actions would it encourage people to undertake and what kinds of beliefs and convictions would it encourage people to hold? What kinds of attitudes would it encourage people to have about those outside their community? Therefore, what kind of community might this text nurture? If we were to retain the interpretation of the parable that Mark (followed by Matthew and Luke) has Jesus providing, then the community would be quite clear: the emphasis on hearing at the beginning and end of the parable is intended as a direct, deliberative statement to Jesus’ audience of disciples to hear and to hold on to the Gospel that Jesus (and, in Mark, Jesus alone) is preaching to them. The fact that so few who do hear Jesus will do so—only one quarter of those who hear Jesus—does not seem inconsistent with the rest of the Gospel. Given, however, that the subsequent interpretation was likely provided later by well-intentioned followers of Jesus in the early church who sought to give direction to those who wanted to understand what Jesus meant in the parable, it seems more likely that the parable itself is intended for an audience that first of all has, as yet, no clear idea of the identity of the person in their midst. They are, however, very clear about their own economic scarcity and, perhaps, religious hopes in the midst of that economic situation. And, to such an audience, be they patrons or clients, religious or not, this parable would have been compelling: one might have seen the patrons, religious or not, their eyes dreamy with the thought of such an abundance of riches coming their way, laughing knowingly at the way apparent waste can become overwhelming wealth; one might have seen the clients, religious or not, perhaps their eyes hopeful with the thought of more food on the table and the thought that the patron would look favorably on them this year; one might have seen the religious leaders wondering whether this prophet was aware of something that they either hoped was coming (if they were Pharisees) or thought that they were overseeing (if they were Sadducees), namely, the messianic age of abundance and enough not only for all but more than enough for all, an abundance that God would allow Israel to administer or hold back from all the nations. It was a profoundly hopeful, profoundly provocative teaching. It might not, however, have been received so positively by those who, in a limited-goods society such as the one in question, were in charge of “accounting,” primarily economic, but also other forms of

142


accounting, those for whom nothing must be lost and every penny must be accounted for. Such economic scruples would be found not just among strictly economic accountants but also among those for whom a tabulation of what is given and what is lost had become a way of life and thought. In the day of Jesus, accounting was not only important for business; it was also the way religious people kept themselves and others on track. The accounting approach to religious life was part and parcel of the interpretation of the Law. It may have arisen from an economic system that was geared to administering limited good; it may have also contributed to the maintenance of just such a system. While some have puzzled over the abrupt shift in Mark’s Gospel from the controversies with the Jewish interpreters of the Law to the parables, beginning with that of the sower, I think that this socio-rhetorical reading adds credibility to just such a shift. For this teaching is presented in Mark, not only after a series of polemical encounters with religious leaders—leaders for whom accounting was not so much a means of salvation to life,75 but rather a means of a halakic orientation within life76—but also after a series of teachings having to do with madness and demons (including on the one hand the sending out of his “twelve” not only to preach but also to have authority, even as Jesus’ teaching is with authority, to cast out demons, and on the other his final encounter with the religious authorities over his handling of demons and his possible possession by demons). These earlier stories involve a challenge presented to Jesus. In fact, the earliest story of Jesus’ ministry, when he is sent into the wilderness after his baptism, sets him on the course of being challenged by Satan. Each of these challenges occurs not by equals who come to Jesus but by the fact that Jesus enters the “territory” of someone who sees Jesus’ entrance as itself a challenge to them: Satan, demons, etc. Furthermore, each of these stories is shaped against a cultural background that suggests that the challenge must result in loss for someone: a victory by Jesus, for example, involves loss for another. Now, in each of those cases, up to the point of the parable of the sower, Jesus has responded with a “teaching” (healing, too, is of

75. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977). 76. Ephraim E Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (trans. Israel Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1979), 1.365–99.


143

course a “teaching” for Mark, as is clear from Mark 1:27) that can be viewed as abundantly gracious. But it is now in the parable of the sower that Jesus argues most imaginatively for a view of things that is astonishingly gracious and abundant. Over against the scrupulous attention to minutiae of both religious parties, Pharisaic scruples in daily life or Sadducean scruples in matters of ritual purity in the Temple, Jesus offers a parable of apparent great loss and reversal by huge gain; over against the clinging to barren and sterile territory by Satan and demons, Jesus offers an accurate vision of his own “landscape,” which consists of huge tracts of wasteland, and, in the midst of it, a remarkably and overwhelming productive plot of land that provides more than enough for even the most greedy. Thus, over against the petty and the clinging, Jesus offers abundance precisely where one would clearly have expected abject scarcity and poverty. It is a similar application to a situation that an author, perhaps Paul, encountered later among the early Christians, perhaps living in Ephesus. But, whoever wrote the letter to the Ephesians and to whichever community it was addressed, the problem seems clear: in a church that is torn between whether the limited good of God will go to Jews or to Gentiles, the author states that God’s riches are without measure and therefore there is no need to struggle, that there is more than enough to go around, in fact, more than anyone can ask or imagine: “Now to the one who has power over all things to produce far more abundantly than all that we could ask or even think and to do so by the power that is at work in our midst, to Him be glory through the Church and through Christ Jesus for all ages of ages to come. Amen.” (3:20–21) TENTATIVE CONCLUSIONS The end result of socio-rhetorical analysis should be the ability to create an inventory and map not only of topoi nor even of the use of topoi in argumentative form but more importantly of the presence and absence of rhetorolects throughout a particular text or group of texts. Such a map would show the rhetorical “landscape” of a text by revealing the topological and topographical shifts and suggesting prominent socio-rhetorical landmarks that may provide interpretative keys to more detailed arguments advanced in the text, arguments that will come to light only in light of further discoveries. What one will have at the end of the day is thus a clearly

144


mapped-out analysis of the contribution of this text to the development of early Christian discourse. To return, then, to the parable of the sower, it seems likely that the “topography” of the parable is consistent with what we find throughout the Gospel of Mark, namely, that the rhetor Jesus speaks as a prophet (thus, prophetic discourse) in announcing a reversal of the present “landscape” of limited good lived out under the cultural topology of scarcity. In God’s time and through God alone, the reversal will in fact lead to a “landscape” of abundance instead of one of scarcity. The growth of even a little will produce abundance beyond imagination. The resulting topology, one that is truly arrived at abductively,77 might then be expressed as follows: Case: You may have wasted three-quarters of the seed that was entrusted to you, but even the one-quarter that you have will likely fall into good ground and bring forth abundance. Result: So, do not worry about food or a return on your investment . . . Rule: . . .because, as you will see, where God’s reign obtains: no matter how much you waste, you will get back thousandsfold more when a little falls onto fertile ground.78 This parable further confirms what we hear Jesus say about the rule of God elsewhere, namely, that it will happen assuredly but secretly and mysteriously with no one knowing the where or the when. Yet what we do know is this: when the “rule of God” does appear it will be associated with great abundance, even in spite of what looks, to human eyes, like great waste and loss. And this is just what happens in this parable.

CONCLUSIONS Though socio-rhetorical analysis borrows heavily from the argumentative divisions of Aristotle’s rhetoric and terminology already 77. For an explanation of the origin of the term “abductive” as used by Robbins, and for an explanation of where it is helpfully used and where not, see Bloomquist, “Programmatic Correlation,” 74–86. 78. In this way, it can be seen that the Q material found in Q 12.22–31 is remarkably consistent with the Markan prophetic discourse.


145

found in Aristotle, socio-rhetorical analysis is not simply classical Aristotelian rhetorical analysis in contemporary garb. Nor is it neo-Aristotelian analysis, in which Aristotelian argumentation is updated for a twentieth-century—or now, twenty-first-century—audience. While there are many ways in which Robbins’s approach overlaps with those of, say, Perelman and Olbricht,79 the programmatic nature of socio-rhetorical analysis clearly classes it separately. So, too, though Robbins’s division of textures, including many of the specific names for the textures, would suggest that sociorhetorical analysis is a Burkean analysis for the study of religious texts, Robbins’s work is clearly programmatic in a way that Burke’s work is not. Fundamental to this program is an awareness that the social and cultural tools at our disposal are now sufficiently refined so as to be able to use them in ways that are more than the intuitive approach used by Burke. Robbins has been profoundly influenced by attempts to incorporate self-reflective criticism into New Testament analysis. Thus, for him, analysis of ideological texture, borrowed from recent liberationist and feminist approaches to religious texts, may be considered central to the entire project, though especially apparent in his understanding of ideological texture. And yet, it would be erroneous to assess socio-rhetorical analysis as only an ideological form of rhetorical analysis.80 Socio-rhetorical analysis should be seen as primarily an attempt to invite a variety of forms of analysis to the table, but not in a hodgepodge fashion. Rather, analyses of various kinds are invited to the table in a programmatic way that will ensure that the text as a partner in the discussion is interpreted rhetorically. It is a form of analysis that seeks to be rigorously “rhetorical”—by identifying the topoi and their argumentative configuration—and “social”—by understanding that topoi arise from real people’s lives in society and culture.

79. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric. Thomas H. Olbricht, “Classical Rhetorical Criticism and Historical Reconstructions: A Critique” in Rhetorical Interpretation of Scripture, 108–24. 80. See his critique of, among others, the work of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza in Vernon K. Robbins, “The Rhetorical Full-Turn in Biblical Interpretation: Reconfiguring Rhetorical-Political Analysis” in Rhetorical Criticism and the Bible, 48–60.

146


Finally, it needs to be said that socio-rhetorical interpretation is in many ways modeled on the pedagogical and scholarly career of Vernon Robbins himself. Robbins is preeminently a person of dialogue, of inclusivity, even in the face of oppositional rhetoric. And this truly identifies the main topos of socio-rhetorical itself: inclusion through hearing.

6 The Ironic Drama of Matthew 22:15–46 LEWIS LEROY (LEE) SNYDER

Most practitioners of the rhetorical criticism of the New Testament confine themselves to using classical rhetorical models.1 A few critics, though, have begun to use methods of analysis derived from the study of contemporary rhetorical theory as it is carried out in departments of speech communication or English and literature. One underutilized source of analytical insight is the critical methodology of Kenneth Burke. In this article, I argue that critics can use both his method of indexing a text and his dramatistic pentad in order to explore the meaning of New Testament texts.2 Accord-

1. See Ian H. Henderson, “‘Salted with Fire’ (Mark 9.42–50): Style, Oracles and (Socio)Rhetorical Gospel Criticism,” JSNT 80 (2000): 45. 2. For additional examples of Burkean approaches to the Bible, see Kenneth Burke, “The First Three Chapters of Genesis,” in Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology (Boston: Beacon, 1961): 172–272; Jeffrey A. Crafton, The Agency of the Apostle: A Dramatistic Analysis of Paul’s Responses to Conflict in 2 Corinthians (JSNTSup 51; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991); Jeffrey A. Crafton, “The Dancing of an Attitude: Burkean Rhetorical Criticism and the Biblical Interpreter,” in Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Thomas H. Olbricht; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993); 429–42; Jeffrey A. Crafton, “Paul’s Rhetorical Vision and the Purpose of Romans: Toward a New Understanding,” NovT 32 (1990): 317–39; Henderson, “Salted with Fire,” 44–65; Roy R. Jeal, “Rhetorical Argumentation in the Letter to the Ephesians,” in Rhetorical Argumentation in Biblical Texts: Essays from the Lund 2000 Conference (ed. Anders Erikkson and Thomas H. Olbricht; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002), 310–24; Paul E. Koptak, “Judah in the Biblical Story of Joseph: Rhetoric and Biography in the Light of Kenneth Burke’s Theory of Identification” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1990); idem, “Reading Scripture with Kenneth Burke: Genesis 38,” in To Hear and Obey: Essays in Honor of Fredrick Carlson Holmgren (ed. B. J .Bergtalk and P. E. Koptak; Chicago: Covenant, 1997), 84–94; idem, “Rhetorical Identification in Paul’s Autobiographical Narrative in Galatians 1:13–2:14,” JSNT 40 (1990): 97–113; idem, “Rhetorical Identification in Preaching,” Preaching (1988): 11–18; Douglas G. Lawrie, “The Dialectical Grammar of Job and Qoheleth: A Burkean Analysis,” Scriptura 66 (1988): 217–39; N. R. Leroux, “Repetition, Progression, and Persuasion in Scripture,” Neot 29 (1995): 1–25; Vincent

147

148


ingly, I begin by explaining Burke’s method of indexing. Then, in order to demonstrate the kind of questions that the method is suitable to answer, I apply it to Matthew 22:15–46, a narrative of four brief encounters between Jesus and various leaders of the Jewish people. I then explain dramatism and the pentad, which is the critical method educed from Burke’s dramatistic model of communication. A brief application of dramatism to the same text completes the support for my primary claim.

KENNETH BURKE AND INDEXING Kenneth Burke was one of the twentieth century’s most eminent literary critics. His work has found its place in the disciplines of speech communication, English, literary criticism, history, theater, poetics, psychology, philosophy, sociology, history, consciousness studies, and biblical criticism. His writings, which span six decades, have provided a number of critical tools, including the representative anecdote, terministic screens, perspective by incongruity, and the doctrine of comedy and tragedy that was used by Stephen O’Leary to analyze the Revelation of John.3 I believe two other methods in particular are especially promising for the analysis of New Testament texts. Burke created his own method of analyzing written texts in order to discover their meaning for the reader; this method he called “indexing.” He also developed the dramatistic pentad in order to interpret the meaning of any situation that features human and intentional actions. The pentad has been used by some New Testament critics, but indexing has been used very little.4 Accordingly, I will now discuss indexing

C. Okigbo, “A Dramatistic Analysis of Selected Biblical Texts” (Ph.D. diss., Howard University, 2001); Stephen O’Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Stephen O’Leary, “A Dramatistic Theory of Apocalyptic Rhetoric,” QJS 79 (1993): 385–426; Vernon K. Robbins, Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Mark (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); idem, The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society and Ideology (London: Routledge, 1996); Lee Snyder, “Invitation to Transcendence: The Book of Revelation,” QJS 86 (2000): 402–16; idem, “The Rhetoric of Transcendence in the Book of Revelation,” in Rhetorics and Hermeneutics (ed. James D. Hester and J. David Hester; New York: T&T Clark Continuum, 2004), 193–217. 3. See Arguing and “A Dramatistic Theory.” 4. I know of only four examples: Burke, “First Three Chapters”; Koptak, “Reading Scripture”; Snyder, “Invitation”; and Snyder, “Rhetoric.”

The Ironic Drama of Matthew 22:15–46

149

and show how it helps the critic discern the meaning in the text of Matthew 22:15–46. INDEXING The books in Burke’s personal library are thoroughly marked up, every page covered with notes and cross-references, with homemade indexes written on the blank pages. Burke called this disciplined vandalizing “indexing.” This procedure, along with its rationale, is best described in Burke’s “Fact, Inference, and Proof in the Analysis of Literary Symbolism.”5 William H. Rueckert offers a useful summary of indexing in one paragraph.6 I will follow Rueckert’s organization of the elements of indexing. Indexing is based on the belief that one can uncover the layout of a writer’s mind by observing the topography of the words the writer uses. Burke considered indexing to be a scientific approach to criticism because it provides genuine data about a text. This data may then be used as a basis for making useful arguments about the text’s interpretation. The critic who wishes to index a text may use one or more of the four processes of Burkean indexing. The best-known element of indexing is cluster analysis, the study of “what goes with what, or what equals what, or what is identified with what.”7 A critic examines the text for key terms—words that are repeated or that are in prominent positions. The critic also looks for synonyms of those terms or for metaphors that carry the same meaning, then for other terms that cluster around these key terms, giving them context and meaning. Finally, the critic looks for patterns of terms and meanings. Based on this data, a critic should be able to explain what uses these terms serve, what meaning they bear to the reader. Another element of indexing is agon analysis, the charting of polar terms and characters or actions that are opposed to one

5. Kenneth Burke, Essays Towards a Symbolic of Motive (ed. William H. Ruckert; West Lafayette, IN: Parlor, 2007), 49–73. See also idem, Symbols and Values: An Initial Study, Thirteenth Symposium of the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion (ed. Lyman Bryson et al.; New York: Harper, 1954), 283–306. 6. William H. Rueckert, “A Field Guide to Kenneth Burke—1990,” in Extensions of the Burkean System (ed. James W. Chesebro: Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993), 17, 18. 7. Rueckert, “Field Guide,” 16, 17.

150


another. What stories are told by these oppositions? What insights does the reader gain into the writer’s worldview? A third element of indexing is the analysis of progressive form. Form, to Burke, is the arousal of an expectation and then the meeting of it. What expectations does the writer of the text create and satisfy? Attend especially to beginnings and endings. Beginnings, to Burke, tip off the reader to the writer’s principles, and endings summarize the writer’s purposes. So the critic watches for the first and last appearances of main characters. What kind of form does the writer pursue? For example, an argumentative form is different from a narrative form (though, as we shall see later, one may be transformed into the other). The fourth element of indexing is transformation analysis. How do the qualities or identities of the significant personae, concepts, or terms change in the course of the text? What do they change from and into? At this point, I turn to Matthew 22 in order to discover what indexing can reveal about the meaning of this text.8

AN INDEXING OF MATTHEW 22:15–46 CONTEXT Like narrative criticism, Burkean criticism is concerned with the text as it is. What role the historical author played in the production of the text, what his sources were, and how the text was transmitted to the present reader are all important questions, but they are not likely to be decided on the basis of a rhetorical analysis. The important matter for the Burkean critic is to discover what the text means to its reader, what persuasive effect it has on her or him, and how the author achieves that effect through the words of the text. In this analysis, then, when I write about “Matthew,” I refer to the persona of Matthew as the reader supposes it to be from reading the text. This also applies to the other characters in the narrative. 8. The earliest example of the use of indexing as a critical tool for biblical texts is Burke’s own piece of criticism. Kenneth Burke, “The First Three Chapters of Genesis,” in Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology (Boston: Beacon, 1961), 172–272. See also Howard Nemerov’s clever indexing of Burke’s mailing address: “The Winter Addresses of Kenneth Burke with Some Thoughts about Interpretation,” in New & Selected Essays (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), 200–209.


151

Since I am analyzing only thirty-two verses of the whole text, I should set the context for the chosen passage. In this section of Matthew, the author describes four encounters between Jesus and various groups of Jewish leaders. Earlier in this week, the last of Jesus’ life, and before these tense encounters took place, Jesus had openly criticized the Jewish religious leaders. In 21:15, when the priests and teachers were angry that the children praised him as the “son of David,” Jesus defended the children. Immediately afterward in Matthew came the episode of the fig tree. Although Jesus’ disciples extracted from him a lesson about faith, the reader of this text might easily see it as a parable enacted against people (either the Jewish nation or the leadership) who should have brought forth fruit for God but did not. The next event was a formal encounter in which Jesus was put to the test. The priests and elders asked him to provide his authority for teaching and healing in the temple. He turned the tables on them and left their question unanswered. Up to this point, Matthew has created considerable narrative tension between Jesus and the leaders. The tension escalated when Jesus spoke three parables against the Jews who rejected him. The parable of the talents was not primarily an aggressive one, except for the statement (22:7) in which the rejected king destroyed his enemies.9 That statement does not appear in the parallel passage in Luke. If we assume that the reader is aware of the events of 70 c.e., the presence of this warning invites the reader to see Jesus as a prophet and to view the destruction as divine retribution. If the text were to be dated before 70, then the implied argument is that Jesus issued a stern warning against rejecting him, a warning that the Pharisees did not heed but which the reader should. Immediately afterward, Matthew records four episodes in which Jesus and various groups of leaders have verbal jousts. After these encounters, Jesus pronounced seven woes against the leaders in their absence. There would be no more verbal duels between Jesus and the leaders after Matthew 22:5–46 until he faced the Sanhedrin at his trial. Based on this brief setting of the context, the reader might well assume that the events in this pivotal passage would explain the

9. Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14–28 (2 vols.; WBC 33B; Dallas: Word, 1995), 627.

152


precipitous deterioration in the relationship between Jesus and his antagonists. Now we turn our attention to the text itself. PROGRESSIVE FORM The form is quite apparent and easily discovered by the reader. First, Jesus’ opponents initiated three encounters with him in which they posed questions in hopes of trapping him. Matthew identified their sinister purpose in the first and third confrontations but only implied it in the second one. In each case, Jesus gave a wise answer to the question and thus escaped the trap. Then, in a fourth encounter, Jesus ironically turned the tables and triumphed over his opponents by asking them a question that baffled them Matthew’s first story sets forth a pattern. The reader expects the form of this exchange would be followed in the next encounters, and it was, with one exception. In the first story and each succeeding one, there is a brief statement in which Jesus’ antagonists are named, along with a statement of their being gathered together or their coming to him. Then a question is posed first by the Pharisees’ disciples and the Herodians, then by the Sadducees, then by the Pharisees, including (perhaps) a lawyer, and finally, by Jesus. After each question, there is an answer (or, in the last case, an answer and another question). Finally, there is a description of the reaction of the hearers—in every case but one. First, the Pharisees were amazed. Next, the crowds were astonished. Third, there was no reaction. Then, after the last encounter, everyone was left speechless. Matthew’s narrative form expresses an enthymematic argument. Inasmuch as both Jesus’ sympathizers and his opponents marveled at his answers, the reader should do the same. As to why the reaction of the hearers in the third case is absent, Matthew gives no clue. However, the reader with access to the parallel stories (Luke 10:25–37 and Mark 12:28–34) would know that Matthew’s version is quite abbreviated. He omitted some followup comments made by the lawyer as well as either a parable or a commendation by Jesus. By abbreviating the story, Matthew left the lawyer as a faceless questioner, though not a hostile one. No doubt the purpose was to keep the reader’s attention on Jesus, for it is always his words that are important in these stories. It would distract from this emphasis to tell the lawyer’s objection about the definition of neighborhood,


153

or to tell that he praised Jesus’ answer and received Jesus’ own commendation. Besides, had Matthew included all of the story, assuming he knew the other versions, he would have magnified that part of the story out of proportion to the other episodes in an inartistic fashion.10 When we focus on Jesus’ successive answers, as Matthew wants his readers to do, we see that what Donald Hagner says about the question concerning tribute money is true of all the encounters: Jesus triumphed by transcending the dilemma with which he was faced.11 The question of paying taxes became in Jesus’ answer a guideline for paying all obligations. The catch question about levirate marriage and the resurrection became, with Jesus’ answer, a lesson on God’s eternal nature and the quality of life in the hereafter. In reply to the inquiry about the greatest commandment, Jesus reordered the Law so that it became a matter of love. The Pharisees gave a hasty answer to Jesus’ question about the Messiah’s origin. But after Jesus’ follow-up question, it was apparent to all that they held an anomalous position that could not logically be sustained, and they had an inadequate understanding of the Messiah. A cursory reading has shown the flow of the narrative and the similarities among the episodes. We now reread the episodes with an eye to seeing what differences distinguish these episodes from one another. Our purpose is to see if there is a progression in the narrative, either a gentle or a sudden development, in the relationships that Matthew describes. There does indeed seem to be a change in the tone of the narrative. Specifically, the first encounter was carefully set up by Jesus’ foes using a chosen mix of questioners who pose a problem that is so controversial that Jesus apparently must alienate some of his questioners. Furthermore, the question they came up with concerned practical matters, apparently ones that were of importance at the time that the encounter is supposed to have occurred. It was a politically charged issue. The second encounter centered on a less contentious quibble that the Sadducees designed to show the absurdity of the doctrine of the resurrection. It is a theological question and is less charged than the first episode with serious consequences. Instead, it is relatively an 10. Matthew could easily have added a brief sentence to make the lawyer story end like the other three, but he did not do this. Perhaps he had too much respect for the historical event itself or the tradition that had come down to him. 11. Hagner, Matthew, 637.

154


ivory-tower issue like that of the number of angels who can waltz on the head of a pin. The third question was one of practical religion. What are the most important elements of the religious life?12 There was even less tension involved in posing this question, for there were no doubt many acceptable answers that could be given as to what the greatest commandment is. Finally, Jesus asked a question concerning the Messiah’s lineage and, therefore, his identity. This question dealt with a matter of power and hinged on the interpretation of a passage from the 110th Psalm. It was both political and theological in nature—and, for the reader who understood Jesus’ claims (in Matthew), it is one of serious practical import, too.13 In summary, the hostility of Jesus’ questioners lessened over the course of the first three episodes, thus sustaining the reader’s interest. Perhaps the reader expects that all Jesus’ foes would cease their opposition after being silenced, one by one. Then, in an ironic turn, the tension skyrocketed in the fourth pericope, when Jesus suddenly upped the stakes and silenced his critics. A final observation as to form: where the questioning took place is irrelevant. Place was not mentioned in these stories except when the Pharisees gathered “in one place” (22:34).14 Time, though, is significant. Matthew tells the stories as though they happened in quick succession on the same day. After Jesus told the parable of the wedding banquet (as the NIV labels it), “then (tovte) the Pharisees took counsel.” When the Pharisees’ disciples failed to trap Jesus, the Sadducees came to Jesus “on the same day” (ejn ejkeivnh/ th/'/ hjmevra/). But when the Pharisees heard of their failure (dev + present active participle) in turn, they got together. (The word “hearing” in verse 33 referred to the crowds at the conclusion of the pericope about the resurrection, and then in the next verse to the Pharisees at the beginning of the question concerning the great commandment. Thus the participle ties the two episodes closely together.) Finally, the Pharisees “having been gathered” (sunhgmevnon), Jesus questioned them in turn. By setting the stories on the same day, Matthew gives them a

12. In Luke 10:25, Jesus’ answer was elicited by the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” 13. My interpretation of the four questions is similar to that of D. Daube’s, according to Hagner, Matthew, 634. 14. A few manuscripts have “against him,” instead. Hagner, Matthew, 644.


155

unity that is desirable in the plot of a well-written drama.15 He invites the reader to see the stories as related events occurring on one significant day in Jesus’ last week. Inasmuch as Matthew’s narrative also is his argument, unity of time makes it easier for the reader (or listener) to get his point. So far, our examination of form has shown that Matthew wished the reader to see these stories as episodes in which, in a brief time and successively, Jesus triumphed over all adversaries, from the strongest to the mildest, by his teaching. He then suddenly turned the tables and put his leading foes to silence. Matthew thus invites the reader to see Jesus as a versatile teacher, one who was able to argue theoretical and practical issues with equal grace. CLUSTER ANALYSIS We now attend in a microscopic fashion to the words Matthew uses, looking for repetitions of words and synonyms, as well as searching for words that go with other words. As already mentioned, Burke believed that the critic is likely to find the author’s principles implicit in the beginning of a text.16 Accordingly, the reader’s attention is arrested by the initial words of the Greek text, “Then assembled,” in verse 15, or, in context, “Then the Pharisees went and took counsel” (RSV). The implication of “went” or “assembled” is not so much that they left or came to a particular place, but that they met together. In this case, the purpose of their meeting was to construct a plan.17 The expression “went out” is echoed by a synonym in verse 34, “came together,” and in verse 41, “gathered together.” Their confederacy is emphasized by the fact that the Pharisees sent their disciples “along with” the Herodians” (22:16), in an unnatural alliance, to Jesus. No one spoke to Jesus alone; even the single lawyer was with his Pharisaic colleagues. Matthew thus depicts Jesus as a lone hero, one who stands singly against a confederacy of assailants. His disciples are not even mentioned in this section. It is impossible for the reader to miss the echo of Psalm 2:1, 2, which gives resonance to this narrative and adds to the significance of the events. 15. Aristotle, Poet. 7.1–7; 8.1–8. 16. Kenneth Burke, “The Philosophy of Literary Form,” in The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action (3d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 63. 17. Barclay M. Newman and Philip C. Stine, A Translator’s Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew (London: United Bible Societies, 1988), 702.

156


Another set of related words and phrases are those used in praise of Jesus. Matthew depicts the Pharisees’ disciples as false flatterers. They praised him four times, for being a true teacher, for telling the truth from God, for caring for what no man thinks (ouj appears twice in this clause, first alone and then in the compound oujdevno"), and for looking at no one’s face (in deference). The repetition of praise causes the reader to suspect the motives of these questioners. Matthew’s seesaw use of words for “asked” and “answered” provides another cluster of terms. These are words that highlight the tension of the exchanges as contests. Three times, Jesus’ foes “ask,” “question,” or “say to him” a question. Each time, he “answers” or “replies.” Ironically, though, when Jesus “asks” them a question (43), no one can answer (46); furthermore, no one dared even ask another question of him (46). By the end of this section, Matthew intends the reader to be impressed with the power of Jesus’ words, which overturn those of his critics as completely as he overturned the tables of the money changers (21:12). Another cluster of terms is used for the concept of “son.” Though this passage is too short for us to be confident about this suggestion, we may perceive a pattern in the use of words for offspring. When the Sadducees posed their question, they cited Moses’ rule about levirate marriage. This quotation first used the word tevkna for children, an appropriate word for calling attention to the origin of the children.18 But when the Sadducees told their fanciful story, they repeated the second word Moses used, “seed” (spevrma), a metonym for offspring or descendants.19 This way of speaking reduces children to their lineage. However, when Jesus later referred to the “Son” of David, he twice used the word ui{o", a more specific term which emphasizes relationships.20 Matthew, in turn, by his carefully chosen words for children, shifts the reader’s attention from the Sadducees’ question about generating male offspring to Jesus’ more significant question of the nature of one son. We now move on to the fourth encounter, in which Jesus asked a question of the Pharisees. He preceded his question about the Messiah by asking, “What do you think about the Messiah?” The Greek dokei'" means “you suppose, imagine, think.”21 It appeared previously in verse 17. The first group of questioners had asked for 18. Albrecht Oepke, “paiv", paidivon, ktl,” TDNT 5:638. 19. Danker, “spevrma,” BDAG 937. 20. Danker, “ui|o",” BDAG 1024–1027. 21. Danker, “dokevw,” BDAG 254, 255.


157

Jesus’ “opinion,” so now he initiated his question the same way. By using the same verb at the beginning of both encounters, Matthew provides balance and tells the reader that it is now Jesus’ turn to test his opponents. Still looking for clusters of terms, we notice that words pertaining to writing appear frequently. The written Law (what Moses “said”) is featured in the second and third stories, and in the fourth story, Jesus asked a question about what David had said. “Read” also appears in verse 31, and, in verse 30, the Sadducees were criticized for not knowing the Scriptures—the “writings.” This recurrence of synonymous terms for the written word encourages us to look for “writing” in the first story, as well. The search is rewarded, for there is an inscription on the coin shown to Jesus. If it was a contemporary coin, the legend read (in abbreviated form), “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus.” Now the sequence of terms is complete, and it connects the fourth story back to the first. The icon on the coin in the first encounter led Jesus to ask, “Whose portrait is this?” Then he asked concerning the inscription, “To whom does this refer?” These questions are equivalent to those that he asked in the fourth episode. “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” or, “Of whom is he the image?”22 When the Pharisees replied, “David’s son,” Jesus quoted a saying and asked them to explain its referent—“Whose inscription is this which David composed?” The reference to David’s son would have recalled to the minds of Matthew’s readers the very first sentence of his whole narrative, in which he asserted that Jesus was the son of David (1:1).23 Furthermore, according to other Matthean passages, Jesus’ own critics knew that he took this reference personally, for the crowd had called him the “son of David” (21:9, 15). His question, however, now put them into a logical dilemma. If the psalm was indeed written by David, as they asserted, then either the Messiah was not to be the son of David, as they claimed him to be, or else he was David’s son and something more. This anomaly, which Jesus exposed, invited them to transcend the con-

22. I mean “image” metaphorically, not necessarily according to the Christian doctrine of Jesus as the literal image of God. 23. On Jesus as David’s Son, see David R. Bauer, “The Literary and Theological Function of the Genealogy in Matthew’s Gospel,” in Treasures New and Old: Recent Contributions to Matthean Studies (ed. David R. Bauer and Mark Allan Powell; SBLSymS 1; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 129–59.

158


fines of their worldview. It is as if he said, “Give to David what belongs to him, and to David’s Lord what belongs to him.” Thus, Matthew’s last question-and-answer episode was foreshadowed by the first one. According to Matthew’s narrative, his critics understood Jesus’ point very well. This is apparent in the titles that they later accused him of allocating to himself. Before the Sanhedrin, he was accused of claiming to be the king of the Jews and the son of God (26:63; 27:11, 12). When he was crucified, they mocked him with those titles (27:41–43). Matthew recorded the superscription over his head: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (27:37), a title which, regardless of why it was given him, was exactly the one which Matthew wanted his readers to believe.24 AGON ANALYSIS When looking into the text to discover contrasting terms, we focus first on the personae. On the one hand, Matthew names Pharisees, Herodians, Sadducees, disciples of the Pharisees, and perhaps a lawyer, depending on the text. But what kind of people were these, as Matthew presents them to the reader? In the various details he gives clues to their characters. He describes them as plotters who tried to test Jesus. They (or some of them) were hypocrites; some were people who erred by not knowing the Scriptures; and others were leaders who are unable to answer Jesus’ question. When they were trounced, they left in silence, rather than acknowledging themselves beaten. They were, above all, unwilling to admit Jesus’ claim by making the profession the crowds had made, that Jesus was the son of David, which is to say, the Messiah. In contrast to them, Jesus was identified several times as a “teacher.” He appears quick witted, easily able to elude the traps set for him. He was profound, and could transform the traps into opportunities for teaching. He was, in this narrative, a loner. He was exactly what the Herodians pretended to believe he was, one who did not fear to look any person in the face (16), who told influential foes that they were hypocrites. He dared to accuse religious leaders of knowing neither their own scriptures nor the God who gave them. These are the contrasting personae that Matthew delineates for 24. See Donald Senior, “Directions in Matthean Studies,” in The Gospel of Matthew in Current Study: Studies in Memory of William G. Thompson, S.J. (ed. David E. Aune; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 15, 16.


159

his readers in these four episodes. We now turn from personae to antagonistic terms. As already mentioned, the Herodians and disciples of the Pharisees supposed Jesus to be subject to flattery, so they began by confessing him to be candid and a “true” person who taught the “true way” of God. In reply, Jesus labeled them, which apparently was the more pressing task, before he attended to their question—“You hypocrites!” This named them as “false” people, those who have hidden agendas and who, unlike him, do court the approval of others. In the next episode, Jesus told the Sadducees that they “err” (plana'sqh)—they do not know the “true way.” Thus Matthew presents to the reader two kinds of people in conflict, the false and the true. Another set of agonistic terms is more subtle. The Sadducees use two related words, “ajnasthvsei,” “shall raise up” children (24), and “ajnastavsei,” “resurrection” (28). Inasmuch as they did not believe in the resurrection (23), they thought that believing in the resurrection was as futile as the seven brothers’ attempts to have children by the first brother’s widow.25 Perhaps the Sadducees were making a play on words when they said, “and last of all” (u{steron de; pavntwn), the woman died (27). The listener hearing the first word might have thought of uJstevra, “womb,” an apt word in this case, for the woman apparently was barren. Finally, she became as dead as her womb. The Sadducees’ question, then, is sodden with death. In their short story, eight people died, and the woman’s womb was lifeless. Matthew even defined them negatively, by telling what they did not believe in. In contrast, Jesus’ answer is full of words affiliated with life. He spoke of the resurrection as though it were real; he described life in such a state; he referred to angels and heaven, which imply existence beyond the present, and he argued that God is God of the living. No wonder the crowds were astonished. In this disputation, they witnessed life symbolically overcoming death. Through this enacted enthymeme, Matthew presented the reader with a winsome argument in favor of Jesus’ doctrine. Another set of contrasting terms includes those pertaining to the law and to love. There are two kinds of law mentioned in these events: the Law of God and that of Caesar. The first group of questioners may have referred to God’s law when they asked whether 25. Contra Newman, “Translator’s,” 709.

160


it was “lawful” to pay tribute to the emperor. God’s law is also referred to in verses 36 and 40, in the question about the greatest law. (A closely related word is “command,” an element of the Law in verses 36, 38, and 40.) If the word “lawyer” in verse 35 is genuine, it refers to a master of God’s law. The other law is the rule of Rome. Though it is not referred to directly, Caesar personifies it in verse 21. It is also implied in the word Matthew used when Jesus asked for a “coin”—novmisma (instead of dhnavrion, which Mark used.26 The word, meaning “money officially introduced into common use,” shares an etymological origin with novmo", “law.”27 In contrast to law, or rather, as its transcending summation, Jesus puts love. He brings about a startling transformation in the reader’s understanding of God’s Law when, with his summary of the two great commandments, he makes “law” a matter of “love.” Though Matthew’s Pharisees knew the Law well, they were not well practiced in love. In making love the heart of the law, Jesus critiqued the motives of his questioners, who were busy tempting and testing (35) him. (Matthew’s reader must remember the tempter in the wilderness in chapter 4.) Further, by emphasizing that to love God involves the whole person, he condemned hypocrisy (18). Another set of agonistic terms has to do with the word “word.” Words are always of interest to the rhetorician and especially so here. It appears twice (15, 46), but is used in contrasting ways. Remember that, to Burke, words at the beginning of a text indicate the writer’s principles. Accordingly, Matthew began by saying that the Pharisees met to decide how to trap Jesus “in his words” (15). In principle, then, we are to see these encounters as individual battles in a logomachy. The leaders are men of words rather than of action, as Matthew’s Jesus explains elsewhere: they teach but they refuse to do (23:3, 4). This sets up a tension for the reader, for Jesus was a verbal person, too. He was repeatedly called “teacher,” and he did not reject the title. While we are considering “words,” let me take a detour to point out how Jesus’ argument against the Sadducees hinged on a single word, eijmiv, “[I] am” (32). He based his argument for the reality of the resurrection on words spoken by God in Exodus, “I am the God of Abraham. . . .” Inasmuch as God says, “I am” the God of Abraham, goes the argument, Abraham is still alive; consequently, there 26. Hagner, Matthew, 634. 27. Danker, “novmisma,” BDAG 676.


161

is no serious objection to a physical resurrection. This is what Aristotle called an argument from correlative terms.28 It works like this: if God is now the God of Abraham, then Abraham in turn is, now (though centuries after his death), a worshipper of God. The premise for Jesus’ claim is based more on the accidental quality of “I am” than on its meaning. (For another example of an argument based on grammatical accidence, see Galatians 3:16.) Consequently, Jesus’ argument appears fallacious. If a woman says, “I am the mother of three children,” this does not necessarily mean that they are all still alive nor that they are still children. But the situation is more complicated than that in Matthew’s story, because the subject of the verb is Jehovah. Since he is Being itself, he could hardly say, “I was the God of Abraham.” Is Jesus saying that, to God, there is only the present? Trying to pin down the implications here is leading us into deep waters. Nevertheless, although the argument seems weak to a modern reader, Matthew thought that both the protagonists and the readers of his text believed that Jesus’ wordplay had logical value and therefore found his argument cogent. In fact, though, a Burkean critic is not a logician and cannot discount the importance of wordplay. Burke himself found persuasive value in puns, homonyms, and even phonology. This is possible because words have a physical nature, a sound and an appearance, as well as a symbolic one.29 In any case, Matthew indicated that the Sadducees found his reasoning unanswerable. No doubt, the reader also is supposed to appreciate Jesus’ subtlety in using premises taken from the Pentateuch, the only part of the Scriptures that the Sadducees accepted. Returning to our study of the agonistic uses of “word,” we note that “word” appears one more time, at the end of the narrative. In

28. Aristotle, Rhet. 2:23.2 29. See Kenneth Burke, “The Thinking of the Body: Comments on the Imagery of Catharsis in Literature,” and “A Dramatistic View of the Origins of Language,” in Language as Symbolic Action (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 308–43, 419–79. On the meaning of sounds, see Kenneth Burke, “Philosophy,” 13–17. On the importance of phonology to a culture in which documents were read orally, see Vernon K. Robbins, “Progymnastic Rhetorical Composition and Pre-Gospel Traditions: A New Approach,” in The Synoptic Gospels: Source Criticism and the New Literary Criticism (ed. Camille Focant; BETL 110; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993), 111–47. For a non-Burkean approach to indexing texts that is based purely on sound, see Bernard Brandon Scott and Margaret E. Dean, “A Sound Map of the Sermon on the Mount,” in Bauer and Powell, Treasures, 311–378.

162


this position, to Burke, a word is a sign of the author’s purpose. It is telling, then, that Matthew uses “word” only to say, “No one could say a word in reply” (46), or “No one had the power to answer a word.” So Matthew’s motive in these episodes is to show that Jesus stripped his foes of their weapons. He boxed in his critics by forcing them to take seriously his own claims and the assertions the crowd had made about him. Consequently, they slunk away in silence. The two contrasting uses of “word” are bookends, bracketing one ironic day in which wordy people used words to ensnare, yet ended up wordless. In a similar “bookending” contrast, in verse 16, Jesus was praised for fearing “no one.” Then, at the end of the four episodes (46), those left to confront him are, ironically, “no one.” There is more than irony going on here, though. The “de-wording” of Jesus’ foes takes on an ominous tone when connected with the next group of words. Words that reflect hierarchy and authority are important because they are always clues that reveal the symbolic order in the rhetor’s mind.30 Accordingly, in Matthew’s text, several words indicate authority. First of all, Jesus’ flatterers in verse 16 say to him, according to Hagner’s translation, “you do not regard the status of persons.”31 “Status” is another word for hierarchy. Later, when the crowd was delighted with Jesus’ answers, there is an echo of Matthew 7:24, 25, where the people were amazed at his teaching because of its authority. In contrast, Jesus’ opponents were without power, for Matthew told his readers that they were unable (46) to answer him. The Sadducees, too, erred because they were ignorant of the “power of God.” In the last encounter, Jesus quoted a passage in which God gave the Messiah a place of authority at his right hand and also promised to humble his enemies under his feet.32 But the most important use of terms for authority was when Jesus’ answered the question about tribute by naming “God” and “Caesar” as opposed authorities. In a few days, Matthew would show Jesus’ enemies appealing to Caesar’s power in order to execute him. At that point, the reader who still recalled the dichotomy set up in chapter 22 would understand that one cannot appeal to Caesar’s power while still claiming to be doing God’s work. In the fourth episode, words for power were closely connected 30. Burke, “Fact,” 165. 31. Hagner, Matthew, 633. 32. Some manuscripts instead have “a footstool.” Hagner, Matthew, 649.


163

with both defeat and victory. To the promise of victory that God gave to the Messiah (shown by the words, “sit,” and “under your feet”), Matthew juxtaposed almost immediately the observation that all Jesus’ enemies were speechless before him. The reader sees the “putting down” of Messiah’s enemies already in process. TRANSFORMATION ANALYSIS The comments about authority, Caesar, and power lead us to observe that this day marks the end of dialogue. This is the consequence of the most prominent transformation in our text, that of the Pharisees and their allies. They began as teams of coordinated masters of argument. Their opposition to Jesus did not change during the course of the narrative, but the choices available to them certainly did. After they left Jesus’ presence, they would not again debate with him. Instead, they would, indeed, leave to God the things of God (which, in our text, were the Law and the Writings); and they would now give to Caesar his due. John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan Reed believe they hear Jesus and the disciples laughing at the way his ambiguous answer about the tribute money tricked his listeners.33 At the end of these episodes, however, I hear no laughter. Instead, an ominous silence seems to fall while the Pharisees and Herodians withdraw. Their opposition to Jesus did not abate, but their repertoire of responses was dangerously curtailed by their public failures to trap Jesus. Jesus now enjoyed more popular support than they. They had been defeated, so they could no longer rely on their intellectual mastery of the Law. Perhaps their reputation for sanctity still gave them credibility, but Jesus assaulted that in his address in the next chapter. At this point, it is tempting to conclude by saying, “Symbolic action failed the Jewish leaders; all that remained was brute physical action. Jesus is the one who would soon stand wordless (26:63; 27:14), unable or unwilling to compete in the political arena where words were only facades for the violence that would break loose.” However, logology, the consistent working out of the implications of symbols, forbids us these thoughts. Matthew’s narrative is not about the failure of symbols, for authority and power are as truly symbolic constructions as is the Law. Consequently, we must say that, at the denouement of the drama, the enemies of Jesus

33. John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 181.

164


abandoned their symbolic power derived from the Law and the Writings. They were no match for Jesus, so they gave up arguing from premises based on the sacred books. Instead, they appealed next to another symbolic order, that of the fasces. In contrast, Jesus’ ultimate appeal was to the order of divine authority rather than human. We see this appeal both in the fourth encounter in our text, in which the Messiah was invited to sit patiently while God took care of his foes, and also in his behavior during the rest of the week. Only Matthew recorded his words when he was arrested in 26:53: “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” Matthew thus insisted that Jesus was finally overcome not by the physical force of Caesar nor of his enemies nor by symbolic authority of the masters of the Law. Rather, his submission to his opponents was actually a surrender to the will of the Father. That will was mediated symbolically to him by “the Scriptures” that “say it must happen in this way” (26:54). To Matthew’s Jesus, it was a matter of choosing which order to serve. OTHER PATTERNS? A text provides a hologram of the writer’s mind, one in which the patterns and associations of symbols are revealed to the critical observer who looks at the text from different angles. There are still a few patterns in this text whose meaning remains obscure. This may be simply because we are blind to their connections; further meditation and study might show us the right angle to take. For example, in Jesus’ answer to the lawyer concerning the great commandment, he echoed a number of words that had been spoken by the Sadducees in the previous story.34 Is this Matthew’s way of unifying the events? Another possibility is that otherwise unexplained patterns serve to connect this part of Matthew to the rest of the book. I have already given some instances where we must look outside the chosen text in order to find suggestive connections. As another example, consider the quotation Jesus gave from David, “You sit at my right hand,” an invitation given to the Messiah. In the rest of the chosen passage, there was no other reference to sitting. Only a few lines after the end of our text, however, at the beginning of the next pericope 34. Compare “first” brother and “first” commandment; “all” brothers (27), “all” the heart (37), and “all” the Law (40); “second” brother and “second” commandment; “likewise” (26) and “like” (39).


165

after the Pharisees have departed, Jesus said, “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat” (23:2). This is a place of obvious authority, but it is one far inferior to that occupied by the Messiah in prophecy (22:44). Finally, some “patterns” are surely just coincidences. As Burke wrote about indexing, “there must be a certain amount of waste motion here.”35

A DRAMATISTIC VIEW OF MATTHEW 22:15–46 As a result of indexing the text, the critic derives some hard data from which to argue both the meaning of the text and the author’s means of creating that meaning. Many of Matthew’s strategic moves are now apparent. We understand how he showed Jesus to be wiser than the religious leaders. He appears to the reader as a man who lived and thought on a higher plane and, furthermore, one who professed to be the son of David. In view of these claims, and the failure of Jesus’ well-prepared opponents to undermine his position or answer his quiz, then, goes Matthew’s implied argument, the reader should believe Jesus. In this fashion, Matthew’s linear narrative becomes an enthymeme. As Burke put it, the arpeggio of the narrative becomes the chord of the argument.36 Having a persuasive intent, the language of Matthew 22:15–46 constitutes what Burke calls “symbolic action.” Wherever meaning exists, a human drama is being enacted. “Dramatism” was Burke’s name for this viewpoint whereby human communication in any form, such as a narrative, a debate, a play, a letter, speech, or nonverbal action, is seen as an act of drama.37 A critic discovers the meaning of a communicative drama by answering five basic questions: what was done, by what means, by whom, under what circumstances, to what end? In other words, the critic identifies the Act, Agency, Agent, Scene, and Purpose. These five elements constitute the pentad. Later, Burke suggested adding a sixth element, Attitude, to identify how the Agent did the Act. 35. Burke, “Fact,” 153. 36. “Philosophy,” 99, 100. I derive this concept of argument, broader than the Aristotelian one, partly from Wayne Brockriede, “Where Is Argument?” AA 11 (1975): 179–82. As Henderson wrote, “Not all rhetorical argument is in rhetorical argumentation” (“Salted,” 67). 37. For a summary of dramatism, see Kenneth Burke, “Dramatism,” IESS, 445–52.

166


Critics generally use the pentad without also indexing the text; however, I believe we benefit in this particular instance from using both critical tools. Indexing has revealed Matthew’s argumentative maneuvers. The pentad allows us to view the persuasive act as a whole. What is the drama, then, that Matthew describes? The narrative drama that we are observing begins with the Pharisees. They initiate the dramatic action by making plans to trap Jesus. From their point of view, this drama in which they, as Jewish leaders, are Agents is an Act of unmasking. Jesus had refused to tell the priests and elders the authority for his behavior (21:27). This authority clearly was a hallmark of his teaching (7:29). Popular opinion and his own testimony seemed to attribute his authority to God or to his role as the son of David, a claim that they did not accept. So, now that the Scene was set on their own ground and located during the time of Jesus’ greatest popularity, they placed traps for the Purpose of exposing his inadequate authority. They expected to make him lose face with his followers, thus vindicating their own authority. Their Agency is the difficult questions, ones which were unanswerable, or at least ones that required their kind of professional scholarship to answer. As the drama played out, however, it turned out to be a comedy. The initiative passed from the Pharisees to the Sadducees, to a lawyer (perhaps), and finally, to Jesus, who initiated the final exchange. In every case, he became the dominant character; his words left both his opponents and the crowd in wonder (22, 33), and finally he also left them silenced. Accordingly, Matthew shows us that the nature of the drama changed, and we must rename it.38 In the last part of the drama, then, the Agent now was Jesus. The Scene in which the drama was performed was one day of intense conflict in the last week of his life, at a time when he stood alone, but in the midst of observant crowds. The Agency was his own words by which he accomplished the Act of confirming his superior authority as a teacher. Consequently, the Purpose of this drama was to encourage the crowd, and his disciples (23:1) (and the reader) to conclude that Jesus was the teacher of truth and the

38. As far as I know, Ling first demonstrated that it is useful to describe a drama before and after an act of rhetorical intervention. David A. Ling, “A Pentadic Analysis of Senator Edward Kennedy’s Address to the People of Massachusetts, July 25, 1969,” CSSJ 21 (1970): 80–86.


167

Messiah of God. Taken as a self-contained unit, we may summarize this passage by calling it a drama of ironic vindication. Ian H. Henderson has pointed out that “rhetorical analysis is challenged by the nesting of narrative, dialogue and argument in each Gospel” (45). To meet this challenge, we need to take more than one viewpoint. First, we may view this section purely as a narrative, part of a longer story. In this case, its literary function is to prepare the reader for the appeals of Jesus’ opponents’ to Caesar. It also immediately prepares the reader for the succeeding sermon in which Jesus condemned the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy. The part of the text that we examined, though, may be viewed as a self-contained unit (as, for example, for homiletical or exegetical purposes). The critic sees this four-part episode as an argument to believers and inquirers that they should trust Jesus above other Jewish teachers, because he is wiser than they, he is authentic, and he is the Messiah. Viewed in this way, this section plays its own role in the whole gospel, contributing to its persuasive purpose.

7 Forged in the Fire A Study of the Generic Dynamics in the Acts of the Apostles DALE L. SULLIVAN

In this essay, I draw the conclusion that Acts is an example from antiquity of a dynamic, dialogic text addressing a perceived rhetorical exigence by stretching the boundaries of then-current genres. The original objectives of this study, however, were to explore how New Testament critics go about identifying genre and to respond to their work from the perspective of modern genre theory. To carry out these objectives, I restricted my focus to studies of Acts. Many critics treat Luke and Acts as a single unit, referring to it as LukeActs. In those cases, it was necessary to follow their lead, and so I occasionally refer to Luke-Acts as well as to Acts. Acts is one of the most fertile grounds for critical activity and literary analysis in the New Testament. W. C. Van Unnik claimed, “[I]n 1950 no one could have foretold that in the next decade LukeActs would become one of the great storm centers of New Testament scholarship.”1 When we survey literary criticism of Luke-Acts and of Acts in particular,2 we find a range of opinion regarding the document’s genre. Some discussions of genre are subordinated to the critics’ discussions about the historicity of Acts or to discussions

1. W. C. Van Unnik, “Luke-Acts, A Storm Center in Contemporary Scholarship,” in Studies in Luke-Acts (ed. Leander E. Keck and J. Louis Martyn; Nashville: Abingdon, 1966), 16. 2. Although now dated, Ward Gasque’s A History of the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1975) is a good source to check, if only to get an impression of how much critical attention has been paid to the book. Both Ernst Haenchen, in his The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (trans. Bernard Noble and Gerald Shinn; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971) and Van Unnik in “Luke-Acts, A Storm Center in Contemporary Scholarship” give histories of the criticism of Acts.

168

Forged in the Fire

169

of its purpose and audience. Others, which explore ancient parallels and theory, focus directly on the question of genre.

HISTORICITY AND THE GENRE OF ACTS Although it is beyond the scope of this essay to explore the question of Acts’ historicity fully,3 the issue affects genre criticism. It has been argued that modern critics’ opinions about the genre of Acts are often influenced by their presuppositions about the historicity of Acts. As Gregory E. Sterling puts it, “The legacy of this debate [early debates between Baur’s students and Ramsay and Harnack about the genre of Acts] on subsequent studies has been the tendency to assess the nature of Luke and Acts on the basis of their historical veracity, i.e., if they are judged accurate the works are history; if not, attacks on their historicity have become an argument for labeling them as something other than history.”4 Consider two critics who have characterized Acts as romance and who also seem to hold strong opinions about Acts being unreliable history. Erwin R. Goodenough avows that Acts is a “romance,” a “piece of deliberate propaganda.”5 He says, “The statements in Acts can very well be only a part of what seems increasingly to be the author’s creation of a largely fictional Paul.”6 He raises doubts about various attributions claimed by Luke in Acts, for example, that Paul was a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, that he was a trained rabbi, that he was born a Roman citizen.7 Goodenough finally concludes:

3. The most extensive discussion of the historicity of Acts, to my knowledge, is Colin J. Hemer’s The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990). He draws conservative conclusions, supporting an early date for Acts and its accuracy as a historical document. Gerd Lüdemann, in Early Christianity according to the Traditions of Acts (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 1–4, provides a concise history of New Testament critics’ positions during the nineteenth century. This brief summary describes the positions of Baur (in mid-nineteenth century) and his followers, leading to Harnack’s reaction (in the early twentieth century). He also alludes briefly to modern scholars and their alignment on the issue. 4. Gregory E. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephus, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), 2. 5. Erwin R. Goodenough, “The Perspective of Acts,” in Studies in Luke-Acts (ed. Leander E. Keck and J. Louis Martyn; Nashville: Abingdon, 1966), 57, 54. 6. Goodenough, “The Perspective of Acts,” 55. 7. Goodenough, “The Perspective of Acts,” 54–55.

170


My own guess . . . is that the author wrote Acts in the early sixties to assure Theophilus that, even though he might have heard disturbing rumors of Paul’s teaching, Paul was actually a very great man who preached and lived for what he, like the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, considered the childish milk of the gospel.8 Richard I. Pervo, another critic whose view of genre and his doubts about the historicity of Acts go hand in hand, sees Acts as popular literature, which may be compared favorably with ancient romantic novels.9 He emphasizes passages that describe adventures, arguing that the author uses the stories to make ideological points that portray the “triumph of a new religion over all opposition.” Like Goodenough, Pervo characterizes Acts as religious propaganda. Although he claims that structure, style, and content should be taken into account, he does not think of these as definitive markers of genre. After claiming Acts does not rise even to level of poor history, such as works Lucian condescended to ridicule, he draws several parallels between Acts and ancient romances, repeatedly arguing that the logic of the stories in Acts is deficient and claiming that the author takes great liberties in writing fiction.10 The following comments typify his critical stance: Presuming that Luke had a story about the Damascus episode, one can observe his use of sources here: turning that episode into a Jewish plot from which Paul cleverly escapes, he sends Paul on a trip to Jerusalem (a trip never made; Galatians 1–2) to meet with apostles (denied by Paul; Galatians 1–2), and cooks up yet another conspiracy, from which Paul is extricated

8. Goodenough, “The Perspective of Acts,” 58. 9. Richard I. Pervo, Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 13. Hans Conzelmann, in Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (trans. James Limburg, A. Thomas Kraabel, and Donald H. Juel; ed. Eldon Jay Epp with Christopher R. Matthews; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), who is not preoccupied with questions of historicity, entertains the notion that Acts contains features of the novel, such as dramatic episodes, but he finds this comparison “relatively unproductive,” claiming that it lacks adventures such as encounters with bandits that characterize the ancient novel (xli). Instead, he says, “The best way to characterize the book as a whole is with the common designation ‘historical monograph’ ” (xl). 10. Pervo, Profit with Delight, 6–8, 22–27.

Forged in the Fire

171

by being whisked off to Tarsus, where he will apparently sit on the shelf until fetched by Barnabas (of Jerusalem).11 Although the arguments advanced by Goodenough and Pervo are not uncommon, these critics’ focus on historical inconsistencies and absurdities lends support to Sterling’s claim that some critics’ position on historicity strongly influences their critical gaze with regard to genre. This observation is true of those who believe strongly that Luke is a reliable historical witness as well: such critics are not likely to characterize Acts as a fictional romance. Take, for instance, John R. W. Stott’s position in The Message of Acts. Stott unequivocally defends the historicity of Acts, pointing to accuracy of detail indicative of eyewitness accounts, and concluding, “We have good reasons . . . to have confidence in Luke’s claim to be writing history, and professional historians and archaeologists have been among the most doughty defenders of this reliability.”12 Given this conviction, it isn’t surprising that he classifies Acts as history and as political apologetic.13 He believes that because Luke was concerned about the attitude of Roman authorities toward Christianity, he assumed the role of a diplomat and wrote political apologetic, showing that Christianity was harmless, innocent, and lawful.14 It seems that Stott’s beliefs about the historicity of Acts limit the number of genre categories that he is willing to consider. Similarly, David J. Williams approaches Acts with a strong belief in its historicity, announcing, “Acts is the only authentic record we have of the first years of the church’s history.”15 After arguing that many of the details alluded to by Luke have been authenticated, he draws this conclusion: “[I]f we can trust the author for the details, then surely we can trust him for the broad sweep of his story.”16 Williams acknowledges that Luke is no “mere chronicler”; rather, he writes with polemic and didactic purposes in mind, namely, to show that “It was the Jews, not the Christians—his readers—

11. Pervo, Profit with Delight, 31. 12. John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts: The Spirit, the Church & the World (The Bible Speaks Today Series; Leicester: InterVarsity, 1990), 25. 13. Stott, Message of Acts, 25–26. 14. Stott, Message of Acts, 27. 15. David J. Williams, New International Biblical Commentary: Acts (New Testament Series. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1990), 1. 16. Williams, Acts, 8.

172


who were the apostates and heretics.”17 Nevertheless, despite these didactic purposes, Williams classifies Acts as reliable history, for the author “wanted to write history, but history that had a message for his contemporaries.”18 Even among critics who seem less preoccupied with historicity, we see that views about the historicity of Acts nevertheless influence judgments about purpose and ultimately genre. Martin Hengel, for example, argues that early Christian documents correspond more closely to Jewish literature than to pagan Greek literature. Jewish literature, he says, can be divided into “reportive, instructional, and apocalyptic writings,”19 and it seems that he thinks of Acts as reportive. He defends Acts against accusations that it contains no reliable information on Paul and goes on to say, “Acts represents the most important source for the history of Judaism between Herod and a.d. 70.”20 He buttresses his claim by remarking on the value to historians of Luke’s portrayal of synagogue worship, of the relationship of Jewish sects to one another, of the relationship of God-fearers to the synagogue, and of Paul’s provincial Roman trial and concludes, “In my opinion, the vivid portrayal of these events is to be traced back to the eyewitness of Luke, for they contain too many precise, realistic details to have come from the pen of a selfindulgent novelist.”21 Contrariwise, C. K. Barrett admits that he “cannot follow the now fashionable tendency to defend the historicity of Acts by questioning the veracity of Paul.”22 Characterizing Acts as a narrative reconstructed from earlier sources with the aid of a few guesses, Barrett believes that early divisions in the church, especially those between Paul, Peter, and James, were not as insignificant as they appear in the book of Acts.23 He attempts to reconstruct these divisions by relying on Paul’s letters, and concludes that the writer of Acts rec-

17. Williams, Acts, 16. 18. Ibid. 19. Martin Hengel, “Early Christianity as a Jewish-Messianic, Universalistic Movement,” in Martin Hengel and C. K. Barrett, Conflicts and Challenges in Early Christianity (ed. Donald A. Hagner; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), 15. 20. Hengel, “Early Christianity,” 28. 21. Hengel, “Early Christianity,” 30. 22. C. K. Barrett, “Paul: Councils and Controversies,” in Conflicts and Challenges in Early Christianity, 57. 23. Barrett, “Paul: Councils and Controversies,” 57, 59.

Forged in the Fire

173

onciled relationships among the pillars of the apostolic church in order to reconcile postapostolic factions that descended from them. Martin Dibelius, a third critic whose moderate views about historicity affect his views about genre, is a precursor to Pervo and Barrett in his beliefs that Luke was primarily a redactor, who pulled together several sources and took some liberties with them in order to create his own account. As we read Acts, he says, “we become easily convinced that here Luke has not only fitted together, joined and framed fragments of tradition, as in a mosaic, but that in Acts there is a greater depth of original composition [than in Luke].”24 He suggests that several of the episodes in Acts—such as the raising of Tabitha, Cornelius’s conversion, the conversion of the eunuch, the revival of Eutychus, Peter’s release from prison—are legends or tales that may have been shaped by exaggeration before Luke wove them together. Nevertheless, Dibelius disavows any intention to focus on the question of historicity—”I have intentionally not considered whether all these stories are authentic or not; for, in placing the stories according to the different types, namely ‘legend,’ ‘tale,’ or ‘anecdote,’ we are assessing only the story-teller’s method of writing and not the authenticity of what he relates . . . historical reliability varies in the different sections [of Acts].”25

PURPOSE, AUDIENCE, AND GENRE Another way to view discussions of genre is to see them in the context of the critic’s attempt to explain the document’s intended purpose and audience. All of the critics discussed above, who disagree about the historicity of Acts, agree on one thing: Acts has a rhetorical purpose beyond merely chronicling events. Whether the critic thinks of that purpose as reportive, reconciliatory, propagandistic, apologetic, or didactic depends to some degree on the critic’s guess about the intended audience. Whereas Barrett, Williams, Pervo, and Goodenough imagine the readers to be Christians in need of edification or reconciliation, Stott argues that Theophilus, who is named in the first verse of Acts as the addressee, may in fact be a Roman official.26

24. Martin Dibelius, Studies in Acts of the Apostles (ed. Heinrich Greeven; trans. Mary Ling; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1956), 2. 25. Dibelius, Studies in the Acts, 25. 26. Stott, Message of Acts, 26.

174


The critics discussed in the following paragraphs emphasize the author’s purpose first and pay secondary attention to the situation, reader, and genre. Ernst Haenchen, for example, says, “I came quite independently to the question what the author of Acts had wanted to say to his readers through the varied scenes of his book, and I sought myself to become his reader.”27 This statement seems to promise that Haenchen intends to emphasize authorial purpose and reader experience equally, but as his discussion unfolds, it is couched in the language of the writer’s purpose rather than in that of the reader’s experience. He characterizes the writer of Acts as both a historian and a writer of dramatic narrative. Conjecturing that Acts was written after the apostolic age and during a time when the church faced challenges posed by various heresies, Haenchen argues that Luke wrote a two-volume work of history in an attempt to clarify theological questions associated with the status of Gentiles and their relationship to the Law. Although Luke depicts primitive Christianity as astonishingly simple and uniform, free of heretical challenge, he was not arguing theology in a polemic treatise.28 He was writing a work that would edify the church, and so, according to Haenchen, he offered “his readers history in the guise of stories.”29 Lest we judge the historian by our own standards of accuracy, we should grant Luke license to define his own mission: “For him, a narration should not describe an event with the precision of a police-report, but must make the listener or reader aware of the inner significance of what happened, and impress upon him, unforgettably, the truth of the power of God made manifest in it.”30 Among others who approach genre through purpose, Robert Maddox suggests that Luke and Acts should be seen as sharing a common purpose: to answer theological questions such as “Who are the Christians? Where do they come from, historically and culturally speaking? What is their vocation? What justification do they have for their existence as a self-conscious, distinctive group?”31 Maddox believes Luke wrote for an audience internal to the church.32 Having explored Luke’s purpose and audience, Mad27. Ernst Haenchen, Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (trans. Bernard Noble and Gerald Shinn; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), vii. 28. Haenchen, Acts, 99. 29. Haenchen, Acts, 103. 30. Haenchen, Acts, 110. 31. Robert Maddox, The Purpose of Luke-Acts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982) 2, 6. 32. Maddox, Purpose of Luke-Acts, 15.

Forged in the Fire

175

dox then comes to the question of genre and concludes, “Luke is an historian, but he is at the same time a theologian: he uses history to express his theology. Perhaps we might designate the genre of Luke-Acts as ‘theological history.’ ”33 Like Maddox, Henry J. Cadbury, a relatively early critic of Acts, discusses the motives of the author of Luke-Acts before he visits the question of genre. He believes the author chose to pass on the material he had collected, primarily because the material was intrinsically interesting, secondarily, because of religious and specifically Christian interest in the divine control of history, and, finally, because of pragmatic and formal interests of the church in documenting its roots and justifying its practices.34 After discussing motives, he moves on to “forms of transmission,” a chapter in which he takes up preliminary questions of genre. He notes that Luke-Acts is a collection of narratives, sayings, and proof texts from the Old Testament.35 About Acts, in particular, he says, “The Book of Acts has its rounded episodes, collected often quite miscellaneously into groups and bound together by mortising the joints or by utilizing summaries as both conjunctive and disjunctive interludes,” but he adds that it is not merely a collection but is patterned after “a continuous geographical outline,”36 or travel narrative. However, Cadbury pursues the question of genre further in a subsequent chapter, where he discusses the significance of the words narrative, praxis, and logos, ultimately reaching the conclusion that Luke-Acts is history, though popular history rather than technical history.37 All of the critics thus far alluded to characterize Luke’s account in Acts as going beyond being a mere chronicle. It is possible, however, to view Acts as a chronicle, if we adopt a flexible definition for the word chronicle,38 and to still maintain that Luke was pursuing a rhetorical purpose. Such is the position of Colin J. Hemer,

33. Maddox, Purpose of Luke-Acts, 16. 34. Henry J. Cadbury, The Making of Luke-Acts (New York: Macmillan, 1927), 34, 37. 35. Cadbury, Making of Luke-Acts, 56. 36. Cadbury, Making of Luke-Acts, 59, 60. 37. Cadbury, Making of Luke-Acts, 132–34. 38. It is normally the case that we think of a chronicle as a list of important people or events in a year. See Dave E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Library of Early Christianity Series; ed. Wayne A. Meeks; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), 85. However, Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (ed. Conrad H. Gempf; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990)

176


who acknowledges that Luke had a Christocentric base and theological purpose, which the Greek historians did not have.39 But Hemer does not think that Luke reinterpreted his sources to make them conform to his Christocentrism. Instead, he claims that Luke believed chronicling what “really happened” would support the proclamation that divine events are “rooted in a matter-of-fact reality which the reader can know to be true.”40 That this chronicle of what really happened poses difficulty for the modern mind because it includes accounts of miracles may lead us to treat the text with “measured reserve,” but it does not mean that Acts should be considered fictional, for the inclusion of miracles is “integral to Luke’s God-centered world and significant within it.”41 Although some discussions of purpose, as in the case of Hemer’s comments just mentioned, do not require that we describe the historical circumstances of composition, for some critics the dating of Acts is the hinge pin on which judgments about authorial purpose and audience reaction turn. There is no consensus on the date of Acts’ composition. A few critics, such as Harnack, Hemer, and Goodenough, date Acts in the early 60s, shortly after Paul’s arrival in Rome under house arrest; others, such as Haenchen and Conzelmann, date it as postapostolic but prior to the turn of the century. Still others, such as O’Neill date it some time in the second century. I will summarize the arguments of two critics for whom the dating of Acts plays a primary purpose in identifying its genre. Philip Francis Esler’s reading of Acts is heavily dependent on its date, because he seeks a date that matches the conditions implied by Acts. Instead of thinking of Acts as written to the whole church, he believes it was written to a local church. He points to Luke’s use of the “flock” metaphor and compares it to Paul’s use of the same metaphor in the farewell speech to the elders of Ephesus (Acts 20): “This repeated use of the flock image suggests that Luke found it appropriate to the circumstances of his own readers. . . . They too were members of a small Christian community beset by difficulties from within and without.”42 Also, based on internal evidence in uses the word to mean a historical account that follows a chronological pattern and does not embellish. 39. Hemer, Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, 84. 40. Hemer, Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, 85. 41. Ibid. 42. Philip Francis Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts: The Social and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 26.

Forged in the Fire

177

Acts, Esler believes that this local church had encountered severe opposition from Jewish authorities, so he concludes, “This suggests a time, perhaps as early as the eighties of the first century, after the rabbis had organized themselves at Jamnia and had begun tightening up on Christians in the synagogues and even excluding them altogether.”43 He further speculates about the makeup of this local church, which, he suggests, was made up of a mixture of Jews and Gentiles, but the Gentiles in the church must have been associated with the synagogue prior to their conversion to Christianity.44 Having been ostracized from the synagogue and facing pressure to abandon Christianity, members of this local church needed “considerable reassurance that their decision to convert . . . had been the correct one. One of the aims Luke had was to provide such reassurance.”45 All of these parameters are set by Esler’s speculation about Luke’s purpose—to reassure the local church—and by his identification of genre. Esler draws on modern sociological theory, especially the concept of legitimation as developed by Berger and Luckmann, to explain Acts. Although Esler does not nominalize legitimation (he doesn’t actually refer to legitimation as a genre), his characterization of Acts suggests that it is a rhetorical legitimation, an explanation for practices and beliefs within an institution.46 It is part of a revitalization process that provides meaning for participants in the institution by weaving the history of the institution with the biography of its individual members.47 In short, a rhetorical legitimation provides a symbolic universe in which “the members of the institution have an experience of everything being in its right place and also of the various phases of their biography as ordered; as they look back into their past or forward into the future, they conceive of their life unfolding within a universe whose ultimate coordinates are known.”48 Another critic whose discussion of the genre of Acts is heavily dependent on dating is J. C. O’Neill. For O’Neill, the telltale passage in Acts is Luke’s account of Paul’s speech in Athens. This account places Paul in the center of the Hellenistic world of philosophy and

43. Esler, Community and Gospel, 29. 44. Esler, Community and Gospel, 31. 45. Esler, Community and Gospel, 45. 46. Esler, Community and Gospel, 16–17. 47. Esler, Community and Gospel, 18. 48. Ibid.

178


portrays Paul as the great Christian missionary preaching a sermon that draws on philosophical suppositions of his audience. Luke’s intention in rehearsing this encounter is the same as his intention for writing the whole book, namely, “to convert the educated reader who might pick up this book and read this passage.”49 Clearly, then, Luke is marked as a man of his time: “He belongs to the age of the Apologists, and this is one more indication that he lived in the second century rather than in the first.”50 These statements are the culmination of an extensive argument in which O’Neill claims that Acts is an apologia for the faith which relies on strategies of Hellenistic Jewish apologists such as Philo and Josephus.51 This kind of writing, he claims, is mission literature designed to convert hearers to the one true God through the method of appealing to philosophical notions accepted by the Greeks, so that they might be led to the truth by their own presuppositions.52 Because Luke relies on Philo and Josephus for the pattern of his apologetic writing and because of the political climate O’Neill believes to be addressed by the text, it is necessary to date Acts roughly congruent with Justin Martyr. Many, as we have just seen, discuss genre in the context of the author’s purpose and audience. Charles H. Talbert, however, approaches his analysis of Acts and its genre in terms of the reader’s or auditor’s experience. Talbert asks two questions: how would an auditor have heard Acts in its precanonical context? How would an auditor have heard it in its canonical context?53 He suggests that auditors who heard Luke-Acts read out loud as a single unit prior to the canon being established would have heard it as a narrative of fulfillment in which the church is depicted as a Jewish philosophical school.54 Such philosophical schools reinforced their identity through succession narratives, consisting of lives or bioi.55 These became foundation documents for a community and expressed the values of the group. Therefore, in its precanonical context, Acts would have been heard as a “succession narrative” that legitimizes a philosophical school. Given its focus on the development of the 49. J. C. O’Neill, The Theology of Acts in Its Historical Setting (2d ed.; London: SPCK, 1970), 171. 50. O’Neill, Theology of Acts, 170. 51. O’Neill, Theology of Acts, 140. 52. O’Neill, Theology of Acts, 150. 53. Charles H. Talbert, Reading Acts: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 2. 54. Talbert, Reading Acts, 3–5. 55. Talbert, Reading Acts, 7.

Forged in the Fire

179

church, Acts should be seen as “narrative theology,” not as an occasional document.56 Once Acts had found its place in the canon, separated from Luke, how would it have been heard? Talbert rejects the claim that it would have been heard as a historical monograph or as a romance; rather, it would have been read as a biography, a bios of a people, the church: “Acts would have been heard to describe the character or essence of Jesus’ disciples as a distinctive people after the resurrection/ascension.”57 It also would have been read as a “narrative setting for the apostolic writings that follow.”58 Having described the auditor’s or reader’s likely identification of Acts, Talbert goes on to explain that Acts would “function as a legitimation device for the truth of Christianity.”59 It is important to notice that Talbert’s use the word legitimation does not agree with Esler’s. For Esler, legitimation is the justification of practices for an audience of insiders; for Talbert, however, it refers to the establishment of social status for the church within the larger society.

ANCIENT PARALLELS, THEORY, AND GENRE As we can see from the foregoing survey, it is possible to see many discussions of the genre of Acts as being subordinated to discussions of the historicity of Acts or to discussions of the author’s purpose, the date of composition, or the intended audience. Other discussions of Acts consider the question of genre as the primary question. When this is the case, critics draw their conclusions about genre by matching formal and thematic characteristics of Acts with ancient documents or by applying ancient theoretical discussions about the nature of certain kinds of writing to Acts. David E. Aune

56. Talbert, Reading Acts, 13. 57. Talbert, Reading Acts, 14. 58. Ibid. John A. Darr, On Character Building: The Reader and the Rhetoric of Characterization in Luke-Acts (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), another critic who focuses on readers’ reaction, claims to use a reader-response model attuned to first-century culture. His main purpose is not to identify genre; indeed, he uncritically cites Pervo’s claim that Luke-Acts is a romance written for the lower-to-middle classes as a way to complete his depiction of the reader (Profit with Delight, 27). Darr’s primary purpose is to explore the author’s creation of character in Luke-Acts and to explain how readers would identify with or dissociate from such characters. 59. Talbert, Reading Acts, 16.

180


is representative of this approach. In his The New Testament in Its Literary Environment, he devotes two chapters to discussion of the genre of Luke-Acts. He summarizes both Charles Talbert’s reading of Acts as a succession narrative and Richard Pervo’s reading of Acts as a novel, rejecting both as unsatisfactory: Talbert’s because it discusses only one other succession narrative (by Diogenes Laertius) and does so inaccurately; Pervo’s because it exaggerates the fictional qualities of Acts.60 In order to find a more satisfactory genre identification, Aune explores the connection between history writing and rhetoric in antiquity, cataloguing various types of history, such as mythography, travel descriptions, local histories, chronographies, historical monographs, general histories, and antiquarian histories. In his opinion, the best match is a general history: he claims “Luke-Acts is a popular ‘general history’ written by an amateur Hellenistic historian with credentials in Greek rhetoric.”61 He then discusses constituent literary forms embedded in Luke-Acts, showing that Luke’s insertion of historical prefaces, genealogies, symposia, travel narratives, speeches, letters, dramatic episodes, digressions, and summaries is consistent with Greco-Roman histories.62 Such systematic comparison of Acts with ancient parallels does not guarantee consensus on the part of critics, however. Drawing on Polybius’s discussion of the difference between universal histories and monographs, on Sallust’s and Cicero’s comments on writing history, and on Hellenistic Jewish historiography such as the Maccabees, Darryl W. Palmer draws the conclusion that Acts should be designated a historical monograph. After summarizing theories advanced by Aune and Pervo, among others, he systematically considers possible matches with ancient genres, finally concluding as follows: The Acts of the Apostles consists of a single volume of moderate length. It covers a limited historical period of some thirty years. Its geographical scope is not universal, but restricted by its theme. There is a consistent focus. . . . The literary components of Acts include a prologue, narrative, speeches and quoted letters . . . the combination of length, scope, focus and 60. Aune, Literary Environment, 78–80. 61. Aune, Literary Environment, 77. 62. Aune, Literary Environment, 120.

Forged in the Fire

181

internal literary features indicates that Acts deserves consideration as a short historical monograph.63 Still other critics perform an admirable balancing act, attempting to draw conclusions about genre based on several criteria. Sterling explains that genre theories have traditionally been built around the author, the text, or the readers. Each of these approaches is problematic, he says. If we focus on the author, we fall into the intentional fallacy; if we focus on the text, we may be misled because texts with similar structural features can serve different functions; and if we focus on the reader, we have no assurance that we can determine the reader’s expectations.64 He opts for an approach that involves analyzing content, form, and function, but his primary approach is to look for ancient parallels and to describe the evolution of a genre. Even though he acknowledges the dangers of forcing “pliant” texts into the researcher’s schema and of failing to recognize the presence of mixed forms, he identifies Luke-Acts as “apologetic historiography.”65 Sterling claims that there is a “group of texts which all told the story of a particular group of people . . . by recasting native texts into a mold more palatable in the Greco-Roman world. . . .” The author’s purpose in each case was to “relate her/his group to the larger world” and to provide an identity for the group by recasting it as a subgroup within a larger body.66 The rhetorical exigence for this process of self-definition was dissatisfaction with the way Greco-Roman culture represented the group. Thus, Sterling believes apologetic historiography arose as a response to Greek ethnography.67 Just as Josephus presented a positive image of the Jews in his Antiquitates Judaicae so the writer of Luke-Acts, a thirdgeneration Christian, presents a positive image of Christianity for the larger culture.68 He summarizes his conclusions:

63. Darryl W. Palmer, “Acts and the Ancient Historical Monograph,” in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting. Volume 1: Ancient Literary Setting (ed. Bruce W. Winter and Andrew D. Clarke; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 28–29. 64. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition,13. 65. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition, 14–15. 66. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition, 17. 67. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition, 18. 68. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition, 19.

182


Luke-Acts defines Christianity both internally and externally. The two are related by the recognition that Christianity is a movement in history. It must understand both itself and the world in which it exists. It was essential therefore to define Christianity in terms of Rome (politically innocent), Judaism (a continuation), and itself (traditio apostolica).69 At the risk of extending this literature survey too far, I venture to include one more critic who comes to the question of genre by looking for parallels. L. C. A. Alexander is known for having made much of the Lukan preface. In “Acts and Ancient Intellectual Biography,” Alexander summarizes her earlier work on this topic, claiming that the preface would “lead the ancient reader to expect, not a work of historiography in the classic mould of Thucydides, Polybius or Josephus, but a technical treatise emanating (at whatever remove) from some kind of ‘school’ setting.”70 In the present article, however, she pursues another parallel. She admits to being attracted by Talbert’s theory that Luke-Acts is a species of intellectual biography, a succession narrative, patterned on Diogenes Laertius’s sources. Nevertheless, after surveying the topics and narrative mode of Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philosophers, she finds the match to be weak and suggests instead that the author of Luke-Acts was following “the hugely—perhaps uniquely—influential paradigm of Socrates.”71 The episodes of his life, she claims, provide a template for describing the lives of others, and so she investigates such episodes and draws parallels with Acts. Socrates and Paul both experienced divine calls; both were given a mission; both claimed divine guidance for their work; both encountered tribulations, persecutions, trials, imprisonment; and both died a noble death.72 Despite these parallels, however, Alexander warns us that this pattern does not exist in any known biography of Socrates: “It is not a ‘genre’ or a ‘literary model’ so much as a narrative pattern familiar to a wide range of writers in the first century a.d.”73 69. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition, 386. 70. L. C. A. Alexander, “Acts and Ancient Intellectual Biography” in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting. Volume 1: Ancient Literary Setting. (ed. Bruce W. Winter and Andrew D. Clarke; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 39. 71. Alexander, “Acts and Ancient Intellectual Biography,” 57. 72. Alexander, “Acts and Ancient Intellectual Biography,” 58–63. 73. Alexander, “Acts and Ancient Intellectual Biography,” 63.

Forged in the Fire

183

Having now surveyed the way New Testament scholars approach the topic of genre in relationship to Acts or Luke-Acts, I turn to modern genre theory as it has developed among rhetoricians and use that theory to comment on the literature I have just reviewed. The literature survey has shown that the question of genre is often yoked with other considerations, such as the question of the historicity; conjecture about the author’s purpose, the audience’s expectations, and the date of composition; and recovery of ancient genre descriptions and comparable documents. These approaches emphasize literary, social, and formalist aspects of genre respectively. Modern genre theory helps us understand the tendencies of these approaches. Literary and formalist approaches to genre criticism tend to be more conservative than social approaches because they measure the text being studied by gauging its participation in the genre.74 Jackson Harrell and Wil A. Linkugel describe this approach, explaining that the first step in this critical process is generic description, a process in which “motivational precedents” and generic characteristics are identified and mapped. The second step is generic participation, a process of determining in which genre, and to what degree, the text or performance being analyzed participates. The third is generic application, the process of using standards derived from description to criticize specific performances.75 Looking back on the review of literature, we can see that critics recognize Luke-Acts as participating in several genres, which can be mapped onto a diagram consisting of four axes: (1) the romance-

74. When I use conservative and less conservative, I am not referring to traditional theological categories. Rather, I am referring to approaches in rhetorical criticism. Rhetorical criticism eventually moves to evaluation of the rhetorical performance. Since the literary/formalist approach looks back to existing standards, it is less tolerant of innovation. Conversely, the situational approach emphasizes adaptation and tends to prize innovation more highly than adherence to existing standards. Nevertheless, historically among New Testament critics, liberal views of the historicity of Acts have been aligned with critical perspectives that emphasize situation and purpose, a form of criticism Lüdemann refers to as “tendency criticism” (1). According to Lüdemann, Baur believed the writer of Acts was attempting to reconcile warring parties of Paulinists and Judaists (a position adopted recently by Barrett), and Overbeck believed its purpose was to help Christians come to terms with its past, even to argue with its own origin (2). Baur and Overbeck used tendency criticism to speculate about the purpose of Acts and drew conclusions that it should not be thought of as reliable history. 75. Jackson Harrell and Wil A. Linkugel, “On Rhetorical Genre: An Organizing Perspective,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 11, no. 4 (1978) 274–76.

184


history axis, (2) the individual biography-group bios axis, (3) the internal audience–external audience axis, and (4) the apologiaedification axis. Group Bios Internal Audience

Apologia

Romance

History

Edification

External Audience Individual Biography

Genre Map of Luke-Acts along Four Axes

For instance, on the biography axis, Talbert and Sterling describe Acts as a group bios, whereas Goodenough and Alexander describe it as an individual biography. Along the audience axis, Barrett and Esler think of Acts as directed toward an internal audience, whereas Stott and O’Neill postulate an external audience. Along the apologiaedification axis, Barrett and Esler see Acts as an attempt to edify the church or to effect reconciliation within the church, whereas O’Neill and Sterling see it as an apologia that builds up the image of the church for an external audience. Along the romance-history axis, Pervo and Dibelius suggest that Acts is romance, whereas Aune, Williams, and Conzelmann come to the conclusion that it is history of some kind. The majority of the critics surveyed in this chapter identify Acts as history, but they suggest many possible types of history: Aune says it is general history; Maddox that it is theological history; Palmer that it is a historical monograph. So then, using literary and formalist categories, speculations about which genre Luke-Acts participates in produces the cluster of generic features described above, suggesting that Acts is what Sterling calls a “mixed form” and what Karlyn Kohrs Campbell

Forged in the Fire

185

and Kathleen Hall Jamieson refer to as a hybrid. As Campbell and Jamieson explain, “a genre is a constellation of elements.”76 Using social approaches to identify genre tends to produce more liberal understandings than those produced through formalistic approaches.77 Those who use this approach would acknowledge that a specific rhetorical performance or text participates in existing generic categories; nevertheless, their primary concern is to describe how it addresses the exigence of the historical situation. As Jamieson and Campbell put it, “Genres are not only dynamic responses to circumstances; each is a dynamis—a potential fusion of elements that may be energized or actualized as a strategic response to a situation.”78 Thus, the mixed-form phenomenon represented by the cluster of generic participations may simply be seen as an expected state of a rhetorical response to a historical exigence. As Carol Berkenkotter and Thomas Huckin explain, genres are “inherently dynamic rhetorical structures that can be manipulated according to the conditions of use.”79 Theory supporting social approaches to genre has developed over the last third of the twentieth century, having evolved out of the confluence of several streams of intellectual thought. As we follow its development, we encounter discussions of genres as responses to situations, of genres as rule-governed ways of interacting in social institutions, and of genres as dialogic intertextual responses. In each of these discussions, the central question is not about the formalistic features of genres but rather about how peo76. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, “Form and Genre in Rhetorical Criticism: An Introduction,” in Form and Genre: Shaping Rhetorical Action (ed. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson; Falls Church, VA: Speech Communication Association, 1978), 15, 21. 77. Despite the typically conservative conclusions that come from formalistic and literary analyses, Richard Baukham’s study Acts of Paul (ed. Bruce W. Winter and Andrew D. Clarke; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993, 105–52) represents an approach in which studying the formal characteristics of a text can lead to the conclusion that the text is an example of a newly evolved genre. He characterizes the Acts of Paul as a sequel to Acts consisting of elements of travel narrative, elements of “rewritten Bible,” and elements of novelistic biography. These “generic precedents” have been combined in the Acts of Paul producing a “new genre or subgenre” (149–50). 78. Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, “Rhetorical Hybrids: Fusions of Generic Elements,” QJS 68 (1982): 146. 79. Carol Berkenkotter and Thomas N. Huckin, Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication: Cognition/Culture/Power (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995), 3.

186


ple enact, reproduce, and modify existing genres in their attempts to meet the needs posed by a rhetorical exigence. Classical rhetorical theory recognized that rhetorical genres are situational. Aristotle, for instance, claimed that rhetoric consisted of three genres: deliberative rhetoric attempted to determine the expedient course of action and was practiced in the assembly; forensic rhetoric occurred during trials and sought to determine whether or not something occurred in the past, whether or not it was just, and what should be done to recompense the injustices; epideictic rhetoric was practiced at public events and magnified the virtues of those being praised (Rhet. 1358b). In modern rhetorical theory, however, the view that genres are situational is founded on Lloyd Bitzer’s “The Rhetorical Situation.” In that essay, Bitzer claims that “rhetorical discourse comes into existence as a response to a situation,” and that “discourse is rhetorical insofar as it functions (or seeks to function) as a fitting response to a situation which needs and invites it.”80 Harrell and Linkugel apply Bitzer’s observation to genre theory, claiming “certain situational patterns tend to engender relatively limited types of rhetorical responses.”81 They are very clear in describing the relationship between situations and genres: “We think that rhetorical genres stem from organizing principles found in recurring situations that generate discourse characterized by a family of common factors” (emphasis in original).82 Both of these discussions of the relationship between situation and genre are scenic in nature, to use Burkean categories, because they depict the genres as grounded in situations. Carolyn R. Miller modifies these observations by emphasizing genres as “typified rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations” (emphasis added).83 This slight alteration (substituting the word “action” for “response”) is a significant addition to our understanding of a genre’s function as an agency available to a rhetorical agent. Whereas Bitzer’s original formulation described the exigence as objective—with the result that the response was constrained by the situation—Miller characterizes the exigence as socially constructed and genres as mediators

80. Lloyd F. Bitzer, “The Rhetorical Situation,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 5–6. 81. Jackson Harrell and Wil A. Linkugel, “On Rhetorical Genre: An Organizing Perspective,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 11 (1978): 264. 82. Harrell and Linkugel, “On Rhetorical Genre,” 263–64. 83. Carolyn R. Miller, “Genre as Social Action,” QJS 70 (1984): 159.

Forged in the Fire

187

between private perception and public expression, between the singular occurrence and recurrent situations.84 A second emphasis in modern genre theory that emphasizes social rather than formal characteristics has to do with the relationship of genres to communities. For instance, Carolyn Miller, in a later paper, used Giddens’s structuration theory to elaborate her views. Her new analysis of genre involves placing more emphasis on genres as possessions of communities rather than of individuals.85 Because genres belong to communities, individuals are constrained by existing structures. Therefore, she acknowledges that, although structure “is a constituent aspect of action,” nevertheless, “action is primary.”86 Given her appropriation of structuration theory, Miller now offers an elaborated definition of genre as “that aspect of situated communication that is capable of reproduction, that can be manifested in more than one situation, more than one concrete space-time” (emphasis in original).87 Structuration theory has been useful in helping us understand genres as rule-governed, community-owned means of communication, but it has also helped us understand genres as dynamic and malleable means of communication. Joanne Yates and Wanda Orlicowski, who also employ structuration theory to discuss the way genres facilitate work in organizational settings, describe the process of genre reproduction. They begin by summarizing Giddens’s view of structuration as the “ongoing interaction between individuals and institutions” mediated by social rules.88 As people interact with one another in discursive activity, they draw on genre rules to produce discourse, thereby reproducing genres over time.89 However, people “enact” genres with varying degrees of adherence to the rules. When they use genres without significant alteration, they maintain the genre, but when they adapt the genre slightly, they “elaborate” the existing genre. In some cases people consistently transgress genre rules and thereby “modify” existing

84. Miller, “Genre as Social Action,” 157, 163. 85. Carolyn R. Miller, “The Cultural Basis of Genre,” in Genre and the New Rhetoric (ed. Aviva Freedman and Peter Medway; London: Taylor & Francis, 1994), 72. 86. Ibid. 87. Miller, “The Cultural Basis of Genre,” 71. 88. Joanne Yates and Wanda J. Orlikowski, “Genres of Organizational Communication: A Structurational Approach to Study Communication and Media,” Academy of Management Review 17 (1992): 299. 89. Yates and Orlikowski, “Genres of Organizational Communication,” 302.

188


structures.90 Similarly Charles Briggs and Richard Bauman explain change within generic categories. By choosing to use a particular genre, a writer implicitly claims authority to “decontextualize discourse that bears . . . historical and social connections and to recontextualize it in the current discursive setting.”91 However, genres leak—they do not fit each new rhetorical situation adequately; the result is an “intertextual gap.”92 Therefore, using an existing genre entails making certain features more explicit and playing down others. Such appropriation of genres amounts to a reconstruction of the genre.93 Although genres are malleable and in the process of change, they are, nonetheless, recognizable structures. As one critic puts it, genres are “stabilized-for-now or stabilized-enough sites of social and ideological action.”94 The third major emphasis in modern genre theory based in a social perspective is the analysis of the relationship of a generic response to dialogue and to other texts. Discussion of genre in terms of dialogic intertextuality springs from Mikhail Bakhtin’s attempt to move linguistic study away from focusing on a language system as a “grammatical phenomenon” to focusing on the way people use language in dialogue.95 The major conceptual shift involved in his work, then, was to redefine the context in which a unit of language is to be perceived. Instead of seeing a word contextualized within a sentence and a sentence within a paragraph, he suggested the basic unit of language is the utterance, the boundaries of which are determined by a change in speaking subjects.96 Each utterance is responsive to the utterances of others and anticipates rejoinders. To enter dialogue, however, one not only needs to respond to previous utterances and to anticipate future responses, one also has to participate in accepted communication practices, and so, Bakhtin says, “We speak only in definite speech genres, that is, all our utterances have definite and relatively stable typical forms of construction

90. Yates and Orlikowski, “Genres of Organizational Communication,” 306. 91. Charles L. Briggs and Richard Bauman, “Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power,” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2 (1992): 148. 92. Briggs and Bauman, “Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power,” 149. 93. Briggs and Bauman, “Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power,” 148. 94. Catherine. F. Schryer, “The Lab vs. the Clinic: Sites of Competing Genres,” in Genre and the New Rhetoric (ed. Aviva Freedman and Peter Medway; London: Taylor & Francis, 1994), 108. 95. M. M. Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986), 66. 96. Bakhtin, Speech Genres, 71, 73–74.

Forged in the Fire

189

of the whole” (emphasis in original).97 Some speech genres are simple; others complex.98 Simple speech genres are usually oral and brief. Complex genres are usually written and longer (he refers to them as “works”).99 Because complex genres embed simple genres and because they respond to previous discourse and anticipate future response, they are ideological and intertextual in nature.100 According to Julia Kristeva’s reading of Bakhtin, a text is “an absorption of and a reply to another text.”101 However, the absorption of others’ words may challenge the past, especially when the words of others are recontextualized and given new meaning.102 So then, from a social perspective, genres are typified responses to rhetorical situations; they are reproducible, rule-governed forms of discourse belonging to communities; they are agencies that enable the rhetor to take social action; they are evolving, yet relatively stable, discursive structures; and they are instruments that enable dialogic exchange, sometimes in brief exchanges, sometimes in complex ideological works that embed smaller structures. In all of these respects, we imagine a speaker or writer faced by an exigence attempting to find an appropriate and timely way to speak to the exigence within a community of discourse. If we consider New Testament critics’ discussion of genre and Acts, do we see studies informed by these developments in modern genre theory? Not directly—that is, we do not find these theorists cited; nevertheless, many of the same concepts have emerged among New Testament critics. For instance, Sterling’s theory that Greek ethnography evolved into apologetic literature of the type represented by Luke-Acts is consistent with theory that emphasizes the dialogic, intertextual, and evolving nature of genres. According to Sterling, there were conservative forces that constrained the evolutionary process: Greek ethnography served as a model by defining content (the story of a people) and purpose (to define a people). There were also dialogic factors that led to change: apologetic literature “arose as a reaction to Greek ethnography. Indigenous authors were dissatisfied with the way they had been represented by Greeks in the ethnographic tradition and responded by setting 97. Bakhtin, Speech Genres, 78. 98. Bakhtin, Speech Genres, 61–62. 99. Bakhtin, Speech Genres, 75. 100. Bakhtin, Speech Genres, 62. 101. Julia Kristeva, “Word, Dialogue, and Novel,” in The Kristeva Reader (ed. Toril Moi; New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 39. 102. Kristeva, “Word, Dialogue, and Novel,” 40, 43.

190


their own definition of who there were. [Apologetic treatises were] polemics against Greek accounts. . . .”103 In some cases, New Testament critics arrived at understandings similar to modern genre theorists earlier than the genre theorists. For instance, the current description of complex genres as ideological structures that embed smaller genres is the same as, or at least very similar to, redaction critics’ view of biblical texts as complex works constructed from preexisting sources. For example, as our earlier discussion showed, Pervo and Dibelius think of Acts as being composed of materials such as legends. Gerd Lüdeman argues that Luke relied heavily on Paul’s letters and other early Christian traditions to construct Acts. Other modern New Testament critics, such as Aune, who do not fashion themselves as practicing redaction criticism, nonetheless acknowledge that the writer of Acts embedded other genres within the whole. And, of course, considerable attention has been given to the speeches in Acts, a discussion that could be said to focus on Acts as a complex, ideological genre.104

CONCLUSION In conclusion, I offer my own reading of Acts briefly. I take Acts to be an example of an evolving genre fashioned by Luke to meet a historical exigence in the church. Although we have limited knowledge of the situation, internal evidence leads me to conclude that the Luke believed the church was under pressure to be silent and that he wanted to show believers that the church had always been under such pressure. Therefore, I take its intended audience to be internal to the church (the same titular audience is invoked as in the Gospel of Luke, and the language at the beginning of Luke evokes an internal audience by referring to those things that were handed down to “us” by eyewitnesses). I take its purpose to be one of edification and encouragement. When I consider Acts as an example of an evolving genre, I find Sterling’s discussion of Acts as apologetic literature responding to Greek ethnography fascinating but not persuasive. Such a construction imagines an external audience, which runs contrary to the tone of the work. Nevertheless, I do see Acts as an evolved 103. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition, 18. 104. See Dibelius, “The Speeches in Acts and Ancient Historiography” in Studies in the Acts of the Apostles; and F. F. Bruce, The Speeches in the Acts of the Apostles.

Forged in the Fire

191

form of the gospel genre. Although there are many studies attempting to define the Gospels in terms of Greco-Roman genres, from a perspective within the church, we can see the Gospels as a newly formed genre owned by the church. Mark had already been written, as had Luke, and perhaps even Matthew, depending on when one dates Acts. The genre of Gospel had already become a definitional genre within this community of believers. As several scholars have pointed out, there are many parallels between the structure of Luke and the structure of Acts: There is a baptism at the beginning of each; each consists largely of travel narratives embedded with teachings of Jesus in the first and speeches by Peter, Stephen, and Paul in the second; the last third of each book is taken up with the arrest and trials of the main character. However the genre of Gospel is not perfectly fitted to the needs of Luke in Acts. He is not trying to describe the founder of the faith as teacher and savior; rather, he is presenting early church leaders as teachers, decision makers, and models. It would be inappropriate to bring Acts to the same heightened climax that occurs in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Therefore, Acts is an adaptation of the community’s definitional genre, the Gospel. The changes that result from this appropriation of an existing genre to a new situation and purpose are sufficient to create a new genre that becomes a model for later apocryphal Acts, such as the Acts of Paul (Baukham). When I consider Acts as a complex genre consisting of embedded forms, I find its structure to be governed by a repeated cycle of kategoria (accusation) and apologia (defense).105 This cycle depicts the church as having been under continual pressure to be silent. Consider a few examples. Peter’s speech on the day of Pentecost begins as an apologia responding to accusations of drunkenness, and he takes the opportunity to preach the gospel (Acts 2). Peter and John are called before the Sanhedrin to defend their authority to speak to the people in the Temple area; they are enjoined to quit speaking in the name of Jesus (Acts 4). In chapter 5, the apostles are arrested for having continued to speak out and are accused of insubordination. They reply that they must obey God rather than men. Stephen

105. There is an extensive literature on accusation and defense, but for the purpose of this study, I am thinking primarily of Halford Ross Ryan’s observation that accusation and defense form a speech set, one leading to another, sometimes creating a loop that obscures the controversy’s origins. See Halford Ross Ryan, “Kategoria and Apologia: On Their Rhetorical Criticism as a Speech Set,” QJS 68 (1982): 254–61.

192


is arrested and stoned because he speaks out. Such pressure to keep silent sometimes comes even from within the church. In chapter 11, Peter is accused of having broken Jewish tradition by going into the house of the Gentile Cornelius. His response is an apologia defending his decision to go, to share the gospel, and to baptize Cornelius and his house. It would take too much space to catalog the accusations and defenses that occur at most, if not all, of the stops Paul and his traveling partners make during their missionary journeys. Once again, the thrust of these accusations is an attempt to silence the gospel. Evidently in Corinth the pressure to be silent was great enough that Paul found encouragement in a dream in which the Lord tells him not to be silent (18:9). And in the same chapter, he is called into court and accused of preaching doctrines contrary to the law (18:13). This cycle of accusation and defense culminates in the arrest of Paul and several trial appearances at the end of the book. Accusation and defense—this is the dynamic speech cycle that generates the narrative tension within the book of Acts. Acts, in short, is an ideological, complex genre with the clear purpose of encouraging believers. Therefore, Christians should continue their mission, even within a hostile environment. They should not be surprised at the persecution they are enduring for theirs is a community that was forged in the fire of accusation and defense.

8 Paul and the Rhetoric of Ignorance GREG CAREY

New Testament rhetorical criticism comes in several flavors. First, one may nibble through Greco-Roman handbooks of rhetoric, along with other sources such as style guides and exercise books (progymnasmata), to savor the conventions of argumentation, arrangement, and style available to ancient communicators. Having become familiar with these conventions, one may reasonably discern how early Christian authors designed their own scenes, stories, and letters—and one may imagine how those texts may have affected their intended audiences. Alternatively, one may recognize persuasion as a spicy dimension of all human communication, sampling morsels from contemporary studies of public rhetoric, narrative rhetoric, and even comparative rhetoric in cultivating a taste for the persuasive tang of the early Christian texts. In contemporary rhetorical criticism these two flavors—one ancient and one modern—tend to be the most common. This chapter, however, will emphasize one other flavor that is harder to find. We will sample selections of Paul through a topical rhetoric; that is, we will take a single topic in Paul’s argumentation—the topic of ignorance—and explore how Paul puts it to use to create particular effects.1 Such topical rhetoric blends especially well with ideologically interested ways of reading. In contemporary literary and cultural criticism, we find studies of the rhetorics of colonialism, nationalism, or identity—all topics that are identified and pursued for the purposes of analyzing contemporary relationships of power and domination. As for the ancient world, some scholars have

1. For this three-dimensional account of rhetorical criticism, one might compare the accounts of C. Clifton Black, The Rhetoric of the Gospel: Theological Artistry in the Gospels and Acts (St. Louis: Chalice, 2001), 4–12; and Greg Carey, “Introduction: Apocalyptic Discourse, Apocalyptic Rhetoric,” in Vision and Persuasion: Rhetorical Dimensions of Apocalyptic Discourse (ed. Greg Carey and L. Gregory Bloomquist; St. Louis: Chalice, 1999), 13–15.

193

194


noticed that certain kinds of arguments may reflect particular social settings. Dale B. Martin examines how arguments about the body in 1 Corinthians emerge from differing conceptions of the human body held by groups of relatively high and low status.2 In other words, the ways in which people appealed to topics such as health and pollution also express attempts to shape human relationships. Likewise, by investigating the topic of ignorance in Paul’s letters, we may assess the kinds of relationships Paul fosters. While this study is limited to the topic of ignorance in Paul, a further step would be to sample the rhetoric of interpretation itself. How have Paul’s readers, who come to Paul with interests and commitments of their own, made sense of Paul’s appeals to ignorance? Though such a project is beyond the boundaries of this chapter, it promises its own rewards.

FOCUS: IGNORANCE AS BLISS It is one thing to accuse someone else of being ignorant, but it is an entirely different matter to claim ignorance for oneself. For example, labeling someone else as ignorant provides a powerful insult, as it suggests that they do not deserve the audience’s attention. Such insults impugn the character (ethos) of one’s opponent while they also undermine whatever she or he has to say (logos). At the same time, one may attempt to ingratiate oneself to an audience by claiming to remedy their ignorance. This strategy takes many forms in public argument, from the mild, “Most people don’t know this, but . . .” to the more contentious, “They [whoever they are] don’t want you to know this, but. . . .” In these cases, ignorance must not be the fault of the audience, and the speaker’s ethos is that of a benevolent friend. Both strategies are risky: On the one hand, the “ignorant” opponent may investigate the question of credentials or knowledge, or the audience may resent the personal attack on one’s opponent; on the other hand, one must avoid the impression that one is patronizing one’s audience. At any rate, we are all familiar with the topic of ignorance as speakers apply it to others. Paul, too, uses this technique, but he is far more creative than are most of us. While most of us avoid looking or sounding ignorant, pleading one’s own ignorance can be a successful strategy in many venues. For example, public figures implicated in famous scandals often 2. Dale, Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).

Paul and the Rhetoric of Ignorance

195

appeal to their faulty memory—or to being “out of the loop.” Thus, one may appeal to ignorance in arguing for one’s innocence. Alternatively, certain religious arguments can plead ignorance as a means of circumscribing the boundaries of a conversation. I recall a famous Southern Baptist pastor who employed ignorance to defend his gender politics. Asked why women should be subordinate to men in the church and in the household, this man said something like, “We don’t have to understand it; we just have to believe it.” In making this argument he limited conversation to the literal words of the Bible, effectively ruling out any considerations from human experience, the social sciences, or other potential loci of authority. Thus, ignorance can be a means of privileging certain kinds of arguments in a debate while eliminating others. As a personal example, I recall how one of my college professors—an outstanding teacher and winner of the college’s award for teaching—uses ignorance in the classroom. Michael McLain is a theologian who raises difficult questions for his students: What is the role of God in suffering? Does God transcend time? Do Christian claims of truth make sense in a pluralistic world? Naturally, many students would prefer to avoid such challenging questions, and some do so by appealing to the Bible. These students would ask, “But Dr. McLain, doesn’t the Bible say. . .?” Often Michael’s answer was insufferably indirect: “I don’t know much about the Bible.” Invariably, this answer would frustrate students. Wasn’t it unfair to rule out one standard source of Christian theology? Is failure to know something ever an excuse for refusing to discuss it? But Michael had good reasons for this strategy. It wasn’t that Scripture was irrelevant, nor was it a matter of Michael’s ignorance. Instead, Michael’s plea of ignorance made it impossible for students to focus on only one way of doing theological reflection—that is, prooftexting Scripture—and forced them to grapple with other resources such as reason, tradition, and analogy. In a similar manner, I once saw Michael’s reply to the question, “Are you a Christian?” Rather than answer the question, Michael asked in return: “What do you mean by Christian?” Again, it seemed the student was seeking an easy way to avoid difficult problems. If his professor could maintain faith in the light of difficult challenges, then the problems must not be so bad after all; if Michael were not a person of faith, then his questions—and answers—presumably could be distrusted. By returning the question—“What do you mean by Christian?”—Michael revealed that things were

196


much more complicated than the student may have hoped (Christian identity can mean lots of different things), and he pushed the student back into his own theological reflection. Hence, while it may not surprise us that sometimes Paul accuses his opponents of ignorance or that he occasionally claims to address the ignorance of his audience, we may be surprised at the rhetorical force of Paul’s claims to his own ignorance. Attention to those relatively rare occasions may reveal a great deal about Pauline argumentation.

FILTER: IGNORANCE AS TOPIC Ancient teachers of rhetoric developed the notion of topics. A topic (topos in Greek, locus in Latin) was a commonplace argumentative resource. Some topics could be applied to almost any situation, while other topics were appropriate only to some kinds of arguments. Aristotle, whose treatise on Topics has been the subject of commentary over the centuries, made this distinction between common and specific (or material) topics. Familiarity with the common topics would partially prepare a speaker to address any question, but more thorough preparation required knowledge of the specific topics of the particular field in question, such as physics or ethics (Rhet. 1.2.21–22).3 Even the noted orator Cicero patterned his discussion of topics in part after Aristotle’s work and adopted this distinction (Topica 1.2–8). To my knowledge, ignorance is not among the major topics in ancient rhetorical theory. Nevertheless, ancient authors and their audiences shared social contexts, values, and institutions in such a way that words and concepts could take on a conventional force.4 For example, Elizabeth A. Castelli finds that Paul’s appeal to the rhetoric of imitation (mimesis)—which is neither a common nor a specific topic in the rhetorical handbooks—promotes sameness over diversity, as Paul offers himself as the sole model for his audi-

3. Some believe Aristotle had a third category of strategical topics, but in my opinion these are simply amplifications of some of the common topics (see George A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984], 21). 4. Vernon K. Robbins, The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society and Ideology (New York: Routledge, 1996), 159.


197

ence.5 In building her case, Castelli examines the rhetoric of mimesis in a variety of ancient sources, arguing that mimesis carried fairly consistent connotations in the ancient world. Likewise, one might hope that common assumptions with respect to ignorance may have made it possible for Paul to develop ignorance as a flexible topic for his own argumentation. Obviously, ignorance is normally a liability. Ancient rhetorical theorists generally held that a credible speaker should be a person of good sense (frovnhsi") as well as virtue and goodwill (Rhet. 2.1.5). Thus, ignorance could apparently disqualify a speaker. And yet there were instances in which one might claim ignorance for oneself or one’s clients as a means of self-defense. Cicero advised that one could plead ignorance in a criminal case, and he frequently used this appeal for his clients. For example, one might have violated a law of which one was unaware. Ignorance, then, amounts to a concession that one may have violated the law but without malicious intent. By pleading ignorance, Cicero argued, one would hope to receive pardon (De Inv. 2.94–95; cf. Rhet. ad Alex. 7; Rhet. ad Her. 1.24; 2.24;) or at least mercy (Rhet. ad Her. 2.49). In one case Cicero defended a client’s character through an appeal to ignorance. His client had mistakenly released a criminal, but the fault was due to the client’s ignorance, and at the request of a close and virtuous friend (Pro Planc. 29). In this case ignorance led to a mistake, but not to culpability. Beyond matters of guilt or innocence, appeals to ignorance could soften difficult cases. Cicero, aware that his own misfortunes may have injured his family, writes to his brother Quintus that his fall was due to the deceit of supposed friends and not to his own dishonesty or malfeasance (Q. Fr. 1.4). And when wishing to avoid a direct confrontation with Cato in court, Cicero claimed that Cato— whose motives involved pure patriotism—had erred in ignorance (Pro Mur. 78). Thus, the appeal to his opponent’s ignorance enabled Cicero to disagree with Cato without maligning his character. In sum, the appeal to ignorance was not a widely discussed rhetorical strategy in the Greco-Roman world. Nor did ignorance figure among the standard argumentative resources, or topoi. Finally, Cicero, who relied on ignorance frequently, used it primarily in a defensive way, as a means of mitigating difficult circumstances.

5. Imitating Paul: A Discourse of Power (Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 1991).

198


None of these insights will quite prepare us for Paul’s creative use of ignorance as a topos.

PAUL AND THE IGNORANCE OF HIS AUDIENCE Paul frequently questions the knowledge of his audience, though he does it in diverse ways and for diverse purposes. In some cases Paul undermines the supposed knowledge of his audience; in other cases he expresses apparent surprise at their lack of knowledge, as if perhaps they need to be reminded of something; and in other cases he fills in the gaps of their ignorance. 1. “We know.” Consider Paul’s argument in Romans 2:1–3: Therefore you are inexcusable, every mortal who judges: for in that very thing in which you judge another, you judge yourself, for you—the very one who is judging—practice those same things yourself. “But we know that the judgment of God upon those who practice such things is according to truth.” But do you reckon it this way, O mortal who judges those who practice such things and [yet] does them [yourself], that you will escape God’s judgment? The actual meaning of this argument continues to be hotly debated among interpreters of Romans, particularly whether the implied addressee is Gentile or Jewish.6 For our more limited purposes, however, the interest lies in the supposed knowledge Paul attributes to an imaginary conversation partner—and to Paul’s rebuttal of it. This passage is an example of an argumentative device that Paul frequently employs, the diatribe. In a diatribe, a speaker or author addresses an interlocutor in the second person singular.7 The device simulates dialogue, thus enabling the speaker to give voice to an alternative perspective from his or her own, not to bring it to public awareness but to set it up for rebuttal.8 In Romans 2:1–3, we see that Paul:

6. See the discussion in Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 97–109. 7. Ibid., 100–101. 8. Neil Elliott, The Rhetoric of Romans: Argumentative Constraint and Strategy and Paul’s Dialogue with Judaism (JSNTSup 45; Sheffield: JSOT, 1990), 124.


199

• addresses an imaginary interlocutor, the mortal who judges certain other persons and behaviors (Paul has alluded to those persons and behaviors in Rom 1:18–32); • places an expression in the voice of that interlocutor (“But we know that the judgment of God upon those who practice such things is according to truth.”); and • undermines the interlocutor’s supposed knowledge by insisting that it is of no benefit (The interlocutor’s behavior does not reflect this knowledge, and so the interlocutor is subject to judgment.). Here Paul employs the rhetoric of ignorance in a subtle way: his audience seems to have knowledge, but their knowledge does them no good. Indeed, their very conduct betrays the emptiness of their knowledge. Such argumentation is very tricky, as a direct assault on an audience’s knowledge would not ordinarily win their goodwill; however, Paul’s use of the diatribe makes this move feasible. By using the diatribe, Paul can rebuke a point of view that may or may not be held by some members of the audience without attributing that point of view to the audience directly. Paul uses this device frequently throughout Romans, as he raises potential objections to his case only in order to rebut them (see 3:2–9; 6:1–2, 15; 7:7, 13; 11:1, 11). This device places Paul in the role of a teacher, one who guides his audience in the context of diverse points of view.9 Paul continues to address the topic of knowledge and ignorance in Romans 2. In our next section, we explore how Paul reminds his audience of their forgetfulness in 2:4, but for now let us examine 2:17–21a. This passage is one sentence in Greek: Now, if you call yourself a Jew and rely upon the law and boast in God and know [God’s] will and approve those things which are excellent, having been instructed from the law, and are confident in yourself as a guide for the blind, as light for those who are in darkness, as an instructor for the foolish, as a teacher for infants, having the embodiment of knowledge and the truth in the law, so, you who teach another, do you not also teach yourself? Again Paul undermines the knowledge of this would-be conversation partner by appealing to behavior. Such a person, who claims 9. Stanley K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans (SBLDS 57; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981); Luke Timothy Johnson, Reading Romans: A Literary and Theological Commentary (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 12.

200


to know God’s will through the law, violates that knowledge by breaking the law. “You who boast in the law dishonor God by transgressing the law!” (2:23). Thus, in both Romans 2:2 and 2:23 Paul undermines the knowledge of one who knows what is right and applies that knowledge against others by pointing out that true knowledge of the law would result in obedience to it. A similar case of Pauline argumentation occurs in 1 Corinthians 8. Here the issue is whether Christians may eat food that has been offered to pagan deities. The debate could have been quite intense, as the stakes could have been quite high and may have reflected social tensions. For example, most meat available on the open market would have already been offered in the temples. Likewise, public meals—or meals in neighbors’ homes—would also have included an invocation of the deities. To abstain from food that had been offered to the gods could effectively remove one from a good deal of public interaction. Christians of lower social status—who could not often afford meat and who presumably did not often participate in formal group meals—would have found it much easier to abstain than would their more prosperous neighbors. Apparently this was a live debate. Though Paul again resorts to the diatribe, in this case his interlocutor appears to represent the concrete argument advanced by some factions within the Corinthian church. In reply, Paul employs the topos of ignorance: Now concerning food that has been offered to idols, “We know that we all have knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If someone seems to know something, they do not yet know as they should. But if someone loves God, that one is known by God. Therefore, concerning the eating of food that has been offered to idols, “We know that an idol is nothing in the world and that there is no god but One.” Indeed, for although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many lords, for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom are we, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom are we. But this knowledge is not in everyone. (1 Cor 8:1–7a) [emphasis mine] What is noteworthy here is that Paul accepts the knowledge of his interlocutors. He agrees that an idol is nothing and there is only one God. In fact, as far as Paul is concerned, the matter of food offered to idols is adiaphora—it simply doesn’t matter in itself. However,


201

Paul undermines this knowledge in three ways. First, he argues that knowledge, which puffs people up, is subordinate to love, which builds them up. Knowledge that is not ruled by love is inadequate knowledge. Second, while his interlocutors may be right in denying the lordship of various deities, Paul reminds them that there remain one God and one Lord, and that their knowledge does not exempt them from the demands of God and Christ. And third, Paul insists that not everyone possesses this knowledge. Thus, since food does not ultimately matter, those who apparently “know” should yield their liberty in order to protect the consciences of those who do not “know.” For if someone sees you, who has knowledge, reclining to eat in an idol’s temple, might that one not, if their conscience is weak, be made more likely to eat food that has been offered to idols? For the weak one is destroyed by your knowledge. . . . (8:10–11a) Elsewhere in 1 Corinthians Paul also insists that knowledge is subordinate to other principles. In 1 Cor 13:2, knowledge is among those spiritual powers that may be quite impressive but amount to “nothing” if they are not grounded in love. And in 1 Cor 14:37–38, Paul employs a tricky word play. Paul insists that anyone who has true prophetic or spiritual insight will acknowledge the authority of his teaching, But if someone disregards [this] (ajgnoei'), that one is disregarded (ajgnoei'tai). The root word ajgnoevw primarily means to be ignorant, but it can also mean to ignore or to disregard. Thus, Paul undermines those who claim knowledge but disregard his instruction. Not only are they to be disregarded, but Paul also suggests that their knowledge is shrouded in ignorance. One might locate a similar instance in 1 Cor 15:34, in which Paul alludes to “some people [who] are ignorant of God,” though the rhetorical force of this aspersion is uncertain. In both Romans 2 and 1 Corinthians 8, Paul grants the theoretical knowledge of his interlocutors. However, through the diatribe he also subverts that knowledge. In Romans 2, he dismisses theoretical knowledge that is not reflected in practice; in 1 Corinthians 8, he dismisses theoretical knowledge that is not regulated by love. While the interlocutor of Romans 2 appears to be a fictional cre-

202


ation Paul has invented to win a point, it is more likely that the interlocutor of 1 Corinthians 8 represents the authentic concerns of members of his audience. The bottom line remains the same: What seems to be knowledge turns out to be ignorance. 2. “Do you not know?” (oujk oi[date). We have seen that in Romans 2 and 1 Corinthians 8 Paul undermines his interlocutor’s apparent knowledge. In both contexts he also employs another strategy, one we will find scattered throughout Romans and 1 Corinthians in particular: Paul admonishes his interlocutors with apparent surprise at their ignorance. Again, in Rom 2:4: Or do you disregard the abundance of God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience, being ignorant that God’s kindness guides you to repentance? Here Paul presupposes that his dialogue partner will share his premises: God is kind, forbearing, and patient, and God’s kindness is a guide toward repentance. However, he challenges the interlocutor’s awareness of this shared knowledge, as if the interlocutor’s conduct reveals that such valuable knowledge has never truly been learned. Throughout Romans Paul continues to address his interlocutors’ apparent ignorance, as in Romans 6:3; 6:16; 7:1; and 11:2–4. In each case, Paul’s “reminder” to his audience is intended to establish a shared premise, from which he may continue to build an argument. In Romans 6, Paul admonishes the audience that his gospel does not authorize sinful conduct. “Are you ignorant” that by being united with Christ’s death through baptism (apparently a reference to “burial” in water), Christians have died to sin (6:3)? And, “don’t you know that” by presenting themselves as “slaves of obedience” to Christ, Christians can no longer live as slaves of sin (6:16)? In Romans 7, Paul argues that Christians have also died to their obligation to the law through their union with Christ’s death: after all, “don’t you know” that people are bound to the law only while they live? And in Romans 11, Paul insists that God has not abandoned Israel. Here Paul reminds his audience of Scripture. Paul’s “don’t you know” amounts to “I want you to remember” the story of Elijah, in which God reminds the prophet that there is always a faithful remnant. In each instance, Paul employs the topic of ignorance—“don’t you know?”—to gain assent to a fairly


203

commonplace premise, then builds on that assent to argue a more controversial case. Despite their similarities, Romans’ arguments from ignorance reveal one important difference. In Romans 2 Paul continues to assault his interlocutor without identifying the “mortal” too directly with his actual audience. Elsewhere in Romans Paul seems to address his audience more directly (as in 6:3, 16; 7:1; and 11:1), appealing to common knowledge they seem to have forgotten as a means of establishing shared premises. In other contexts, Paul also addresses his audience fairly directly, using their apparent ignorance as a means of admonishing them to recall instruction they have already received. First Corinthians also provides a string of “don’t you know?” reminders (3:16; 5:6; 6:2, 3, 9, 15, 16, 19; 9:13). In each case—with the likely exceptions of 6:15, 16, 19—Paul apparently expects his audience’s assent to information that has already been held in common. • In 1 Cor 3:16 Paul reminds the audience that they are God’s temple, where God’s Spirit dwells. • In 1 Cor 5:6 Paul asks, “Don’t you know?” to introduce the maxim, “a little leaven leavens the whole batch.” • First Corinthians 6 contains a string of “don’t you know?” reminders. In 1 Cor 6:2–3 Paul scolds, “Don’t you know that the saints will judge the world?” and, “Don’t you know that we shall judge angels?” If so, Paul insists, ought not Christians be able to resolve internal disputes? Perhaps 1 Cor 6:9–11 continues this line of thought, as it recalls how the Corinthians have been transformed from various categories of sinners into a holy people. In 1 Cor 6:9 Paul writes, “Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s dominion?” • Paul’s topic has changed in 1 Cor 6:12–20, in which Paul apparently discusses porneia, or inappropriate sexual activity. Three “don’t you know?” reminders occur here: “your bodies are members of Christ”; “one who joins together with a prostitute is one body [with her]”; and “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God.” In 1 Cor 6:12–20, Paul apparently is creating a web of images that would have been new to his audience. Much like his use of the “don’t you know?” strategy in Romans, he is introducing new ways to perceive the world

204


that he expects his audience will accept. Upon these premises he argues more controversial theses. • In 1 Cor 9:13 Paul appeals to common knowledge: “Don’t you know that those who labor for the temple eat from the temple, while those who attend to the altar receive shares from the altar?” In sum, we have seen that appeal to the audience’s ignorance through the “don’t you know?” construction served as a flexible resource for argumentation. Whether introducing fairly obvious assertions (as in Romans and 1 Cor 6:12–20) or reminding the audience of shared assumptions (as in 1 Cor 3:16; 5:6; 6:2, 3, 9; 9:13), Paul sets the stage for a variety of more controversial claims. This strategy has potential dangers, of course, as it takes on a patronizing tone that could alienate some audiences. We have seen that Paul employs the “don’t you know?” appeal with some degree of sensitivity toward his audience. In Rom 2:4, Paul takes a fairly hostile tone, as he expects his audience to stand at some distance from his imaginary interlocutor. Elsewhere Paul treats the audience’s ignorance as if it were merely temporary and a reminder would suffice. Unfortunately, we can never know how his actual audiences responded to these admonitions. 3. “I don’t want you to be ignorant” (Ouj qevlw uJma'" ajgnoei'n). On occasion Paul attempts to fill in the gaps of his audience’s knowledge. He uses the language “I don’t want you to be ignorant.” In these cases it appears that Paul is responding to particular problems by introducing new knowledge. Indeed, the sources of his knowledge may have been entirely subjective, sometimes perhaps through the personal revelations Paul claimed to receive (1 Corinthians 12; Gal 1:12). There are more mundane instances as well. Let us begin with the relatively mild instances of the “I don’t want you to be ignorant” strategy. In Rom 1:13 Paul simply informs his audience that he has wanted to visit them but has not yet been able to. While this claim is important in that Paul apparently hopes to visit Rome so that the Roman Christians can sponsor his mission to Spain (15:22–24), it does not reflect obvious controversy or debate. Likewise, in 2 Cor 1:8 Paul—who is fighting to maintain his credibility among the Corinthians—informs his audience of the hardships he and others have endured for the sake of the gospel. And in Phil 1:12 Paul uses slightly different language (“I want you to know,” ginwvskein . . . uJma'" bouvlomai) to share that his current imprisonment has actually advanced the


205

gospel. Perhaps more surprising would have been 1 Cor 10:1–4, in which Paul informs the audience (“I don’t want you to be ignorant”) that when Israel drank from the rock during its wilderness journey, “the Rock was Christ” (10:4). Yet Paul’s larger point would have been fairly obvious; the wilderness stories reveal God’s displeasure with Israel, and their failings should serve as a warning to Christians who stray from the proper path (10:5–6). While Paul’s interpretation of Scripture may have been novel, his application of it was conventional. In other cases, Paul addresses his audience’s ignorance in much more aggressive ways. When Paul writes “I don’t want you to be ignorant,” he typically is introducing information that will both (a) surprise his audience and (b) help him address a challenging rhetorical problem. Thus, in contrast to his audience’s apparent ignorance, Paul is a person of superior knowledge, knowledge that must be trusted on the authority of either early Christian tradition or Paul’s mystical experience. First Thessalonians 4:1–5:11 responds to an apparent crisis in one of Paul’s churches. Apparently Paul’s proclamation in Thessalonica included the message of Jesus’ imminent return. But in the period after Paul’s visit, some members of the Thessalonian church have died. Since they have missed Jesus’ return, might one conclude that their participation in the gospel did them no ultimate good? Has their untimely death caused them to miss out on salvation? Whether Paul had anticipated this problem is unclear, but his response is interesting: I don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers [and sisters], concerning those who sleep, lest you might grieve like the rest who do not have hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so [do we believe that], through Jesus, God will bring those who sleep with him. (4:13–14) But how does Paul know this, and why should his audience believe it? The form of his argument is an enthymeme, a syllogism with an unstated premise: Stated premise: Unstated premise: Conclusion:

God raised Jesus. God, who is faithful, acts consistently in all cases. God will also raise up those who sleep.

206


Paul may not have anticipated the problem of believers who would die before Jesus’ return. Somewhat surprised by the crisis in Thessalonica, he is forced to resolve the apparent disconfirmation of his gospel. Paul reasons from God’s faithfulness—the unstated premise—to explain how those who have died are not excluded from salvation. Alternatively, perhaps there is an implication of Paul’s gospel with which these Gentile believers are unaware: in Jewish apocalyptic literature, the resurrection of the righteous is a corporate event. Thus, in Paul’s mind the significance of resurrection could not have been limited to Jesus alone: Jesus is, as Paul will later insist in 1 Corinthians, the “first fruits” of those who would be raised (15:20, 23). In this case the syllogism would look different: Stated premise: Unstated premise: Conclusion:

God raised Jesus. Resurrection applies to all God’s people. God will also raise up those who sleep.

Thus, we cannot know for certain whether the argument in 1 Thess 4:13–14 relies on the common theology of God’s faithfulness or whether it depends on the divinely revealed mysteries of apocalyptic literature. In my opinion, Paul’s appeal to the rhetoric of ignorance makes it more likely that the logic is apocalyptic: While the Thessalonians might have been able to draw out the implications of God’s faithfulness, they would have every reason to be ignorant of the mystery of resurrection. In Romans 9–11, Paul also faces up to another difficult problem: If Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, what can one say about the majority of Jews who do not recognize Jesus’ significance? At stake are whether God has abandoned God’s covenants with Israel and how Gentile and Jewish Christians are to relate to each other. Also at stake is the righteousness of God—not how God makes people righteous, but whether God is righteous. Part of Paul’s answer is the insistence that while God maintains a faithful remnant of Jews in the present, eventually “all Israel will be saved” (11:26). Just before making this grand claim, Paul both subverts his audience’s knowledge and fills in the gaps of their ignorance: For I don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers [and sisters], concerning this mystery—lest you would be wise in your own minds—that a hardening has come upon a part of Israel until


207

the fullness of the Gentiles come in, and thus all Israel will be saved. . . . (11:25–26a) Paul is introducing a controversial interpretation of history here: God has not abandoned Israel, but God has temporarily stiffened their resistance in order to bring in a full number of Gentiles (11:11–12). Obviously, there were other ways in which early Christians might have interpreted the relative failure of the Jesus movements among Jews. But Paul claims that he is not simply offering a subjective opinion; rather, he is introducing a mystery. As Markus Bockmuehl has noted, Paul is introducing new doctrine through the vehicle of divine revelation.10 Situated rhetorically, the revelation of mysteries is an intriguing form of argumentation.11 For how does one effectively disagree with a revelation? Does one argue from contrary empirical evidence? Does one respond with interpretations of Scripture? Does one attack the reliability of the speaker? Or, does one counter with one’s own revealed mystery? As we sometimes say in the South when someone jabbers nonsense, “You can’t argue with that!” Though Paul’s language is slightly different in 1 Cor 11:3 (qelw' . . . ujma'" ei[denai), it provides another instance in which Paul introduces information in order to address a difficult problem. The question is apparently whether men and women should wear head coverings in the Christian assembly, and scholars have yet to agree as to how Paul actually resolves the question. Yet a critical part of Paul’s argument is a hierarchy of authority: Now I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of a woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. I imagine that this chain of authority would hardly shock an ancient Mediterranean audience, which presumably would have been patriarchal in both values and practice. Yet we must also recall that Paul is addressing a contested issue; perhaps it was not obvious to the Corinthian church, in which women may well have played

10. Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997 [1990]), 170–74. 11. A lucid and insightful study of these questions is Stephen D. O’Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

208


prominent leadership roles. Though Paul does not appeal to mystery here, he seems to expect cultural common sense to enable him to proceed with the rest of his argument. Those who would have contested such common sense—perhaps on the basis of teachings like Gal 3:27–29 (“there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female—for you all are one in Christ Jesus”) likely were not persuaded by this premise. In 1 Corinthians 12–14 Paul addresses another sensitive issue: spiritual gifts and their expression in the Christian assembly. It seems that spiritual gifts brought status, and that some Christians were showing off their more dramatic gifts as a means of elevating themselves above others. Paul introduces this block of material through an appeal to the Corinthians’ ignorance, followed by a reminder of their common knowledge: Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers [and sisters], I don’t want you to be ignorant. For you know that when you were Gentiles somehow you were led astray, following silent idols however you may have been led. Therefore I am informing you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Cursed be Jesus,” and no one can say, “The Lord is Jesus,” unless by the Holy Spirit. (12:1–3) This is the introduction to Paul’s larger argument, and its structure is informative: • Paul begins with the “I don’t want you to be ignorant” formula. • He reminds his audience of something they already know, that in their former religious lives they were subject to a variety of spiritual impulses. • But what they don’t know (“I am informing you,” gnwrivzw) is that the leading of God’s Spirit is never random. (Later, Paul insists that “God is not [the source] of confusion but of peace” [14:33], and that everything should be done “decently and according to order” [14:40].) In this case Paul is not introducing a mystery, but he is perhaps adding a new perspective to his audience. Gentiles knew that spiritual inspiration was a powerful experience: one could literally experience ecstasy, the dissociation of oneself from one’s ordinary patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior. Why, then, should they assume that possession by the Spirit of Paul’s god would manifest


209

itself differently? If indeed Paul’s god is orderly, manifestations of the Spirit would likely be orderly as well. Thus, Paul’s new perspective empowers the whole argument of 1 Corinthians 12–14. The phrase “I don’t want you to be ignorant” plays a significant role in Pauline argumentation. Occasionally, Paul uses it to relay relatively innocuous personal information. Otherwise, he uses the phrase to introduce new information that will help him address difficult rhetorical problems. These sensitive issues include the death of believers before Jesus’ return; God’s faithfulness to Israel; relations between men and women; and the employment of spiritual gifts in the assembly. While Paul’s position on “those who sleep” is fairly clear to Paul’s modern readers, Israel, gender, and spiritual gifts remain among the most challenging questions in Pauline scholarship. For each issue, the “I don’t want you to be ignorant” formula introduces a premise from which Paul may march to his conclusion. Moreover, in at least one and probably two of these instances, the formula introduces revealed mysteries—knowledge that the audience must accept on Paul’s personal authority and against which it is notoriously difficult to argue. Summary. The rhetoric of the audience’s ignorance is a powerful tool in Paul’s rhetoric. This is particularly so in Romans and 1 Corinthians, where the diatribe is also most prominent among Paul’s letters. Whether Paul is granting knowledge to his interlocutor only to subvert it (“We know”), admonishing his audience for their lack of awareness (“Don’t you know?”), or introducing new information where his audience is ignorant (“I don’t want you to be ignorant”), Paul claims his audience’s ignorance in the most difficult rhetorical circumstances.

PAUL AND HIS OWN IGNORANCE Whereas claiming his audience’s ignorance was a risky rhetorical operation, it is even more remarkable when Paul claims his own ignorance.12 Also noteworthy and likely related is one case in which Paul claims that certain data make no difference to him. Both strategies—ignorance and indifference—serve similar rhetorical ends, as

12. I will not discuss here 1 Cor 13:9, 12, or Rom 7:15, as in each case Paul is employing a form of speech-in-character rather than appealing to his own ignorance.

210


they remove attention from one line of inquiry and toward Paul’s intended focus. In particular, Paul appeals to his own ignorance when his authority is under attack. Though counter-intuitive, the strategy has its virtues, as we shall see. The marginal instance is Gal 2:6–7, where Paul claims his own indifference. Paul’s problem here is that he is arguing for the authority of his own gospel. On the one hand, his gospel stands on its own, for Paul has received it from no mortal but rather by divine revelation (1:11–12). On the other hand, Paul insists that his gospel has been approved by Christianity’s Jerusalem leadership (1:18–2:14). At best, this is a fine line: how can Paul claim that his gospel is independent while he also relies on the approval of Jerusalem authorities? This tension also surfaces in Gal 2:9, in which Paul labels James, Peter, and John as “those who seem to be pillars.”13 And later Paul will describe an occasion in which he has rebuked Cephas while representatives from James were present. Paul’s indifference, then, is one more means by which he addresses this problem. Two passages reflect this theme: Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and I stayed with him fifteen days. But I did not see [any] other of the apostles, except James the Lord’s brother. (1:18–19) But from those reputed to be something—whatever they were then makes no difference to me, as God does not receive persons—for those of reputation added nothing to me. . . . (2:6) Paul’s argument seems to run this way: • My gospel is my own; it depends on no external authority. • I only consulted the “pillars” in order to remove any possible hindrances to my mission. For that reason I visited the institutional authorities in Jerusalem. They have also approved of my gospel in Antioch. • The status of those authorities did not matter to me. • I gained nothing from those authorities, so my gospel remains my own.

13. Some debate whether Cephas and Peter are the same person. See, e.g., Dale C. Allison, “Peter and Cephas: One and the Same,” JBL 111 (1992): 489–95.


211

Paul has shifted the focus from any possible debates concerning his authority—as opposed to the authority of other Jewish Christian leaders—not only by claiming their approval but also by insisting on his own independence. This argument is certainly clever: how can Paul, when he is arguing for his own authority, insist that status does not matter? Whether it was effective, we cannot know. First Corinthians also emerges out of conflicts concerning Paul’s authority, and it features two appeals to ignorance. Perhaps the unifying thesis of 1 Corinthians is Paul’s exhortation “that all of you agree, and that there may be no rifts among you, but that you be restored to the same understanding and to the same opinion” (1:10). The exigence, or motivating factor, for this appeal is apparently that: It has been reported to me concerning you . . . by those of Chloe, that there are quarrels among you. (1:11) Of course, Paul is not simply trying to bring peace for its own sake; rather, he has his own stake in the matter: Now what I mean is this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.” (1:12) Indeed, Paul will concede that he, like Apollos, is merely a servant through whom God has brought growth among the Corinthians (3:5–9). But what Paul gives, he also takes away, for while the Corinthians may have many guides in Christ, only he—Paul— is their father. And, if necessary, Paul will come to them wielding spiritual authority (4:14–21). It is in this context that Paul’s ignorance can be a good thing— and he appeals to it twice. For his ignorance enables Paul to rise above the Corinthians’ power struggles. First, Paul avoids two possible charges: (a) that his influence is limited to those he has baptized; and (b) that he holds a personal stake in those whom he had baptized. I am grateful that I baptized none of you apart from Crispus and Gaius, lest someone should say that you were baptized into my name. Now, I also baptized Stephanas’ household; as for the rest, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. (1:14–16)

212


The noteworthy thing about this claim is not that Paul does not remember precisely whom he has baptized. Apart from its controversial context, such ignorance is unremarkable. Also striking is the casual nature of Paul’s concession concerning Stephenas’s household. It is as if Paul is casually running the list through his mind: “There were Crispus and Gaius—oh, yes, and Stephanas’s household, too—can’t remember the rest.” The strategy strengthens the impression that Paul does not recall whom he has baptized precisely because it is not a matter of personal boasting. It seems that this claim to ignorance was a relatively safe strategy for Paul. For if Paul had in fact baptized dozens of Corinthian believers, he could scarcely have advanced such a claim; after all, those “forgotten” believers could stand up in the assembly and destroy Paul’s argument! Nevertheless, Paul’s ignorance turns the debate from any possible role Paul and his followers might have played in the Corinthian struggles, creating room for Paul to advance other arguments. Paul’s second appeal to ignorance occurs just on the heels of the first. Paul claims that his mission was not to baptize people but to proclaim the gospel. This provides a segue into an important line of argument: Paul’s gospel is not about himself, nor does it rely on his own charisma or wisdom. Instead, the gospel is not a matter of wisdom, and Paul’s wisdom is not a proper matter of debate. Indeed, Paul left his wisdom at home when he came to Corinth: For I determined to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (2:2) Risky as it is, this is a brilliant rhetorical innovation. We can only guess as to what charge Paul is avoiding. Perhaps Paul wishes to fend off inappropriate comparisons between his own wisdom and that of others, or perhaps he is defending himself against the charge that he lacked wisdom himself. (Hints of such criticism may be present in 2 Corinthians 11.) In any event, Paul rules out wisdom as a bone of contention, limiting the focus to what is for Paul the example of God’s work through weakness. Knowing Christ as crucified, Christians have no business contending over status and appearances. Evidently, Paul’s correspondence to the Corinthians did not solve his problems, for 2 Corinthians also reflects severe challenges to Paul’s authority. Indeed, Paul’s appeal to ignorance in 2 Corinthians occurs in a context that reminds one of his struggles in Gala-


213

tians 1–2, as these are the only instances in which Paul refers to an “other” gospel (2 Cor 11:4; Gal 1:6–9). Clearly Paul perceives that the stakes are significant. Having made a variety of defenses for his ministry, in 2 Corinthians 12 Paul turns to his own visionary experiences: It is necessary to boast; it does no good, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ, who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—who was taken up to the third heaven. And I know such a man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows— that he was taken up into paradise and heard unspeakable words which it is not permitted for a mortal to speak. (12:1–4) The larger context reveals that these visions are in fact Paul’s own (see vv. 5–7), so why doesn’t Paul (a) own the visions as his own, (b) know what sort of experiences they are, whether physical or spiritual, or (c) repeat the heavenly words he heard? The answers to these questions may in part be due to the apocalyptic nature of the visionary report, but they also serve the larger purpose of Paul’s argument. Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature of the period involves the revelation of heavenly mysteries, some of which cannot be related directly. Revelation 10:4 relates such a case, as the visionary is instructed to seal up the words spoken by the seven thunders.14 Perhaps this is one reason for Paul’s reticence. But we should also consider Paul’s larger rhetorical strategy: Paul is arguing for his own authority on the basis of this visionary experience. Thus, while appearing not to boast directly, Paul describes revelations that are indeed extraordinary (12:7). He claims that he does not do so in order to call attention to his own mystical superiority, since he would not want people to describe him in ways greater than what they can see and hear from him (12:6). This is known as paralepsis, “the speaker’s stated intention to omit certain subjects, which he [sic] nevertheless mentions in passing,”15 and it makes for a very careful sort of boasting indeed. As for the information Paul does not share with his audience,

14. Jean-Pierre Ruiz, “Hearing and Seeing but Not Saying: A Look at Revelation 10:4 and 2 Corinthians 12:4,” SBLSP 33 (1994), 182–202. 15. Galen O. Rowe, “Style,” in Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period, 330 B.C.–A.D. 400 (ed. Stanley E. Porter; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 14.

214


Paul claims ignorance regarding the nature of these experiences, while he is reticent concerning the words he has heard. At a minimum, this reticence has one clear advantage: Paul will not be forced into debating the superiority of his revelations to those of others on the basis of their dramatic features. Nor are his visions subject to external analysis, comparisons, or criticisms. And finally, Paul’s refusal to share those mysterious words is both justified—after all, mortals are not permitted to speak them—and beneficial: By faithfully refusing to share these words, Paul withholds knowledge from his audience and demonstrates his superior privilege. Paul will always know holy things that his audience is not entitled to hear. Paul closes the conversation to evaluations of his experience, leaving room for his subtle boasting.

CONCLUSION The Greek and Latin rhetorical handbooks may not have much to say about it, but in Paul’s hands the rhetoric of ignorance is both powerful and flexible. Paul tends to employ it at critical junctures in his arguments—especially in his touchy correspondence with the Romans and the Corinthians—and he uses it in a variety of ways. For one thing, Paul sometimes points to the ignorance of his audience, undermining knowledge they believe they have, admonishing them to remember what should be common knowledge, and even filling in the gaps of their ignorance. Sometimes these strategies rebut opinions already present within the audience. Sometimes they enable assent, so that Paul may move on to less familiar conclusions. And sometimes the audience’s ignorance enables Paul to introduce entirely new information and perspectives so that he can address otherwise unresolvable problems such as the question of God and Israel, the problem of believers who have died before Jesus’ return, relations between women and men in the assembly, and the expression of spiritual gifts in the assembly. Even more surprising is Paul’s appeal to his own ignorance. There is the matter of Paul’s indifference to possible challenges to his authority, such as the Jerusalem “pillars.” Likewise, Paul’s own ignorance shuts the door to certain arguments, such as whether Paul’s baptisms may be compared to those of others, whether his wisdom is a match for theirs, and whether his apocalyptic visions are indeed so extraordinary. While the rhetoric of ignorance shuts


215

off certain paths of dialogue, it places the focus squarely where Paul wants it. What we have done is more than a mere thematic study of ignorance in Paul. What Paul’s actual words say about ignorance is only part of the story; indeed, a study limited to Paul’s words in themselves would even be misleading. Rather, by reading this topos rhetorically we have consistently looked into the argumentative functions of ignorance in Paul’s writings. For Paul, ignorance— whether that of his audience or his own—works as a means to other persuasive ends.

9 Pseudonymity as Rhetoric A Prolegomenon to the Study of Pauline Pseudepigrapha FRANK W. HUGHES

The criticism of authenticity was for the Christians not so much a question of philological scholarship, but of faith and life. —Wolfgang Speyer1 Students who study the question of the authorship of parts of the Bible and then learn that there are significant sections of it whose supposed authors are different from its actual authors are often dismayed at biblical scholarship and sometimes disgusted at teachers of biblical studies. Perhaps we deserve this disgust based on how we treat a number of issues. A presupposition of this paper, however, is that we are at least on the right track when we make distinctions between the supposed authors and real authors of various biblical writings. Despite the reactions against historical methods at the popular level and the second thoughts that some scholars are currently having about certain kinds of historical criticism, the observation remains that there are numerous problems in biblical texts that can be analyzed historically. The likelihood remains that there are differences between the real and supposed authors of some biblical literature, and indeed between the real and supposed authors of much other ancient literature. The phenomenon of pseudonymity has been extensively studied in connection with both Graeco-Roman literature and, more recently, Jewish literature, with a variety of results. That ancient pseudonymity existed, both

1. Wolfgang Speyer, Die literarische Fälschung im heidnischen und christlichen Altertum: Ein Versuch ihrer Deutung (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft I/2; Munich: C. H. Beck, 1971), 180.

216

Pseudonymity as Rhetoric

217

in the Bible and in other ancient literature, is a fact beyond dispute;2 but the extent of pseudonymity, the persistent issue of its moral or nonmoral character, and especially the reasons that authors used pseudonymity continue to be under discussion.

CRITICAL CONSENSUS AND ITS LIMITS Pauline scholarship has come a long way since the days of Ferdinand Christian Baur and the Tübingen School, especially with the development of form criticism and its application to letters in the twentieth century.3 Modern students of Paul seem to be unanimous in their acceptance of 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon as letters unquestionably written by Paul, although the interpretation of these letters varies widely among scholars. The consensus among current Pauline scholars about the Pauline authorship of Romans, the Corinthian correspondence, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, and 1 Thessalonians, however, is not matched by a consensus about either the authorship or the interpretation of several of the pseudopauline letters, for a variety of reasons. Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, and the Pastoral Letters are, I think, considerably harder to interpret than the undisputed Pauline letters, primarily because the interpreter must either accept and attempt to defend Pauline authorship for all or part of these letters, or the interpreter must follow the harder and thus less traveled road of pseudopauline authorship and then (hopefully) make an experimental reconstruction of the relationship of 2. See especially Norbert Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben: Zur Erklärung der frühchristlichen Pseudepigraphie (SBS 79; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1975), 11–40; Josef A. Sint, Pseudonymität im Altertum: Ihre Formen und ihre Gründe (Commentationes Aenipontanae 15; Innsbruck: Wagner, 1960), 67–89; Horst R. Balz, “Anonymität und Pseudepigraphie im Urchristentum: Überlegungen zum literarischen und theologischen Problem der urchristlichen und gemeinantiken Pseudepigraphie,” ZTK 66 (1969): 403–36; Martin Rist, “Pseudepigraphy and the Early Christians,” in Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature: Essays in Honor of Allen P. Wikgren (ed. David E. Aune; NovTSup 33; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972), 75–91; Norman Perrin, “Apocalyptic Christianity,” in Visionaries and Their Apocalypses (ed. Paul D. Hanson; Issues in Religion and Theology 2; Philadelphia: Fortress; London: SPCK, 1983), 121–45, esp. 126; Werner Georg Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1975), 361–63. 3. For a survey of Pauline studies, with bibliography and references to other such surveys, see Hans Hübner, “Paulusforschung seit 1945: Ein kritischer Literaturbericht,” ANRW II.25.4.

218


the pseudonymous author to various Pauline traditions. A neutral position has also been taken with the Pastorals, utilizing the argument that these letters contain fragments of genuine Pauline letters, a position taken and later retracted by A. T. Hanson.4 Yet one integral part of the “fragments hypothesis” ought not to be completely abandoned, namely, the idea that these postpauline letters have something significant to do with the wide variety of Pauline traditions alive and well in the late first century and early second century.5 As a result of the circularity of arguments against the Pauline authorship of several letters, some scholars have made fairly reasonable defenses of Paul’s having written 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, and Colossians; and others do not hesitate to ascribe the Pastoral Letters to Paul. Wolfgang Trilling’s Untersuchungen zum zweiten Thessalonicherbrief, a synthetic study published in 1972, had cited many kinds of arguments against Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians, arguing that these various studies converged in the same direction. A significant response was made by 1983 by I. Howard Marshall in his 1 and 2 Thessalonians, which appears to be the first full-scale answer to Wolfgang Trilling in print. After admitting that “the case that 2 Thessalonians is a pseudonymous work has been strongly presented in the last decade by W. Trilling,”6 Marshall sharply criticizes the stylistic and form-critical reasons proposed by Trilling against the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians.7 In order to defend the Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians, however, he claimed that the eschatologies of the two letters were “complementary” rather than contradictory.8 The theology of 2 Thessalonians Marshall read in a thoroughly Pauline way, causing him to argue that “the appeal to tradition which Trilling finds in the letter is exaggerated by him and corresponds in fact to appeals to tradition found in other Pauline epistles,” and that “the view that the letter

4. Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Pastoral Letters (Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible; New York: Cambridge University, 1966); Hanson retracts the “fragments hypothesis” in the valuable introduction to his The Pastoral Epistles (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 1–51, esp. 5–11. 5. Michael Wolter, Die Pastoralbriefe als Paulustradition (FRLANT 146; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988). 6. I. Howard Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), ix. 7. Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 32–36. 8. Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 36–37.


219

emphasises the apostolic authority of Paul is mistaken.”9 At the end of his introduction, Marshall concluded: When we examine all the arguments, then, it emerges that neither singly nor cumulatively do they suffice to disprove Pauline authorship. That 2 Thess contains some unusual features in style and theology is not to be denied, but that these features point to pseudonymous authorship is quite another matter. Moreover, the early church had no doubts about the Pauline authorship of 2 Thess. The later we set the date of the letter, the more difficult it becomes to explain its unopposed acceptance into the Pauline corpus; indeed, it is hard to envisage how an alleged Pauline letter addressed to a particular church could have escaped detection as a forgery.10 Marshall examined the arguments of Trilling one by one, and then concluded that the “unusual features in style and theology” were not unusual enough to “point to pseudonymous authorship.” It is true that patristic writers affirmed the Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians, but that this is a strong argument for its authenticity must be doubted. Even more revealing are his comments about pseudonymity: he assumed that pseudonymous authorship of 2 Thessalonians required that it have a late date (i.e., rather a long distance in time away from the historical Paul) and that a pseudonymous 2 Thessalonians would be likely to be detected by the early church. I do not believe that the position against authenticity requires a very late date for some of the pseudopauline letters. Many if not most writings from antiquity were not detected as pseudonymous until the modern period, even though antiquity had developed criteria for the recognition of pseudonymity. As a result of the complexity of Graeco-Roman and biblical pseudonymity in current scholarship, one should certainly not assume that all pseudonymity could be easily or obviously detected.

PSEUDONYMITY IN GRAECO-ROMAN LITERATURE The discussion of pseudonymity in ancient literature has been given major impetus by Wolfgang Speyer’s Die literarische Fäl9. Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 39. 10. Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 45.

220


schung im heidnischen und christlichen Altertum, which appeared in 1971. This large work contains a masterful survey of pseudonymity in the Orient and in Egypt, and especially in Graeco-Roman antiquity, including the New Testament and patristic literature. As important as Speyer’s investigation of ancient pseudonymity and the secondary literature on it11 are his discussions of various aspects of pseudonymity and the relationships of pseudonymity to other phenomena.12 A literary forgery is, as Speyer shows, a subset of the larger category of pseudepigraphy.13 His categories for understanding pseudonymity, “authentic religious pseudepigraphy,” “forged religious pseudepigraphy,” and “fictional religious pseudepigraphy,” are problematic14 but interesting, as are his 11. See an informative reviews of this work by E. J. Kenney in Classical Review 24 (1974): 79–81; as well as the comments of Sir Ronald Syme in Pseudepigrapha I: Pseudopythagorica—Lettres de Platon—Littèrature pseudépigraphique juivre (ed. K. von Fritz; Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique 18; Vandoeuvres-Genève: Fondation Hardt, 1972), 3–4. Other major literature on pseudonymity includes David G. Meade, Pseudonymity and Canon: An Investigation into the Relationship of Authorship and Authority in Jewish and Earliest Christian Tradition (WUNT 39; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1986); Lewis S. Donelson, Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument in the Pastoral Epistle (HUT 22; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1986), esp. 7–66; Norbert Brox, ed., Pseudepigraphie in der heidnischen und jüdisch-christlichen Antike (Wege der Forschung 484; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977); Norbert Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben: Zur Erklärung der frühchristlichen Pseudepigraphie (SBS 79; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1975); K. von Fritz, ed., Pseudepigrapha I; Bruce M. Metzger, “Literary Forgeries and Canonical Pseudepigrapha,” JBL 91 (1972): 1–24; Kurt Aland, “The Problem of Anonymity and Pseudonymity in Christian Literature of the First Two Centuries,” JTS n.s. 12 (1961): 39–49; Josef A. Sint, Pseudonymität im Altertum: Ihre Formen und ihre Gründe (Commentationes Aenipontanae 15; Innsbruck: Wagner, 1960); Friedrich Torm, Die Psychologie der Pseudonymität im Hinblick auf die Literatur des Urchristentums (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1932; reprinted in Brox, Pseudepigraphie, 111–40). 12. For example, early Christian martyrdom stories that portray the writer as an eyewitness of the martyrdom may be true or may be a literary device used to add plausibility to the writing; see Speyer, Fälschung, 27. 13. Speyer, Fälschung, 6, 9. 14. As Speyer, Fälschung, 22, admits, the orators have made it difficult for the scholar to distinguish between authentic and invented documents. “They invented letters and speeches of famous men and women of history and thus showed their stylistic dexterity. . . .” The students of the orators composed appropriate letters and speeches as stylistic exercises. Speyer refers to older studies of rhetorical exercises including Georg Reichel, “Quaestiones prosgymnasmaticae” (Ph.D. diss., Leipzig, 1909; Leipzig: Typis Roberti Noske Bornensis, 1909), and Richard Kohl, “De scholasticarum declamationum argumentis ex historia petitis” (Ph.D. diss., Münster, 1915; Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoeningh, 1915), as well as Friedrich Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit (2d ed.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1887–1898; reprint, Hildesheim:


221

related proposals concerning the reasons that early Christian writers used pseudonymity. As far back as one can look into the history of Greek literature, pseudonymity seems to be present.15 Speyer begins his discussion of Graeco-Roman pseudonymity with the comment that the development of Greek epic poetry shows the movement from anonymity to “orthonymity,” in which literary works are attributed to their actual authors. The two greatest early epic poems, Iliad and Odyssey, were probably originally anonymous and only later came to be associated with the name of Homer. In the following era, the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e., however, it is possible to talk of particular authors for literary works.16 Students of Aristotle, in particular, sought to obtain knowledge in all fields, and so they spent much energy collecting literature from earlier centuries. In this period famous libraries were founded, including those in Pella, Antioch, Pergamum, and Alexandria.17 The formation of such collections undoubtedly gave much impetus both to the investigation of authorship and to the acquisition of complicated textual traditions as books from antiquity were copied for the use of other libraries and scholars.18 Library collections also gave scholars the opportunity to check the accuracy of new editions of ancient works against earlier editions. As a result of these collections and the apparatus of scholarship, the issue of true vs. false authorship could be raised. The notion of the intellectual property has been significant in the development of modern theories of pseudonymity.19 According to the idea of such a unity, pseudonymous authors would have written what they thought the famous person, now dead, would say in the present time. Pseudonymity explained by means of the idea of unity with an ancient authority figure can be seen as a way to Georg Olms, 1962), 1.338. For further material on rhetorical pseudepigraphy, see also Sint, Pseudonymität, 90–107, as well as the section on declamation below. Speyer further developed his categories in “Fälschung, pseudepigraphische freie Erfindung und echte religiöse Pseudepigraphie,” in Pseudepigrapha I, ed. Kurt von Fritz, 331–66, with discussion by colleagues on 367–72. 15. On pseudonymity in various early Greek literary traditions, see also Sint, Pseudonymität, 17–53. 16. Speyer, Fälschung, 111; cf. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 68–69. 17. Speyer, Fälschung, 112. 18. Speyer, Fälschung, 18–19, notes the rebuke by Spyridon of another bishop, Triphyllios, who corrected the awkward Greek word krabbaton in Mark 2:9, 11 and John 5:8 to “the finer expression skimpous” as preserved in Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 1.11.9. See also Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 77. 19. Speyer, Fälschung, 175–76.

222


“update” the intellectual sphere of a famous person, particularly a person who was responsible for the founding of an intellectual or religious tradition, such as John Wesley’s or Martin Luther’s founding of Wesleyan or Lutheran movements. Speyer argues that early Christian authors were much more concerned about the orthodox content of writings, so that for them: Content and author cannot be safely separated from each other. The word of God is true because God speaks it. The same goes for the word of Jesus, for the preaching and writings of the apostles, their followers, and all orthodox authors. The name of the author was a measure of the authoritative value which a writing deserved.20 Since the author’s name (in rhetorical terms, the author’s “ethos”) was valuable for the purposes of having a writing recognized as valuable, several strategies for using an authoritative name are observable in ancient literature. In a well-known article on anonymity and pseudonymity, Kurt Aland argued that early Christian writings were often anonymous because they were the result of prophecy, whereby the Holy Spirit was believed to take control of the writer. This meant, Aland argued, that the name of the human writer was relatively unimportant, since “a writer, being nothing but the tool of the Holy Spirit, on this account claims the authorship of an apostle for his writings.”21 Aland argues that the reason there was a decline of anonymous Christian writing in the second century (and, consequently, an increase in the amount of literature that was preserved under the name of its correct author) was a decline in the “movement of the Spirit” from the first century to the second.22 Aland’s theory perhaps explains anonymous early Christian writings, but is more problematic as it treats actual pseudonymity, since it appears that the name of author is of primary importance in (especially) Pauline pseudepigraphy. Especially important to the discussion of Christian pseudepigrapha, the theory of intellectual property has usually functioned so as to allow the authors of pseudepigraphy to escape the charge of lying and deception. Pseudepigraphy then becomes a harm20. Speyer, Fälschung , 176. 21. Aland, “Anonymity and Pseudonymity,” 46. 22. Aland, “Anonymity and Pseudonymity,” 47.


223

less device used rather conventionally by authors. Norbert Brox has argued that, however well the theory of intellectual property explains early epic poetry attributed to Homer and Hesiod (and for that matter, Hebrew literature attributed to Moses), it does not appear to explain pseudonymous early Christian literature. This is not because early Christians did not fully participate in GraecoRoman culture; rather, it is because the individuality of authors in the Hellenistic period is a well-established tradition. Thus, writers in late antiquity appear to have known what they were doing in using the name and reputation of an authority figure.23 Regardless of the justification of pseudonymity, the sheer volume of early Christian pseudepigrapha forced church fathers to concern themselves with the authenticity of Christian writings. Investigations into authenticity were reflected in works by Clement of Alexandria, Sextus Julius Africanus, Origen, Tertullian, Leontius of Byzantium, John of Skythopolis, Severus of Antioch, Nikephoros I of Constantinople, and others.24 At the end of the second century c.e., Clement appears to have followed local philological tradition in Alexandria in examining the authenticity of pagan works in terms of style and language,25 and arguments in favor of the greater antiquity of biblical works were explored by various ecclesiastical authors.26 Modern scholars have relied on a variety of old and new criteria for determining the authenticity of an ancient work, including the presence or lack of witness about a work from the apostolic church27 and what was said about inspiration in the work itself.28 Speyer’s monograph demonstrates that there was no era in early Christianity when pseudonymity was not utilized, by both the “orthodox” and the “heretics.”29 Indeed, it was precisely “in ortho23. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 68–70. 24. Speyer, 181. For an excellent and recent discussion of early Christian usage of literary criticism to detect pseudonymity, see Robert M. Grant, Heresy and Criticism: The Search for Authenticity in Early Christian Literature (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993). 25. Speyer, Fälschung, 182. 26. Speyer, Fälschung, 184–86. 27. Speyer, Fälschung, 186–90; for a defense of Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians on the basis of an apparently skewed patristic attestation, see Eduard Schweizer, “Der 2. Thessalonicherbrief ein Philipperbrief?” TZ 1 (1945): 286–89. 28. Speyer, Fälschung, 190–92. 29. The use of the terms “orthodoxy” and “heresy” in connection with firstand second-century Christianity is especially problematic after the classic study of Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (trans. Robert Kraft;

224


dox circles in Asia Minor”30 that forged materials written about the apostle Paul and their author (a priest who “confessed that he had written them out of love for Paul”) were discovered, according to Tertullian.31 This, of course, raises the larger issue of how and if the categories of orthodoxy and heresy may be used. Speyer writes: Very many if not most of the Christian forgeries from antiquity have been attributed to heretics. In order to give a foundation for and defend their deviant interpretation of the Christian faith, they fashioned holy scriptures to their own liking. Each one of their independently created books corresponds to those which enjoy the prestige of the great church. Since in orthodox circles each book written by apostles or their students was especially respected, the heretics of the second century invented gospels, acts of the apostles, apocalypses, and letters from apostles. Indeed they attempted to outdo the great church with these writings, since they circulated scriptures written under the name of Jesus. Since the formation of the canon came to a first conclusion at the end of the second century, and since this time the writings of the orthodox church fathers, the decisions of councils, and the dispensations of the popes were treated as sources for doctrinal and moral teaching beyond the Old and New Testaments, the heretics made increasing use of the names of orthodox writers in each century.32 Since Speyer’s wide-ranging survey concerns itself more with patristic pseudepigraphy than with pseudepigraphy in the New Testament, his work remains very useful for demonstrating to students of the New Testament the broad and deep cultural context of pseudepigraphy in the Hellenistic world. Indeed, Speyer knows of the probable pseudonymous authorship of Ephesians, Colossians, and the Pastoral Letters, and cites various studies that deal with them.33 Even though Speyer is aware of the problematic nature of Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), which argued that there was no original orthodox Christian teaching in several cities, and that lines of division between orthodoxy and heresy cannot be clearly drawn in these centuries. Speyer, Fälschung, 226–31, is aware of the problematic nature of this terminology. 30. Speyer, Fälschung, 211. 31. Tertullian, De baptismo, 17. 32. Speyer, Fälschung, 260. 33. Speyer, Fälschung, 279 n. 4, 285–86; in 222 n. 7 Speyer also lists “both the deuteropauline writings” (presumably meaning Ephesians and Colossians) as


225

the categories of orthodoxy and heresy, his essential dependence on these categories, as well as the general nature of his survey, seem to prevent him from truly penetrating Christian literature of the first century c.e. Norbert Brox has argued that, in spite of the large amount of early Christian pseudepigraphy and its parallels in other parts of GraecoRoman culture,34 the practice of pseudonymity was not generally understood by early Christians as “acceptable” or “morally indifferent” or as a “mere exercise in style.”35 Rather, the evidence of the criticism of authenticity remains “massive.”36 Brox also explored in some detail the attitudes of certain church fathers concerning authenticity and falsehood.37 When one encounters the evidence of certain church fathers examining the authenticity of Christian and other literature, one must look at the episode described in Tertullian’s De Baptismo, 17, where an Asian presbyter confessed to having written forged accounts of Paul’s life “out of love for Paul,” and especially documents like Salvian of Marseille’s ninth epistle, in which Salvian freely admits to having written a work attributed to Timothy, the protegé of Paul.38 Even if it is true that, as Donelson later argued, no literature which was known to be forged was taken to be authoritative in the Graeco-Roman world,39 one must also realize that the majority of Graeco-Roman pseudepigraphy remained undetected until modern times, even though resources for detection existed in antiquity. The repeated condemnation of pseudonymity in antiquity is meaningless without the persistence of pseudonymity. Since there is no reason to believe that Christian writers of pseudepigrapha had motives different from others in antiquity who used literary pseudonymity,40 and since both Christians and others could point to authoritative examples from the time-honored past, it is not surprising that, in Brox’s words,

well as 1 Timothy and Titus in connection with pseudonymous church orders aimed at increasing the authority of church officers. Speyer elsewhere, 57, refers to 2 Thessalonians as a witness to Paul’s dealing with forgeries of his own letters, cf. 180. 34. Especially exercises in rhetorical and grammar schools, which I shall discuss in connection with declamation below. 35. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 81. 36. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 75. 37. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 87–105. 38. Speyer, Fälschung, 31; Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 74–75. 39. Donelson, Pseudepigraphy, 11–12. 40. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 105.

226


“[t]he history of early Christianity with its pseudoapostolic literature is full of heretical and orthodox examples” of pseudonymity.41 It is based on the understanding that the present life of the church needs to be justified in some way by appeals to what authoritative figures said and taught. The most authoritative figures were, of course, Jesus, the apostles, their students, and the church fathers. “In the final analysis, pseudepigraphy is not effectively explained by a refined moral sense of truthfulness nor indeed by a better developed conscious idea of intellectual property; rather, it is explained by a changed understanding of the relation between truth and history for human beings.”42 Early Christian literature that justifies the church’s present doctrines and practices by appeals to figures from the past thus looks back to the apostolic era as a kind of golden age.

PSEUDONYMITY IN JEWISH LITERATURE It would be misleading to present pseudonymity as a phenomenon unrelated to Judaism.43 If the term pseudepigrapha means literature actually written by someone other than the official author, it seems clear that large parts of the Hebrew Bible itself must be understood as pseudonymous, not merely the additions made to them now known as the Old Testament pseudepigrapha.44 Brox’s book on early Christian pseudonymity included prominent mention of pseudonymity in the Hebrew Bible.45 The result of the Sinai revelation to Moses was that “‘all’ legal literature and ‘all’ traditions for the ordering of political life in Israel, even though they 41. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 107. 42. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 119. 43. L. H. Brockington, “The Problem of Pseudonymity,” JTS n.s. 4 (1953): 15–22. On pseudonymity in the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish literature, see especially Meade, Pseudonymity and Canon; Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 41–44; John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1984), 30–32; as well as idem, “Pseudonymity, Historical Reviews and the Genre of the Revelation of John,” CBQ 39 (1977): 329–43; and idem, ed., Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre (Semeia 14; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979); cf. Speyer, Fälschung, 150–68. For a generally negative view of the importance of Jewish pseudepigraphy for the understanding of early Christian pseudepigraphy, see Donelson, Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument, 13–15. 44. For a newly translated edition of the pseudepigrapha, see James H. Charlesworth, ed. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vols.; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983–1985). 45. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben , 41–44.


227

dated from very different times, were grouped under his [Moses’] name.”46 Similarly, the Psalms in the Hebrew Bible are traditionally attributed to David, and various wisdom materials are attributed to Solomon. Since Gen 5:24 says that Enoch did not die, but that he “walked with God and was no more” (i.e., he must have been assumed bodily into heaven), a collection of apocalyptic works are preserved under the name of Enoch, including an Ethiopic Apocalypse of Enoch (1 Enoch), a Slavonic Apocalypse of Enoch (2 Enoch), as well as Hebrew Apocalypse of Enoch (3 Enoch). Another figure from the Hebrew Bible whose death was not recorded was the priest-king of Salem, Melchizedek, concerning whom the Qumran community preserved apocalyptic speculation, perhaps equating Melchizedek with the archangel Michael in a fragmentary scroll from the eleventh cave, known to scholars as 11QMelchizedek.47 Notably, theological comment on Jesus as an eternal priest “according to the order of Melchizedek” (a phrase borrowed from Psalm 110:4) is found at length in the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament; and the Nag Hammadi materials also include cosmic speculation about Melchizedek.48 An excellent example of the association of holy people with authoritative traditions found in the Hebrew Bible is the story of the Transfiguration where Moses and Elijah, apparently representing the Torah and the Prophets, appear in heavenly light with Jesus on a mountain before the latter’s passion and death in Jerusalem.49 This episode seems to underline for the readers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke the consistency of Jesus’ death with the Torah and Prophets of the Hebrew Bible, an idea confirmed by the Lucan story of the resurrection appearance on the road to Emmaus.50 Hellenistic Judaism produced other literature less clearly related to traditional biblical genres, especially because of its concern to relate itself to other parts of the Graeco-Roman world. An excellent example of Hellenistic Jewish pseudepigrapha using a clearly Greek literary genre is the collection of Sibylline Oracles, dating from 46. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 42. 47. Géza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (2d ed.; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975), 265–68. 48. Fred L. Horton, Jr., The Melchizedek Tradition (SNTSMS 30; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 49. Mark 9:2–10; cf. parallels in Matt 17:1–9 and Luke 9:28–36. In Mark, Elijah precedes Moses, but in Matthew the Hebrew worthies are mentioned in the “canonical” order: Moses and then Elijah. 50. Luke 24:13–32; cf. Luke 24:44–46.

228


the second century b.c.e. to the seventh century c.e., in which the Sibyls are portrayed as uttering Jewish prophecies (sometimes with clearly Christian interpolations) in epic Greek hexameters.51 Jewish writers also forged verses of various Greek poets.52 Since Solomon was traditionally known as the wise king of Israel, it is no accident that one of the most important wisdom writings of Hellenistic Judaism bears his name.53 The Wisdom of Solomon is found in the Septuagint and included by many Christians in the Apocrypha of the “Old Testament.” Hellenistic Judaism by no means neglected Moses; the lawgiver of old took on new images in the Hellenistic period. Perhaps the most famous Jewish historian in this period, Josephus (who wrote in Rome for a Hellenistic audience), devoted long portions of his Jewish Antiquities to Moses. The reader of the Antiquities will experience Moses as delivering Greek orations about God with strong classical and biblical overtones. Philo of Alexandria also wrote a Life of Moses, as well as many other works that reflect his program of connecting biblical and Greek philosophical traditions.54 Most recently the discussion of pseudonymity in Jewish writings has been enlarged by the dissertation by David G. Meade. His Pseudonymity and Canon clearly shows that pseudepigraphy was by no means something foreign to the Hebrew Scriptures. Rather, within the traditions of Old Testament prophecy, wisdom, and apocalyptic, Meade has demonstrated the presence of pseudonymity. He makes a strong and convincing case for the historical understanding of pseudonymity not primarily as an assertion of literary origins but as an assertion of inclusion of the literature he examines within an authoritative tradition.

51. See the new translation and introduction by John J. Collins, “Sibylline Oracles,” in Charlesworth, ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1.317–472. Collins, 317, suggests that the oracles’ invariable hexameter comes from the influence of the poetry of the Delphic oracle. See also Collins’s earlier study of oracles 3–5, The Sibylline Oracles of Egyptian Judaism (SBLDS 13; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1974). 52. Sint, Pseudonymität, 84–86; Speyer, Fälschung, 161–62. 53. On the relation between the Wisdom of Solomon and Graeco-Roman culture, see especially James M. Reese, O.S.F.S., Hellenistic Influence on the Book of Wisdom and Its Consequences (AnBib 41; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1970). 54. For a general introduction to Philo, see Samuel Sandmel, Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). For an introduction to other Hellenistic Jewish authors, see John J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (New York: Crossroad, 1983).


229

IMITATIO AND DECLAMATION Quintilian devoted chapters 1 and 2 of book 10 of his Institutio oratoria to imitatio. In a memorable passage Quintilian argued that imitatio is not mere repetition of the literary tradition of the past. “Imitation alone,” Quintilian explained, “is not sufficient.”55 What Quintilian meant is that the process of creativity is to be tutored by the examination of older literature but not stifled by it; a person with “a sluggish nature is only too ready to rest content with the inventions of others.”56 Cicero also advises reading widely, because “a full supply of knowledge begets a full supply of words,”57 and only a wide acquaintance with the thoughts and writings of others, along with the universal knowledge given by philosophy, will make the orator best able to plead his cases. Although imitatio was practiced in various ways in classical antiquity, a particular kind of imitatio practiced in Greek and Roman rhetorical schools during the early Roman Empire was declamation. In such schools, students were taught how to compose and deliver speeches within the genera of deliberative and judicial rhetoric. One of the most important parts of education was the making and delivery of speeches on imaginary subjects, or imaginary speeches in the style of wellknown orators. This practice was known in Latin as declamatio. A declamation could be either an imaginary deliberative speech (suasoria) or an imaginary judicial speech (controversia), but was never an epideictic one.58 Declamations revolved especially around a number of imaginary themes, including conflicts between figures in mythology and the stereotyped Rich Man and Poor Man, as well as conflicts between parents and children and husbands and wives. Controversia were popular topics for declamation, including the issue of the justice or injustice of soldiers asking certain rewards for victory in battle, along with the legality of fathers disowning their sons, given a variety of the sons’ inappropriate behaviors.59 Declamations often dealt with stereotypical characters “set vaguely in the classical past” 55. Quintilian, Inst. 10.2.4. 56. Quintilian, Inst. 10.2.4. 57. Cicero, De oratore 3.125. 58. D. A. Russell, Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 10, referring to Menander Rhetor 331.16 in the edition of Spengel, Rhetores Graeci, 3 vols. (Bibliotheca scriptorum graecorum et romanum Teubneriana; Leipzig: Teubner, 1853–56). 59. Russell, Greek Declamation, 21–39. Libanius’s Declamation 33 combines the themes of the miserly father who wishes to disown his soldier son who has asked

230


as well as with historical themes and historical characters, so that, as Russell shows, “[s]ometimes the mere addition of names turns them into a sort of rudimentary historical fiction.” Russell states that rhetorical schools were “always capable of producing speeches which could pass as genuine classical works.”60 He concludes: “Of course, speeches could be forged for other reasons than for the purposes of the schools; but that a certain number of declamations came to be taken for the genuine article seems certain.”61 Given the fact that declamation was so widely taught and practiced in both Greek and Latin rhetorical schools, and thus given the pervasiveness of techniques used in declamation, it would almost seem that the burden of proof must be on those who argue in favor of authenticity rather than pseudonymity of particular works of ancient literature. The major reason for this conclusion is the fact that rhetorical school tradition, which through declamation was responsible for the production of new speeches by old orators, was also probably responsible for the preservation of old speeches, letters, and handbooks (so that they could be used for imitatio).

CONCLUSION AND PROSPECT: THE RHETORIC OF PSEUDONYMITY It now remains to show that the widely ranging traditions of pseudonymity, imitation, and declamation can be seen to illuminate the pseudopauline literature in the New Testament. Pseudonymity has been shown to characterize Jewish, Greek, and Roman literature. The practice of imitation within traditions of Graeco-Roman rhetoric shows that it was a normal practice to use old literature to make new speeches and letters, and the practice of declamation gave students an opportunity to do so within the context of a portrayal of a great master who needed to make a new speech about an issue dealt with in his lifetime or perhaps some as his reward only a wreath and not gold; this humorous masterpiece is recounted and analyzed by Russell, Greek Declamation, 96–102. 60. Russell, Greek Declamation, 111; Russell gives as an example the fact that “serious historians have taken the Peri Politeias ascribed to Herodes Atticus as a work of the late fifth century b.c.,” and he describes normative features of deliberative declamation found in this speech as the movement of the argument under the heads of ‘necessity’ and ‘expediency,’ and several imagined objections are stated and answered” (loc. cit.). 61. Russell, Greek Declamation, 112.


231

issue that appeared only later. When we study the New Testament, we are studying the literary remains of early Christians who heard and read the works of ancient writers and orators, who themselves composed and wrote, who corrected, who may have translated or otherwise reworked translations of the Hebrew Bible, and who had quite a habit of reworking their own and others’ texts. My working hypothesis about the pseudopauline letters is as follows: They are a rich source for traditions in Pauline churches after the death of Paul, and we need not conclude that they are irrelevant for tracing Pauline traditions that reach back into the lifetime of the historical Paul. The major problem has been in finding appropriate ways to read them. Rhetorical criticism can be one appropriate way to read the pseudopauline letters. This can best be done because of the continuing relevance of Aristotle’s understanding of “character.” The character of a speaker is an element of persuasion just as much as pathos (the appeal to the emotions, which became adfectus or affectus in Latin).62 For Aristotle, the insistence on the importance of character had the function of an insistence on the necessity of the moral character of the orator,63 which is clearly related to his own desire to define rhetoric as an “intellectual faculty” whose task was much more the “discovery of the possible means of persuasion in reference to any subject whatever”64 and much less the technology of catchy words. Aristotle’s placing as central the moral character of the orator serves to underline his desire to make the heritage of rhetoric accessible to philosophers, indeed a fitting “counterpart to dialectic.”65 Hence, Aristotle’s development of the concept of the good character of the orator can be seen to be part of Aristotle’s own rhetoric in favor of rhetoric, as well as an important theme picked up and expanded on by Cicero and Quintilian.66 The phenomenon of pseudonymity, however, uses the ethos of an authority figure in such a way as to change the beliefs and practices of communities that have been associated with the authority figure. Hence, pseudonymous writers use and develop the ethos of an authority figure anew, in order to do rhetoric for various reasons,

62. Aristotle, Rhet. 1.2.3. 63. Aristotle, Rhet. 1.2.4. 64. Aristotle, Rhet. 1.2.1. 65. Aristotle, Rhet. 1.1.1. 66. Cicero, De inventione 1.1–2; De oratore 1.33–34; 3.125; Quintilian, Inst. 1.Pr.6–20; 12.1.1–2.4.

232


based on the situations that these later writers face (that apparently such authority figures in their lifetimes did not face). Thus rhetoric conceived in literary terms can help explain not only the literary shape of pseudonymity; rhetoric thought of more in terms of the impulse to do persuasion can, I hope, help modern critics understand better the motivation for using pseudonymity. The presence of pseudonymity in sacred writings poses for many people a moral dilemma. It causes not a few Christian readers of the Bible to doubt the value of modern historical-critical studies for the believer. After all, if the Bible really is the Word of God (and does not merely contain the Word of God), can it be that writings in the Scriptures that claim for themselves apostolic authorship really were lying? Or, as a conservative student asked me many years ago, how could it be that the New Testament writers promoting Christianity, “the most moral religion in the world,”67 might themselves write epistles and gospels, all the while claiming authorship by persons other than themselves? In philosophical terms, pseudonymous writings can be conceived of as a “good lie,” a falsehood told in what the liar believes to be the best interests of the person lied to.68 But one can ask a fairly straightforward philosophical question: Is it not a fundamental contradiction for persons following the God of justice and truth to commit falsehoods by claiming apostolic authorship for writings of their own? This is more than a religious question: it is also a philosophical one. Perhaps the tradition of Graeco-Roman rhetoric offers a way around this dilemma. The history of rhetoric, when it is understood both in theory and practice, shows us that it was not unusual for students in their exercises to compose writings that they thought would have been fitting for great persons to have written. As a way of making their compositions as stylistically authentic as possible, it would have been quite natural for students to use other writings of the person they were imitating as sources, by way of allusions to words and ideas. As far as we can tell, it would have been no large jump from the reworking of ideas to the reworking of whole sections of literature. The clearest example of this in the pseudopauline literature is the literary use of 1 Thessalonians by the author of 2 Thessalonians,69 if not the literary use of Colossians by Ephesians. 67. This was the student’s expression. 68. Donelson, Pseudepigraphy, 18–23; Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 83, 120. 69. William Wrede, Die Echtheit des zweiten Thessalonicherbriefes untersucht (TU n.F. 9/2; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1903).


233

This phenomenon, however, is hardly limited to the pseudopauline letters. The reworking of older literature to make new literature would seem to be precisely what generations of New Testament scholars have argued to have been done by the editors of Matthew and Luke, making use of Mark and other sources. If it is proper to use the term “forger” for the writer of the Pastoral Epistles or the writer of 2 Thessalonians, a similarly derogatory term must be used for Matthew and Luke, as well as many other writings in the New Testament. But if we were to adopt such terminology as this, we would cast aspersions on even larger segments of the history of Christianity. Good comparisons can be drawn from certain musical traditions to the phenomena of Paul in the pseudopauline letters. One of Johann Sebastian Bach’s best known organ preludes, the “Prelude in E-Flat Major,” BWV 552, is an excellent example of Bach’s taking an earlier tradition, developing the tradition, and making something creative and new with it. The French overture style, well known to many of us from the opening overture of George Frideric Händel’s The Messiah, has been used by Bach in the E-flat prelude. In this rhythmically and melodically beautiful work, the theme is stated, varied, inverted, and restated in several of the voices of the polyphony. One of the difficulties that organists interested in Baroque styles have in interpreting this piece is, indeed, just how to locate this piece within the rhythmical traditions of the French overture style. Should one play the dotted notes as double-dotted, or should one play what is written in dotted-eighth-note and sixteenth-note sequences like triplets? If one chooses the latter interpretation, how should one correlate the dotted-eighth-note and sixteenth-note sequences in the pedals with the concurrent running sixteenth notes on the manuals? But the problem is not just a problem concerning rhythm: fundamentally it is a problem of deciding what the E-flat prelude is really like and what its composer thought he was doing with the piece. But in addition to the problem of parallels between the prelude and the French overture style, the interpreter must also consider the fact that Bach included the prelude as the introduction to a collection of choral preludes based on German hymns which are metrical versions of traditional parts of the Eucharist, a collection variously referred to as the “Organ Mass” and the “Third Part of the Clavierübung.” Perhaps Bach was using BWV 552 to say, in effect, “This is the archetypically elegant prelude.” The “Fugue in E-Flat Major” (also numbered as BWV 552 and known to many English-speaking people as the “St. Anne Fugue”), itself a tour de

234


force of multiple subjects, counter-subjects, inversions, repetitions, and a final reintroduction of the first subject, would then need to be interpreted not only as a triple fugue in its own right, but also as the finale of an outstanding collection of liturgical music. The parallel I have drawn between these two organ works of Bach and the literary traditions associated with the apostle Paul may serve to make the reader aware of the difficulties involved in locating particular works within larger and ongoing streams of tradition. For us to ignore pseudonymity in interpreting the disputed Pauline letters would be for us to ignore one of the streams of tradition in which they stand. The chief advantage of recognizing the contribution of rhetoric to the composition and writing of pseudonymous works is that rhetoric provides something like a “missing link.” Biblical scholarship that centers on traditional historical criticism can put together theories as to why a pseudonymous author would wish to use the character of another person to whom to attribute the new writing, for that venerable person’s authority would now back up the new work. Recognizing the contribution of the school tradition of declamation to the compositional process gives us historical grounding for some of the character that the pseudonymous author used in writing the new work. Knowledge of the overall tradition of imitatio finally helps us see how the desire to produce a new text is put together with techniques for creating a new text. This gives us a more mature view of the composition of texts we study; and, hopefully, a better knowledge of a text’s composition can give us more hints as to how such texts should best be interpreted.

10 Words as Works Philosophical Protreptic and the Epistle of James CAROL POSTER

The Epistle of James1 is not so much a letter of straw as one of shadows. Its author, its date, its audience, its theology, and its structure are all indistinct.2 Over fifteen hundred years of scholarship and commentary have not been able to form a clear, consistent, or consensus picture of Jas. The letter still remains as shadowy as it was when it first emerged in the late second century in Origen from a position of complete obscurity into the New Testament canon, in slow and uncertain process.3 Jas remains a letter from an unknown author, written to an unspecified audience, and attributed to a historical figure, James, the brother of Jesus, about whom we have little information.4 The narrative voice is as veiled as the historical author. There is nothing in Jas of the highly personal and particu-

1. Hereafter, I will use the abbreviation “Jas” to refer to both the Epistle of James and its anonymous author, to distinguish it from “James,” which I will use to refer to James, the brother of Jesus. Since most New Testament (and other) authors of this period were male, I will use a male pronoun to refer to the author, although, of course, there is no absolute evidence that a woman did not write it. 2. This essay applies to ideas about Jas I first developed in a more general essay on philosophical rhetoric, “The Affections of the Soul: Pathos, Protreptic, and Preaching in Hellenistic Thought,” in Paul and Pathos (ed. T. Olbricht and J. L. Sumney; SBLSymS 16; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001), 23–37. 3. For its history see James B. Adamson, James: The Man and His Message (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 144–67; Peter H. Davids, The Epistle of James (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 2–21; Martin Dibelius, A Commentary on the Epistle of James (rev. H. Greeven; trans. M. A. Williams; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 51–54; Sophie Laws, The Epistle of James (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1980), 38–42; James Hardy Ropes, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of St. James (ICC; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916), 86–103. 4. See John Painter, Just James (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), for extended discussion of the historical James.

235

236


laristic narrative found in Paul. Instead, an authorial modesty pervades the letter, one that is comprehensive and programmatic. The letter does not glorify its author or argue for its own authority, but, instead, it is audience focused, with frequent use of second person verb forms.5 This combination of modesty and audience orientation are typical of the genre of philosophical protreptic, especially in the Platonic tradition (a tradition going back to a writer who never, in his published works, spoke in propria persona) and in the wisdom literature of Hellenized Judaism. The purpose of protreptic, in its most general form,6 is to exhort the reader to strive toward the good, or the divine. He sways the will rather than arguing with the intellect,7 urging ethical precepts at their most general and widely agreed upon rather than specifying minute theological or philosophical details.8 In this article, rather than assuming that the preexisting generic constraints of protreptic determined the form of Jas, I show how the theology of Jas (and related philosophical writers) shaped and appropriated the literary conventions of philosophical protreptic. In particular, I examine Jas’ use of protreptic form in light of two specific issues: (1) the dangers and limitations of language in Pla5. For the Greek text of Jas, I use Nestle-Aland26 (1983); translations are from Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), or are my own. 6. Although New Testament scholars often distinguish paraenesis, protreptic, diatribe, and similar genres (with Dibelius, for example, arguing that Jas is a paraenesis and Ropes arguing for diatribe), these distinctions are essentially grammatical ones (based on literary form) rather than rhetorical (looking at purpose and audience). In both cases, the purpose of the work (speech or letter) is to awaken a particular audience to the evils of their current ways of life and show them better ones. Both genres derive from Socratic movements, the more traditional philosophic protreptic from the Platonic strand and grounded in Socratic ignorance in the sense of lack of knowledge of the forms, and the diatribe from a Cynic strand originating in Antisthenes and based also on Socratic ignorance leading to a more general skepticism. As both branches come together in the skeptical academy and also influence stoicism, and given also the syncretism of Hellenistic philosophies, trying to distinguish minutely between formal characters of different forms of exhortation, I think, can often cause us to lose sight of their similar aims and philosophical underpinnings. I will thus use the term “protreptic” to indicate philosophical exhortation in its most general sense and rhetorical purpose. 7. As discussed in Carol Poster, “The Affections of the Soul,” 23–37. 8. Thus following the generic conventions of the protreptic epistle, which are defined in Pseudo-Libanius 68:1–12 in Abraham J. Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988).

Words as Works

237

tonism and Jamesian theology; and (2) the theology of works as opposed to faith (pistis) in Jas. I show (1) how the specific formal character of protreptic addresses the problem of philosophic and religious language; and (2) how speech act theory9 can help us understand Jas’ words as works rather than articulations of faith (or, in Greek, pistis, which carries the historic meaning of proof), and thus enables us to read Jas as enactment of Jas’ theology instead of explication thereof.

THE PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHIC PROTREPTIC If one were to try to describe the philosophical grounds for protreptic in a single sentence, one might say that it is a theory of speech that assumes that language is both necessary for salvation and the major obstacle to salvation (taking salvation both in a specifically Christian sense and in a more general neoplatonic sense of the soul’s return to the divine). Philosophical speech is necessary as a mechanism for conversion (what Iamblichus refers to as the “awakening of the soul from its natural lethargy” in Protrepticus 1), but nonetheless it is hazardous (due to being liable to misuse) or impossible (due to the impossibility of the quasi-divine soul being affected by things perceived by the senses). Discussions of both the necessity for and the difficulty of morally and spiritually persuasive language permeate the Platonic–Pythagorean philosophical tradition and much of early Christianity. The tension between these opposing needs, to simultaneously beware of and use language for religio-philosophic purposes, resulted in the literary form of epistolary protreptic as a sort of uneasy compromise between rhetoric and silence. In Christian terms, the tension exists between the ineffability of God and the practices of evangelizing, teaching, and sermonizing. Only human words can spread God’s Word, but they are inadequate to the task. The similarities in the problems confronting Platonist and Christian philosophers enabled the latter group to borrow and adapt literary genres from the former, and vice versa. 9. Developed in J. L. Austin, “Performative Utterances,” Philosophical Papers (ed. J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock; 2nd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 233–52; idem, How to Do Things with Words (ed. J. O. Urmson and Marina Sbisà; 2nd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976); H. P. Grice, “Logic and Conversation,” in Syntax and Semantics (vol. 3.; ed. Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan; New York: Academic Press, 1975), 41–58; John R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).

238


Most discussions of protreptic or parenesis start by viewing protreptic as a received literary genre and move on from that starting point to consider how its formal characteristics of style and arrangement influenced various New Testament works.10 Protreptic, however, as developed in antiquity, was not an eternal form, but rather a contingent one, invented at a specific place and time in response to a specific set of problems. To understand it as a rhetorical mode requires exploring the questions to which it responded and the problems to which it was a solution. Understanding the questions and circumstances that influenced the development of philosophical protreptic enables us to see its appropriation in Jas as a response to problems similar to (pagan) philosophical ones rather than merely as borrowing ornamental literary devices from an ossified tradition. The main problem to which protreptic responded was a tension between the need for and rejection of language as a philosophical medium, a problem that originates before our earliest extant complete works of Greek philosophy. As Gadamer, in his discussion of Plato and Aristotle as “logos philosophers,” points out, Greek philosophy characteristically addresses the question ti esti (“what it is”) by taking as a starting point pōs legetai (“how it is said”).11 Thus, for such philosophers failures of language cause false understanding, because language serves as both medium and object but also limit of philosophical and theological inquiry. Although these problems are first articulated in Heraclitus and Parmenides, I will not discuss them here for two reasons. First, because I have already discussed them at length elsewhere12 and, because, second and more important, the later figures I will be discussing tended to look back to Pythagoras as almost a point source from which subsequent theories emanate, as it were.13 The main source of the objections to language as a medium for philosophizing is attributed in the doxographical tradition to 10. As discussed in n. 6. 11. Hans Georg Gadamer, Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato (trans. and intro. P. Christopher Smith; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 198. 12. Carol Poster, “Persuasion in an Empty Ontology: The Eleatic Synthesis of Poetry, Philosophy, and Rhetoric,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 27, no. 4 (1994): 277–99; and idem, “Being and Becoming: Rhetorical Ontology in Early Greek Thought,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 29, no. 1 (1996): 1–14. 13. Discussed in some detail in Dominic J. O’Meara, Pythagoras Revived: Mathematics and Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Paperbacks, 1990).

Words as Works

239

Pythagoras and his school (e.g., in Iamblichus De vit. Pyth. and Protrepeticus and Eunapius), and even the objections against language that we find in Plato are often in those passages that show some affinities with Pythagorean philosophy, a point made regularly in later Pythagoreanizing Platonists. It was especially among the these Pythagoreanizing Platonists that we find elaborated theories of language and literary form grounded in silence, allegory, and mysticism, which tend to occur in the context of their literary interpretation of works of their predecessors.14 The Pythagorean tradition as a whole, like certain forms of Christian monasticism and mysticism, revered silence. Iamblichus, for example, although he himself wrote voluminously (if not gracefully!) provides repeated admiring testimonia to the limitations placed on speech in early Pythagorean communities, citing the five-year silence required of all initiates (Iamblicus De vit. Pyth. 74; also mentioned in Lucian “Philosophies for Sale” 455), and telling us that, “He [Pythagoras] showed more concern for silence than for speech” (Iamblichus De vit. Pyth. 94). Iamblichus’s portrait of Pythagoras is far from the only neoplatonic testimony to the value of silence. Eunapius’s Lives of the Philosophers is filled with examples of philosophers who produced no body of written doctrine. For example, Eunapius says of Aedesius: “. . . His most distinguished disciples leaned toward and inclined to a silence appropriate to the mysteries and a reserve worthy of a hierophant.”15 And, of course, Secundus, according to ancient anecdotes, abjured speech entirely.16 The association of Pythagoras with silence is universally attested in later writings; and, in fact, Pythagoras himself, like Socrates and Jesus, left no body of written doctrines. Pythagoras did speak, however, something which at least left room in the tradition for the development of the Pythagorean akousmata or symbols, a body of sayings attributed to Pythagoras by virtue of their being considered philosophically worthy of being added to the doctrines 14. Discussed in James A. Coulter, The Literary Microcosm: Theories of Interpretation of the Later Neoplatonists (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976); and Carol Poster, “Silence as a Rhetorical Strategy for Neoplatonic Mysticism,” Mystics Quarterly 24, no. 2 (1998): 48–73. 15. Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers (trans. Wilmer C. Wright; LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1921), 379. 16. For discussion of Secundus, see discussions in Graham Anderson, Sage, Saint, and Sophist: Holy Men and Their Associates in the Early Roman Empire (London & New York: Routledge, 1994); and Ben Edwin Perry, Secundus the Silent Philosopher (Ithaca, NY: American Philological Association, 1964).

240


of the school. There are two salient features of the akousmata that we should keep in mind as we look forward to Jas. The first is that they are an early instance of the form that became in the Jesus Movement the “sayings gospels” (e.g. “Q” and the Gospel of Thomas), collections of gnomic sayings attributed to a founding spiritual leader of the movement. The second, and perhaps even more crucial for rhetorical understanding of the gnomic literary tradition, is that their authority lies not in the claim that a specific figure actually said them, but that they were worthy of being said by that figure. In other words, “authenticity” and “authorship” for these works do not lie in their being the ipsissima verba of a historical figure, but rather in being a legitimate part of the tradition of the founder to whom they are ascribed.17 The modesty of Jas is not atypical; when words were considered a valuable expression of a movement, they were detached from their immediate author and reascribed to the timeless tradition of the founder. Heraclitus’s exhortation18 to listen not to him but to the logos (DK22b50) could equally well be an insistence that we listen not to the historical author of Jas but to the Logos. Just as the authors of the Pythagorean sayings and Jas, by their anonymity, express a modesty grounded on the insufficiency of living individuals (as opposed to mythic-historical founders) to be sources of wisdom, so they also see human words as equally limited. The objections to language we find in this Pythagorean–Platonic tradition (and which are further developed in Jas) range from the least critical (those based on the possibility of some sorts of language being misused), to the most critical (those grounded in the insufficiency of language with respect to being and knowledge). Below, the Pythagorean–Platonic objections to language are divided into six

17. We find these sorts of anonymous saying attributed to wise founders throughout Greek popular and esoteric philosophy, in gnomologies, the sayings of the seven sages, the Pythagorean akousmata, chreia collections, and “pseudonymous” letter collections. In all cases, we should think of these not as “forgeries” in the modern sense but as a form of collective knowledge like that of oral tradition. Martin Luther Stirewalt, Studies in Ancient Greek Epistolography (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), discusses pseudonymous letters along these lines; and Dibelius, Commentary on James, points out convincingly (in a stance accepted by an overwhelming majority of contemporary scholars without debate) that we should not think of the pseudonymity of Jas as fraudulent but rather as an innocent use of literary convention (20). 18. Text and translation in T. M. Robinson, Heraclitus: Fragments: A Text with a Commentary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987).

Words as Works

241

types; covered under each type are both the objection and the various ways in which it was addressed (and resolved or not resolved). First Problem. Popular literary works, such as the myths of Homer and the poets, are morally reprehensible (e.g., they show the gods committing adultery). Many early Greek writers, including Xenophanes,19 Heraclitus,20 and Plato (especially in Republic III and X) make this point repeatedly. The solution, however, is trivial—writing new, morally uplifting stories or reinterpreting the old stories allegorically.21 Second Problem. Written language cannot communicate philosophical ideas, since it consists of dead words on the page unable to respond to questions (Phaedrus 275e, but also discussed in Epistle VII and Theaetetus). While this problem is circumvented by purely oral teaching, as was practiced by Pythagoras, Socrates, and Jesus, oral teaching is limited in time and space and thus ineffective for founding a movement, evangelizing, or even doctrinal development. Moreover, if the doctrine being perpetuated is considered universal and divine, there is some inherent difficulty in limiting its propagation to personal and individual oral transmission. Third Problem. Certain types of language, for example, the speech of the poets and sophists, by the very nature of their literary form, 19. E.g., in DK21b11, 12, and 21; text and translation in J. H. Lesher, ed., Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments (Phoenix Suppl. 32; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992). 20. DK22b42, DK22b57; text and translation in T. M. Robinson, Heraclitus. 21. The development of allegorical readings of traditional texts to fit new religious and philosophical concepts was well established in antiquity. Perhaps the prototypical example is the development of allegorical readings to rehabilitate Homer; we find this in Platonist and Stoic circles—a major example is Porphyry’s reading of the cave of the nymphs episode in the Odyssey. Proclus constructs a theoretical account of allegorization of Homer and harmonizes it with Plato in his Republic commentary (especially in the discussion of Resp IV). For work on allegorical readings of Homer, see Robert Lamberton and John J. Keaney, Homer’s Ancient Readers: The Hermeneutics of Greek Epics Earliest Exegetes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); and Robert Lamberton, Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). Broader works on allegorical reading in antiquity include a general study by James Coulter, The Literary Microcosm: Theories of Interpretation of the Later Neoplatonists (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976), and a more narrowly focused one by David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).

242


run counter to the goals of philosophy. The imitative discourses of the poets and the sensuous nature of the sophistic grand style tend to stir up the passions, which corrupt the soul and attach it more closely to the corporeal world and the body, things that run counter to the goals of philosophy.22 For both philosophical and Christian writers, distinguishing their own literary means of expression from those of the sophists and poets becomes a standard special topos. Plato, therefore, in Gorgias, Protagoras, and Phaedrus (and more interestingly in Sophist and Theaetetus) separates dialectical from rhetorical method. Paul, as Bruce Winter has emphasized,23 constructs a teaching identity and rhetorical style in opposition to sophistic practice. Philodemus in his Rhetorica distinguished Epicurean philosophical discourse from rhetoric. Philo (in De congressu especially) and Augustine (in De doctrina christiana), inter alia, struggled with questions of what elements of pagan rhetoric could be appropriated for Judeo-Christian discourse.24 What made rhetoric such a difficult problem for Christian and philosophical speakers was that precisely the elements that made rhetoric an effective tool for evangelism and conversion, namely, its ability to sway the emotions of hearers, was precisely what made it inherently opposed to the goals to which Christian and pagan philosophical speakers were trying to convert their audiences. This problem is a genuine and nontrivial paradox that is constantly addressed but never actually solved throughout antiquity and beyond; the literary form of philosophical protreptic is a direct response to this paradox. Fourth Problem. For a speech to be effective it must be adapted to the soul of the individual hearer. (Plato’s Phaedrus 270d sq. is the classic locus.) This problem can be avoided by one-to-one rather

22. Discussed at length in Poster, “The Affections of the Soul,” 23–37. 23. Bruce Winter, Philo and Paul among Sophists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 24. Even serious pagan philosophical sophists or rhetoricians had a constant rhetorical struggle to distinguish themselves from their more frivolous or unscrupulous counterparts and thus argue for the possibility of philosophical rhetoric. Isocrates in his “Against the Sophists” repeatedly insists that he is a philosopher, not a sophist, and distinguishes his teaching from that of the eristics. Aristides, in arguing for his own type of religious oratory, wishes to “drag Plato back to the orators like a runaway slave” (“Defense of Oratory” 463), a position echoed in Olympiodorus’s commentary on Plato’s Gorgias, which claims that Plato did not oppose all, but only bad, oratory. We find a similar defense of philosophical oratory in Maximus of Tyre (Or. 1.8).

Words as Works

243

than one-to-many forms of spoken discourse. In written discourse, the letter is the form addressed to an individual (or group of likesouled individuals, as in the case of the Pastoral Epistles). While secondary audiences may benefit indirectly from letters not addressed to them if they happen to have the sort of souls to which the letter is composed, the primary audiences benefit directly. Thus, the use of epistolary form in philosophical protreptic (in, e.g., Aristotle’s Protrepticus and Porphyry’s Ad Marcellam) is not merely conventional but rather signifies awareness of the theoretical necessity for psychagogic rhetoric. In this context, it should be noted that the only place where Plato speaks in propria persona is not in his dialogues, composed for general audiences, but in Epistle VII (in which, in a philosophical excursus, he even expounds doctrine). New Testament proclamation of doctrine (as opposed to narrative Gospels) often appears in epistolary form (e.g., the Pauline epistles as opposed to the Synoptic Gospels). Fifth Problem. If the soul of the hearer is not prepared to receive the wisdom being communicated, the words fall like seeds on barren ground, something that leads to another genuine paradox. If people must be prepared to receive words before they can hear them correctly, then something must have prepared them (unless words are only addressed to a limited group properly predisposed by nature). But how can that initial preparation be done? The solution attributed to the early Pythagoreans and mystery cults, of restricting higher order doctrine to initiates, does not solve the problem of how to convince people to be initiated. Augustine simply suggests that the most effective solution for a preacher is to pray that God soften the hearts of the hearers in De doctrina christiana IV. One other solution is to say that the correct lifestyle is the best preparation—but how can people be persuaded to live that type of life? The central task and nontrivial task of the protreptic genre is, in fact, stirring this initial movement of the soul. For it to be accomplished, there must be some innate potentiality for wisdom or tendency toward the good already residing in the soul which somehow can be awakened by language; how to do it without stirring up the passions (as do the speeches of the sophists) is a question to which protreptic theory returns repeatedly. Sixth and Final Problem. The final problem confronting the pagan or Christian philosophical speaker is that the central object of phi-

244


losophy or theology (the One, God, the divine) is ineffable. Thus, as Plato says: There does not exist nor will there ever exist any treatise of mine dealing with [the subject I seriously study]. For it does not admit at all of verbal expression like other studies, but, as a result of continued application to the subject itself and communion therewith, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden as light that is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself. (Epistle VII 341c–d) Philosophical protreptic avoids the paradox of trying to articulate the ineffable by restricting itself to the propaideutic function of using language to kindle in the soul the spark of desire for wisdom, but not articulating wisdom itself. Thus protreptic tends to avoid doctrine and to concentrate on those things that, as it were, prepare the ground so that seeds may grow in it. Protreptic typically will provide advice on matters such as how to live one’s daily life in a manner as will be conducive to philosophy (e.g., Jas, much of Iamblichus’s Protrepticus and De vita Pythagorica, Porphyry’s Ad Marcellam or De abstentia, or even monastic rules). The divine is incorporeal and ineffable and thus cannot be discussed in words. But, to address and purify the corporeal part of humans (body, passions, and lower parts of soul) as preparation for philosophy, corporeal words are not inappropriate. If protreptic modestly restricts itself to this preparatory function, it can sidestep the absolutely intractable problems of philosophical language and need only confront the extremely difficult ones.

THE EPISTLE OF JAMES AS PHILOSOPHICAL PROTREPTIC To claim, from a rhetorical perspective, that Jas is a philosophical protreptic is not so much a statement about its form as about its purpose.25 Its literary form is conditioned by and responds to the

25. Here it should be noted that my analysis is primarily rhetorical rather than grammatical. In antiquity, grammar was the discipline that analyzed, edited, evaluated, and described the formal qualities of texts. Rhetoric was the study of how to compose texts. Rhetorical criticism, insofar as it is distinct from grammar, discusses how texts were composed, including composition process, the context

Words as Works

245

same problems of philosophic language as Platonist protreptic or Cynic diatribe. Jas clearly and explicitly distinguishes itself from other misleading forms of discourse. It is somewhat hortatory in tone but eschews extreme rhetorical flourishes and even the cumulative emotional impact of continuous oration; it avoids doctrinal exposition, instead giving advice concerning conduct; and it is addressed to a selected group of like souls rather than to a general public. While sharing in the features we see in other philosophic protreptics, the form of Jas also reflects a specific theology of justification by works as well as faith, and connects the specifically Christian faith/works topos with the generally rhetorical Hellenic logoi/erga topos. Jas explicitly grapples with the problem of the role of words in religion, grounding its position in what almost seems to be a theory of speech acts. Jas’ advice that one should “. . . be doers of the word, and not merely hearers” (Jas 1:22) emphasizes the efficacy of words in the world not merely as expressions of, or guides to, faith but as works. This sense of words as performative can been seen specifically in his phrase poihtai; lovgou, which Peter Davids sees as a Hebraism that reads awkwardly in Greek.26 Rather than considering it a failure in Jas’ command of the Greek language, I think it in fact illustrates precisely the reverse. It is typical of the rather sophisticated literary devices we see in other places in the letter in making a play on the multiple senses of “makers” as perof composition, and the purpose and audience of a speech. Rhetorical analysis of literary forms is limited to showing how the author constructed the surface qualities of a work to reflect rhetorical intent. Issues such a precise determination of genre or analysis of style belong more properly to grammatical studies. For a discussion of the relationship between grammatical and rhetorical theories of figures, see Carol Poster, “Being, Time, and Definition: Towards a Semiotics of Figural Rhetoric,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 33, no. 2 (2000): 116–36. 26. Davids, Epistle of James, 45. The phrase is also found in Alcidamas (Soph. 34), referring to a mere scriptwriter as opposed to a true orator, and in Aristotle (Sophistici elenchi 169b1), referring to someone who makes an inquiry in private thought merely by means of words and thus falls into error. Aristotle, in his Poetics, and Plato, in Republic and Sophist, both discuss imitation by means of words, the latter contrasting verbal and other imitations with the more important realities they imitate. The verb logopoievw and its derivatives are found in Herodotus, Plato, Theophrastus, and Thucydides, and signify “prose writers,” but often in the slightly pejorative sense of makers of (tall or false) tales, emphasizing the common topic of disjunction between lovgoi (words) and e[rga (deeds), precisely the disjunction that Jas examines and aims to remedy. Far from being an awkward Hebraism, the phrase may be evidence of a writer sufficiently familiar with classical authors to engage in a complex and allusive dialogue with them by means of word choice..

246


sons who craft words and persons who do things in accordance with them (as in doing the law in 4:11). In so far as language is performative, a speaker or writer is acting in the world, in Austin’s title, “doing things with words [my italics].” This is specifically the case with the protreptic genre employed in Jas. All protreptics are performative utterances; they do not merely discuss how people might be exhorted, but instead perform the act of exhorting (literally, of turning souls). This power of words as actions, for Jas, adds an additional element to the difficulties of philosophical language discussed above. Words not only can err in representing ideas but they can miss their mark in performance. Jas repeatedly insists on the importance of words as perilous actions affecting the world for good or evil—for example, in its metaphor of the tongue as a fire, potentially full of deadly poison (Jas 3:6–8), its advice that one should be slow to speak (Jas 1:19), and its warnings against taking up teaching frivolously (Jas 3:1). In order to avoid self-contradiction, Jas, who is engaged in the very teaching he warns against, must somehow make his language avoid the perils he cautions against. Below I will discuss two aspects of how Jas manages to be consistent with his own notions of the proper use of language and teaching. First, I will address the problem he identifies—the ways in which speech can be misused. Second, I will discuss how Jas attempts to solve the problems of literary form he identifies by appropriating (and modifying) the form of epistolary protreptic as an antirhetorical mode of acting in words.

WHO AND WHEN WAS JAMES? In order to look at how Jas uses protreptic in terms of its purpose, it would be useful to have some idea of the work’s rhetorical context. Unfortunately, the evidence for the author, date, and audience of the work is quite limited. The earliest certain references we have to Jas are in Origen. While this guarantees that the letter was written sometime before ca. 180 c.e., it does not tell us how early it might be, although the references to Jesus in the letter would argue for its having been written (or edited from an earlier document) after mid-first century. The echoes of Jesus’ sayings also point to a date after the death of Jesus; that the echoes of Jesus in Jas are all of say-

Words as Works

247

ings found in Q27 yields two possibilities: (1) that Jas was written in a period when Q was still better known than the canonical Gospels (perhaps mid-to-late first century) or that the writer preferred the Q materials (possibly, but far from certainly, evidence of authorship of Jas within a Gnostic group that saw itself as following a Jamesian tradition). External evidence only serves to date the letter between ca. 45 c.e. and ca. 180 c.e.; for any further claims, it is necessary to rely on internal evidence. The single major piece of internal evidence concerning authorship is prose style. Compared to most New Testament works, Jas is written in a fairly good literary Greek with a limited number of Hebraisms. This makes its authorship by James, the brother of Jesus, unlikely—unless, of course, James dictated the letter to a (Hellenically) well-educated secretary28 or the sayings represent a tradition originating with James but modified by later editors. While scholars would generally agree to the minimalist claims that the work was written in late-first or early-to-mid-second century (perhaps incorporating earlier Jewish “wisdom” elements) and that the author (or secretary or editor) had some knowledge of and/or talent for literary Greek, the more precise contextual details necessary for interpretation are speculative. Insofar as my own speculations (which generally stay fairly close to the scholarly consensus), to some degree, influence my reading of Jas, I summarize them briefly here. There are two main accounts of the letter’s authorship that argue for an early date: (1) that it was by James, the brother of Jesus or (2) that it was a work of Jewish wisdom literature edited by later Christians. Both, I think, are unconvincing. First, it is unlikely that the author of Jas was actually James, the brother of Jesus. As well as linguistic evidence (that the Greek is too good) and historical evidence (Jas doesn’t match the interest in Jewish law we would expect from James), I think it highly improbable that a letter from the brother of Jesus would have remained unknown for so long by Christians— though the disruptions following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, and thus the chaos in the city where James would have

27. Discussed in Patrick J. Hartin, James and the Q Sayings of Jesus (JSNTSup 47; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991). 28. Something E. Randolph Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991), discusses concerning the Pauline epistles. See also idem, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition, and Collection (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004).

248


been living could have caused such a letter to be lost temporarily. The second possible early dating of Jas accounts for the letter as a work of pre-Christian or non-Christian Jewish wisdom literature with the references to Jesus and his sayings inserted by later editors. But the paucity of explicit references to Jesus in Jas are not evidence of its have been written by a non-Christian and those references inserted by a later editor—there are no explicitly Christian references in Boethius’s Consolatio, despite Boethius being Christian. Moreover, the problem with the earlier date lies not in the assumption that (Hellenized) Jewish wisdom literature influenced Jas; even the most cursory comparison of Jas with the Wisdom of Solomon or Ecclesiasticus will reveal a clear relationship.29 Even the sayings of Jesus echoed in Jas may be ones he had appropriated from a Jewish tradition. The problem in arguing for an early Jewish date on the basis of similarity to or use of early sources is a theoretical one. All works to a greater or lesser degree depend on their predecessors. When we date works, however, what we date is the text we have. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar was based on Plutarch, but it dates from Elizabethan England, not the Mediterranean world of ca. 100 c.e. Similarly, although works transmitted orally, for example, Homer or the sayings Gospels, have early cores, the dates of the texts we have are later than the original materials. Whatever the sources of individual pieces of Jas, our particular text is a post-Easter one. This is not to say that source and redaction criticism are not useful tools in analyzing Jas, but rather that the rhetorical purpose and effect of the given text we have is a function of our final text, even if, as in the case of Pierre Menard’s Don Quixote (in Borges’s famous story “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote”), the words are identical to those of the source.

29. It is not, I think, necessary to think of Greek and Jewish influences as mutually exclusive alternatives. They may well have shared a common Mesopotamian influence—certainly the Mesopotamian parallels with Jewish culture have been well established, and convincing arguments have been made for Mesopotamian influence on Greek culture, especially wisdom literature. See, e.g., Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near East Influence on Greek Culture in the Archaic Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992); Charles Penglase, Greek Myths and Mesopotamia: Parallels and Influence in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod (London: Routledge, 1994); and M. L. West, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997). Oral theory would also predict a certain similarity of orally derived forms across cultures. More specifically, in the Hellenistic period, many educated Jews (e.g., Philo and Josephus) were familiar with Greek literary culture and synthesized its tradition with their own.

Words as Works

249

The author (or compiler) was thus probably a later (late first or early second century) author who considered himself a follower of James, brother of Jesus, or at least of a version of Christianity that was claiming James, as opposed to Paul, as an authoritative figure. It is one of a group of writings from this period attributed to James (which includes the Apocryphon of James and the First and Second Apocalypse of James in the Nag Hammadi library and the Protoevangelium of James). The reasons for the attribution of the letter to James cannot be known with any certainty, but seem to cluster around two obvious possibilities. First, James, by virtue of being Jesus’ brother, was a figure of some authority. Especially if one wanted to oppose Pauline or Petrine traditions, he was an equally convincing auctor to use in countering them.30 Second, there was a tradition of the historical James being associated with a theology of works rather than faith. If an individual author, or sect, wanted to put forth such a theology, James would be the appropriate banner under which to proclaim it. While for the historical James, the question of works seem to have revolved around keeping the Jewish purity laws, a later writer, after the collapse of Jewish Christianity, might well have looked to him as a founder of a more generalized theology of works, especially if the writer was strongly Hellenized. If we suppose a second-century date, when keeping Jewish purity rituals was no longer a center of debate and the life and doctrines of Jesus’ brother had faded into myth, attributing to James “the Just” a general notion of good works and righteousness rather than a specific one of Jewish law would not have been unlikely. Like many educated people in the Greek East, Jas appears somewhat familiar with Hellenic paideia. This paideia, by the Roman period, had become syncretistic, borrowing elements from Jewish, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and other cultures. Jas, too, seems to be somewhat a syncretist, whose advice, while part of a controversy over the importance of works, is unusually nonsectarian. Most of the advice in Jas could equally credibly derive from Jewish wisdom traditions, Jewish Christianity, Gnosticism, Stoicism, or middle Platonism. The allusions to Jesus and the figures of the Old Testament

30. The relationship of the historical James to Paul has been discussed by Painter, Just James, and others. The relation of James to Paul is more complex, as it depends on the uncertain date of Jas. I do not think it necessary to reconcile Jas’ theology with Pauline theology (which goes against the grain of the text) or even to see Jas as responding to Paul. It may well have been that Jas was written before the Pauline epistles had the authority they were to acquire in the later church.

250


are scattered and not integral to the work, but I think this is more rhetorical than indicative of their inclusion by a later redactor. The Old Testament references would not be unlikely even in a pagan work composed in Alexandria or the Levant—for example, Longinus’s On the Sublime has references to Genesis and Moses, and Moses was frequently mentioned in the Greek magical papyri as a famous magician.31 The emphasis on the law, while in some ways characteristically Jewish, is not impossible to read as compatible with Stoic thought, which also emphasizes conformance to divine law quite strongly. Jas can be seen within a context of many syncretic Hellenistic writers who were searching for a unified knowledge of God as an ineffable divine ground of the limited and fallible representations that constitute human religion. How far Jas might actually have been leaning to a syncretic position cannot be determined on the basis of the letter; the appearance of syncretism may be no more than a captatio benevolentiae for a Hellenically educated audience. What is clear, however, is that the literary form of the letter is clearly influenced by Hellenic rhetoric as well as Jewish models32 and that Jas’ strictures concerning speaking are ones that were common in the popular (pagan and Christian) philosophies of the early Christian period.

THE TONGUE STAINS THE WHOLE BODY For Jas, the perils of the tongue are twofold, affecting both speaker and hearer, though he considers the first case the most dangerous. It is more difficult to avoid errors in speech than in any other aspect of daily life: “anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect” (2:3). Mistakes in speech are not restricted to words but have significant effects. Like ships guided by a small rudder “the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits” (3:4–5). Grumbling (5:7–9) and swearing (5:12) are to be avoided as evil acts, and yet these are the acts hardest to avoid. Jas emphasizes that though “every species of beast and bird can be tamed . . . no one can tame the tongue, a restless evil full of deadly poison” (3:7–9). The restless evil of the tongue, for Jas, is due to its being a small member and

31. Discussed in Fritz Graf, Magic in the Ancient World (trans. Franklin Philips; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997). 32. As Duane Watson, “James 2 in Light of Greco-Roman Schemes of Argumentation,” NTS 39 (1993): 94–121, has shown, I think, conclusively.

Words as Works

251

easily moved. Committing adultery, theft, or murder takes much longer and involves much more in the way of effort than simply uttering an unkind or lustful thought. And yet, insofar as words are efficacious, the sins in utterance are in fact sinful deeds. But the very efficacy of speech acts that makes them so dangerous also is the key to taming them. The instability of the tongue is a result of double-mindedness (1:5) in which words are detached from deeds. Deeds can weigh down and in a sense stabilize the tongue. Jas gives a practical example of the interdependence of faith, words, and works at 2:14: “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and one of you says to them ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ what is the good of that?” The problem with this is not only the lack of help for the brother or sister, but also that the words freed of the weight of deeds are in fact not warming and filling but rather the opposite, since they actually send away the ones in need. The words are performatively “unhappy”—a technical term in speech act theory for an unfulfilled performative—a promise not completed or a priest saying “I marry” when either he doesn’t have the authority to do so or the couple consists of minors or bigamists. The words are also hypocritical, because of their dual nature (of claiming to give but actually not doing so). Just as a blessing is performative, in that the priest uttering it is carrying out by such means the act of benediction, so too cursing is performative. The person who tells a brother and sister to go away and eat without giving food is performatively cursing the person to go hungry while falsely seeming to bless. As Jas puts it a few verses later: From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. . . . This ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree . . . yield olives or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh. (3:11–12) The words that send away the hungry contaminate the words that bid them be filled much as salt waters pollute fresh. For words to avoid being evil, they must not only be internally consistent as words, but also tied to deeds. A notion of performative language entails a commitment to words as works. Since faith can only be thought about or uttered in words, and words are acts, faith cannot be without works. In Austin’s terms, we could say faith is embodied in words, and words are speech acts that are only “happy” if realized in action. A promise or a blessing, for example, which is

252


not fulfilled, is a bad promise, not just a consequence of lack of faith but an actual lack of faith. Thus Jas points out: “Show me your faith apart from your works and I by my works will show you my faith” (dei'xovn moi th;n pivstin sou cwri;" tw'n e[rgwn kajgw; soi deivxw ejk tw'n e[rgwn mou th;n pivstin, 2:18). The specific phrasing is particularly interesting. As Kinneavy pointed out, the Christian term pistis for “faith” evolved gradually out of its earlier Greek rhetorical meaning as “proof.”33 The rhetorical meaning did not disappear; we still have pagan rhetorical tests using pistis for proof into late antiquity. If James were, as I think is the case, educated in Hellenic paideia, he would have been aware of this dual meaning and invoking it deliberately. For the phrase could just as well mean, “Show me your proof apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my proof.” If Jas were deliberately constructing this dual meaning, he is invoking, as I think he does throughout the letter, the traditional logoi/erga topos. He is saying that demonstrating faith by means of empty proofs (in the style of sophistic, or even eristic, argument) is worthless; actions are a far better proof of faith than mere verbal claims. The literary structure of Jas treats this problem of connectedness of words to the problem of faith and works with a ring composition, extending from 1:18 to 3:12. Jas admonishes his readers to be “slow to speak” (1:18) and to be doers of the word (poihtai; lovgou) rather than merely hearers (1:22), a phrase which, as I discussed above, seems a deliberate pun on the notion of poihtaiv as writers and doers of words. Jas is saying that because of the role of speech as action, those who want to act their faith must speak. But speaking is not to be undertaken lightly. If the tongue is not bridled (by being tied to action), and people make claims of faith but do not act on them, “religion is worthless” (1:26). This warning about speech is followed by the long section insisting on the barrenness of faith without works in 2:1–26, which is immediately followed by a return to the subject of language, with the cautions at 3:1 on teaching. The discussion of mistakes in speaking (3:2–12) completes the ring begun at 1:18.

33. James L. Kinneavy, Greek Rhetorical Origins of Christian Faith: An Inquiry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

Words as Works

253

CONCLUSION The constant caveats about speaking in Jas raise the question of how Jas himself avoids the errors he points out—if he does. This is where, I think, the modesty of the protreptic form actually enacts Jas’ theological position. Where the unnamed opponents (arrogant teachers, those without works) proclaim doctrine or faith, Jas really doesn’t. He restricts himself to three major points: first, that words and faith must be tied to deeds; second, that one’s actions should be consistent with love of God and neighbor; and third, that one should not accumulate worldly goods but use them in service of God and neighbor. These suggestions are surprisingly modest. Jas nowhere claims special knowledge or authority as a disciple or prophet. He does not lay down any details of doctrine and the laws he advocates are only the ones to which most decent people of his era would assent. There is no special pleading about dietary laws, circumcision, the duties of the genders, or whether one may eat dinner with pagans, all of which were topics of rhetorical (specifically deliberative) controversy in Paul. Instead, we have the topics appropriate to the protreptic genre—which pseudo-Libanius describes as urging those things on which all people agree34— avoiding murder, adultery, blasphemy, hypocrisy, selfishness, and unkindness. Jas does not excite the passions with vivid pictures of the blessings of heaven and torments of hell, nor construct a progressive oration that stirs up the hearers on some particular side of a controversy. Instead, he lays out a well-ordered series of gnomic precepts that lead his hearers toward a lifestyle that prepares them to be receptive to divine truth. His function is preparation. The next step beyond this preparation by means of conduct, he suggests in his penultimate verses (5:13–18), is prayer, which like Plato’s selfsustaining spark can lead beyond the limits of protreptic language. But Jas never does go beyond the limits of protreptic and therefore does not become entangled in the paradoxes he cautions against. His closing suggestion (5:19–20), that one should strive to bring back sinners from wandering, is in fact an affirmation of the need for the very sort of protreptic his letter is doing. While one must avoid the perils of bad (rhetorical or empty) speech, good speech itself is a necessary good deed, and thus in writing his protreptic Jas is in fact fulfilling his own admonition (2:18) to show his faith by works in the form of words. 34. Pseudo-Libanius 68:1–12 in Malherbe, Epistolary Theorists, 1988.


Appendixes

255


Appendix A Components of Classical Rhetoric Adapted from Richard A. Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms THE THREE GENRES OF SPEECHES Deliberative: typical of the assembly, in which speaker tries to influence the hearer’s decisions concerning things in the future. Forensic: typical of judicial or legal proceedings in which the speaker tries to influence the judgment of the hearers concerning things in the past. Epideictic [also referred to as “panegyric”]: typical of community settings in which the speaker may remind the hearers of communal values or simply display his skills as “trained” orator. The three genres are defined by the kind of listeners involved, the place in which the speech is to be delivered, and the subject addressed by the speaker.

THE FIVE CANONS OF RHETORIC Invention: the discovery of the “best available means of persuasion.” Arrangement: ordering the parts of the argument. Style: the selection of “ornaments” to enhance the argument. Memory: the selection of devices to help the speaker remember the contents of a speech. Delivery: having to do with effective use of the voice and gestures, and the use of suitable poses and positioning of the body relative to the audience. In the realm of Invention Aristotle discussed “inartificial proof” or “nonartistic proof.” Nonartistic proofs preexist and are not created by the speaker; they are simply declared. “Artificial proofs,” or “artistic

257

258

Appendix A

proofs,” are invented by the speaker and dependent on ethos (character), pathos (emotion), and logos (rational argument). Logical proofs consisted of “deductive” (syllogism and enthymeme), and “inductive.” Invention includes the use of “topics,” typically called “common places.” Major common places include potential, past events, future events, and “size.” Arrangement consists of part of a speech. At the simplest level a speech will include an exordium (designed to gain the attention and goodwill of an audience); a narrative (designed to lay out the facts of a case or the most significant points in a person’s history); proofs (designed to elaborate the arguments that prove the person’s case or demonstrate the merits of a person); and the peroration (designed to sum up the case and/or stir the audience). Other parts that may be included are: the division (lays out the stipulated points or the points to be contested); the refutation (of the opponent’s argument). Aristotle thought the two most important parts were the narrative and the proofs. The Latin rhetors, including Quintilian, expanded the number of parts and sometimes blurred their distinction. The controlling factor in selecting the parts of speech was the audience. Style is often categorized as unadorned or plain, characteristic of the Attic style; modestly ornamented, characteristic of the Rhodian style; or, more ornamented and full, characteristic of the Asiatic style. PseudoDemetrius, in On Style, lists four types: plain, grand, eloquent, forceful. In any case, types of styles are not rigidly observed in practice. Memory was thought of as either “natural” or “artificial,” with mnemonic devices characteristic of the “artificial.” Delivery was concerned with voice and gesture. Inevitably the reaction of the audience affected the use of both.

FIGURES OF SPEECH Terms used to identify attention-grabbing patterns or configurations of words, or the unconventional use of commonly understood words. Although Greek and Roman theorists described dozens of figures, more have been created and/or identified throughout the common era, making them ever more subtle and harder to categorize.

FOUR MASTER TROPES Although there is no one commonly accepted definition of the word “trope,” there is consensus that it refers to a figure of speech that affects the meaning of a word (or words) rather than simply rearranging patterns of them. Kenneth Burke refers to four “master” tropes: Metaphor, Synecdoche, Metonymy, and Irony. Metaphor changes the meaning of a word to something analogous to it, that can be identified with it. Synecdoche

Components of Classical Rhetoric

259

substitutes a part for the whole or the whole for the part. Metonymy substitutes one name for another, that is, the qualities of one thing for another. Irony implies a meaning directly opposite to the literal meaning of a statement; it can also be a form of derision.

STASIS Invention can be dependent on “issues,” or a doctrine of “stasis.” Cicero had argued that topics were derived from three, possibly four, issues: conjectural, definitional, qualitative, and in the case of a legal question, translation—Was it done? What was done? What kind of thing was done? And, is this the proper forum in which to deliberate the issue? Quintilian decided ultimately that the first three issues were all that were necessary.

Appendix B An Annotated List of Proofs from Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric The following is an annotated listing of the argumentative strategies as presented in The New Rhetoric. Most definitions are actual quotes or close paraphrases from the book. The reader should consult the book for a fuller discussion of any specific strategy. I. Association Techniques Definition: By processes of association we understand schemes that bring separate elements together and allow us to establish a unity among them, which aims at organizing them or at evaluating them, positively or negatively, by means of one another. A. Quasi-logical Arguments Arguments claiming to be similar to the formal reasoning of logic or mathematics. 1. Contradiction 2. Incompatibility Displaying the inconsistency of a group of propositions is to expose it to a condemnation. Or, it shows an incompatibility that resembles a contradiction. Incompatibilities differ from contradictions because they exist only in terms of circumstances: in order that a conflict imposing a choice arises between two principles, they must be applicable simultaneously to the same reality. 3. The Ridiculous Ridicule is often achieved through clever deductions drawn from what one is attempting to criticize, that is, the reduction ad absurdum. Irony is another provisional form of ridicule. a. Irony b. Reduction ad absurdum 4. Definition A brief explanation of the meaning of a term. However, the charge of tautology amounts to presenting an assertion as the result of a definition, of a purely linguistic convention, which tells us nothing about empirical relations between the definiens and definendum.

260

Annotated List of Proofs

261

a. Normative = words b. Descriptive = context c. Condensed d. Complex 5. Rule of Justice The rule of justice requires giving identical treatment to beings or situations of the same kind. 6. Reciprocity Arguments of reciprocity aim at giving the same treatment to two situations that are counterparts of each other. Here the identification of the situations, necessary in order that the rule of justice be applicable, is indirect, in the same sense that it requires using the concept of symmetry. Arguments of reciprocity show that the situations are similar by regarding certain relations as symmetrical. 7. Transitivity Transitivity is a formal property of certain relations that makes it possible to infer that because a relation holds between a and b and between b and c, therefore it holds between a and c: the relations of equality, superiority, inclusion, and ancestry are transitive. Includes arguments based on relationships of friendship or antagonism between persons and groups, greater than relationships, heavier than, broader than, etc. Sorites are quasi-logical argumentation: it is a chain of reasoning in which the last term in each proposition in the chain of argument becomes the first in the next proposition, for example, “desiring purity they sought sincerity, desiring sincerity they sought knowledge.” 8. Inclusion of the Part in the Whole There are two groups in this line of argumentation: those restricted to dealing with the inclusion of the parts in the whole, and those dealing with the division of the whole into its parts and with the relations between the parts which result from this division. For example: What is unlawful to the whole church cannot be lawful for any of its members. 9. Division of Whole into Parts This provides the basis of a series of arguments that can be called arguments of division or of partition. These are different from differentiations based on the relation between genus and species. Arguments by division can be analyzed, but they are open to dispute or can be chosen at will; arguments by species are based on an agreement that predates the argument. Arguments by division give us everything addition, subtraction, and their combinations can give us. Argument by division lies at the basis of the dilemma, a form of argument by which two hypotheses are examined, with the conclusion that no matter which one of them is chosen the

262

Appendix B result is a statement, or a course of action, which amounts to the same thing in either case, or they both imply an incompatibility with some already accepted principle. 10. Arguments by Comparison Comparisons can be made by opposition, ordering, or quantitative ordering. They can also use the superlative. a. Opposition b. Ordering c. Quantitative 11. Argument by Sacrifice Such an argument makes one sacrifice willingly in order to achieve a certain result. This argument can be applied to a whole field of relationships between ends and means, means being a sacrifice, an effort, an expenditure, a suffering. All these arguments are effective only if the value that is being measured is not dependent on some other more convincing factor. 12. Probabilities and Statistics These arguments use statistics to prove some idea. Reasoning that is based on probabilities, or whatever theoretical support may be given to the probabilities, has the general effect of imparting an empirical character to the problems. B. Arguments Based on the Structure of Reality Definition: Arguments based on the structure of reality make use of some observation about reality to establish a solidarity between accepted judgments and others which one wishes to promote. What we are interested in here is not an objective description of reality, but the manner in which opinions concerning it are presented. These can, moreover, be treated as facts, truths, or presumptions. 1. Based on Existence Arguments based on the structure of existence apply to relations of succession, which unite a phenomenon to its consequences or causes, as also the arguments that apply to the relations of coexistence, which unite a person to his actions, a group to the individuals who form it, and, in general, an essence to its manifestations. a. Sequential Relations (1) Causal Link The causal link argument plays an important part in historical reasoning that appeals to retrospective probability. (a) Attach two successive events to each other by means of the causal link (b) Revealing the existence of a cause which could have determined a given event (c) Showing the effect which must result from a given event. (2) Pragmatic Argument


263

This entails value transfers between elements of the causal chain which are carried out by going from cause to effect and from effect to cause. One may call the argument pragmatic that permits the evaluation of an act or an event in terms of its favorable or unfavorable consequences. (3) Fact/Consequence Argument From the moment a fact–consequence connection is apparent, the argumentation is valid, whatever the merits of the connection itself. (a) Deed/Consequence The difference between a deed-consequence and a means–end argument is the attribution of intention. Means implies an intention to obtain an end, consequence does not imply intention. (b) Means/Ends See above. (c) Argument from Waste Waste consists in saying that, as one has already begun a task and made sacrifices that would be wasted if the enterprise were given up, one should continue in the same direction. (d) Argument from Sacrifice Similar to the one above, except notes the price already involved. (e) Argument from Direction The Argument from Direction is as follows: Before now, the connection has been dealt with in a more global and static way. But it is possible to split up the pursuit of an end into several stages and to consider the manner in which the situation is transformed. The viewpoint will be incomplete, but dynamic. Though the passage from point A to C may cause difficulties, it might happen that no objection may be seen to passing from point A to B, from which point C will appear in a quite different light. We may call this technique the device of stages. The structure of reality conditions the choice of these stages but never imposes it. i. Argument from Stages The argument of direction consists, essentially, in guarding against the use of the device of stages: if you give in this time, you will have to give in a little more next time, and heaven knows where you will stop. (f) Unlimited Development Contrary to the argument of direction, which raises the

264

Appendix B fear that an action will involve us in a process with an outcome that fills us with alarm, arguments with unlimited development insist on the possibility of always going further in a certain direction without being able to foresee a limit to this direction. i. Hyperbole The role of hyperbole is to provide a reference that draws the mind in a certain direction only to force it later to retreat a little, to the extreme limit of what seems compatible with its ideas of the human, the possible, or the probable. ii. Litotes This can be set in opposition to hyperbole because when it seeks to establish a value, it relies on something that falls short of the value, instead of something beyond it. For example: “He is not a fool” or “I am not mistaken.” 2. Based on Coexistence In sequential connections, the terms brought together are on the same phenomenal plane, but connections of coexistence unite two realities that are not on an equal level, one of them being more basic and more explanatory than the other. In these, the order of time is secondary; the highly structured quality of one of the terms is of the essence. For example: considering a phenomenon as part of the person’s structure or “person” endows it with a higher status. a. Argument from Authority/Prestige Many arguments are influenced by prestige, including, as we have seen, the argument by sacrifice. But there is a series of arguments whose whole significance is conditioned by prestige. The prestige argument appears in its most characteristic form in the argument from authority. (1) Severance [Suppressed Influence] & Restraint [Reduces Influence] Arguments These are techniques that sever or restrain the interaction of the act and the person. They must be used when there is a contradiction between what we believe of the person and what we think of the act. Or, when we decline to make the modifications that would be necessary, either because we wish to shield the person from the influence of the act or the act from the influence of the person. If it is a technique that aims at suppressing influence, that is, it is a severance technique. If it aims at reducing influence, it is a technique of restraint. (a) Act/Person Contradictions i. Person as Example of the Perfect Being


265

(2) Consider Act as Example of the Truth or Expression of Fact For many people, speech is the most characteristic manifestation of the person because the interaction between speaker and speech plays a very important part in argumentation. Irrespective of his wishes and whether or not s/he uses connections of the act-person type, a speaker runs the risk that the hearer will regard him as intimately connected with his speech. This interaction between speaker and speech is perhaps the most characteristic part of argumentation as opposed to demonstration. In formal deduction, the role of the speaker is reduced to a minimum; it increases progressively as the language used is more removed from univocity and as context, intention, and ends gain in importance. (3) Speech as an Act of the Person (Ethos Argument) (4) Person and Group Belong Argument Individuals influence our impression of the group to which they belong, as well as conversely, what we think of the group affects what we think of the individual who belongs. (5) The Group and Its Individual Member Argument (6) Act and Essence The same interactions found in the relationship between act and person, and individual and group, recur whenever events, objects, beings, or institutions are grouped in a comprehensive way, or are considered characteristic of a period, style, regime, or structure. These intellectual constructions try to connect and explain particular, concrete, individual phenomena by treating them as manifestations of an essence which is also expressed by other events, objects, beings, or institutions. History, sociology, and aesthetics are the favorite fields for explanations of this type: events characterize a period; works a style; and institutions a regime. Even the behavior and manners of men can be explained not only by their membership in a certain group, but also by the period or the regime to which they belong: to speak of medieval man or of capitalist behavior is to try to show how this man or that behavior partakes of and expresses an essence, and how they, in turn, help to characterize it. (Essences are adjectives and classifications used to characterize and explain the behavior of certain classes of beings.) (7) The Symbolic Relation Perelman compares the symbolic relation with relations of coexistence: It seems to us that the symbol differs from the

266

Appendix B sign in that it is not purely conventional. If it has meaning and representational value, these derive from the fact that between the symbol and what it evokes there is a relation, which, for lack of a better term, we will call the relationship of participation. . . . The symbolic connection, like these other connections, is considered a part of reality, but it does not refer to a definite structure of reality. By reason of the fact that the symbol and the thing symbolized are often conceived to belong to different strata of reality, to different spheres, their relations may be called one of analogy. But to view them in this way means destroying the most striking aspect of the symbolic connection, for it cannot play its part unless the symbol and the thing symbolized are integrated into a mythical or speculative reality in which they are mutual participants. In this new reality there exists a relation of coexistence between the elements of the symbolic relation even when, in fact, the symbol is separated in time from the thing symbolized. b. The Double Hierarchy Arguments as Applied to Sequential Relations and Relations of Coexistence Hierarchies, like values, belong to the agreements that serve as premises to discourse. The double hierarchy argument is often an implicit one. For behind any hierarchy there may be discerned the outline of another hierarchy. For example: A man is stronger than another because the latter can lift heavier weights. One cannot always be sure if this latter hierarchy serves as foundational or as criterion for the first. (1) Nearly Always Are a fortiori Arguments (2) Double Hierarchy Quantitative Arguments (Argument of Degree) (3) Double Hierarchy Qualitative Arguments (Argument from Order) C. Arguments Establishing the Structure of Reality Definition: These arguments are devoted to the analysis of the relations that establish reality by resort to the particular case. The latter play a wide variety of roles: as an example, it makes generalization possible. As an illustration, it provides support for an already established regularity; as a model, it encourages imitation. 1. Establishment through the Particular Case a. Argument by Example (1) Argument from the Particular to the Particular (2) Argument from the Invalidating Case (Exemplum in Contrario) (a) Opposed by Argument of Restricted Fields of Application


267

(3) Argument by Illustration (Strengthens Accepted Positions but Does Not Create New Paradigms) b. Model and Anti-Model In the realm of conduct, particular behavior may serve not only to establish or illustrate a general rule but also to incite to an action inspired by it. Whereas reference to a model makes it possible to encourage a particular kind of behavior, reference to an anti-model or foil serves to deter people from it. c. The Perfect Being as Model 2. Reasoning by Analogy The argumentative value of analogy can be seen most clearly if it is envisaged as a resemblance of structures, the most general formulation of which is: A is to B as C is to D. Analogy is an unstable means of argument. For the person who rejects the conclusions will tend to assert that “there is not even an analogy” and will minimize the value of the statement by reducing it to a vague comparison or merely verbal resemblance. 3. Argument through Metaphor a. Allegory b. Parable II. Argument through Dissociation Definition: By processes of dissociation, we mean techniques of separation which have the purpose of dissociating, separating, disuniting elements that are regarded as forming a whole or at least a unified group within some system of thought. Dissociation techniques are largely characterized by modifications that they introduce into notions, since they aim less at using the accepted language than at moving toward a new formulation. A. Arguments that Break Logical/Accepted Connections Lack of connection may be proved by actual or mental experience, by changes in the conditions governing a situation, and, more particularly, in the sciences, by the examination of certain variables. The technique of breaking connecting links therefore consists of affirming that elements that should remain separate and independent have been improperly associated. Dissociation, on the other hand, assumes the original unity of elements comprised within a single conception and designated by a single notion. The dissociation of notions brings about a more or less profound change in the conceptual data that are used as the basis of argument. It is then no more a question of breaking the links that join independent elements but of modifying the very structure of these elements. 1. Arguments that Break Connecting Links The technique of breaking connecting links therefore consists of affirming that elements that should remain separate and independent have been improperly associated.

268

Appendix B 2. Arguments that Dissociate Links Dissociation, on the other hand, assumes the original unity of elements comprised within a single conception and designated by a single notion. The dissociation of notions brings about a more or less profound change in the conceptual data that are used as the basis of argument. It is then no more a question of breaking the links that join independent elements but of modifying the very structure of these elements. Depending on whether the connecting links between elements are regarded as “natural” or “artificial,” as “essential” or “accidental,” one person will see a dissociation where another sees the breaking of a connecting link. a. Appearance/Reality Pairs (Prototypical Dissociation Technique) Rejection of an old conception as not corresponding to reality is an example of dissociation. (1) Means/Ends (2) Act/Person (3) Individual/Group (4) Act/Essence (5) Symbol/Thing (6) Particular/General b. Definition (Also Part of Quasi-logical Arguments)

III. Arguments by Amplification Definition: The preceding analysis presented argumentative strategies in isolation. However, in practice, these often interact. Arguments by amplification are ways of modulating the strength of an argument being presented, often in relation to other arguments being presented. The central principle, in this connection, is always adaptation to the audience and the propositions it admits, with due regard to the intensity of the adherence to these propositions. A. Deliberate Overestimation of the Strength of an Argument 1. Hyperbole 2. Deceit [my paraphrase] 3. Minimizing the Opponents’ Strength

Appendix C Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT) and Fantasy Theme Analysis (FTA) A GLOSSARY Compiled by James D. Hester from the Writings of Ernest Bormann and His Students

Symbolic Convergence Theory: a general theory of communication that explains the presence of a common consciousness on the part of members of a group. It posits that the sharing of group fantasies and the chaining out of those fantasies are responsible for group consciousness and group cohesiveness. As fantasies are “ dramatized,” a convergence of symbols on which participants agree occurs, and fantasy themes and fantasy types help the group interpret and understand unexpected, confusing, or even chaotic events or experiences. The process of convergence creates social reality for the group until new exigencies cause new fantasies and moments of sharing, which in turn produce new group realities. These realities provide the underlying assumptions used by the group in discursive argumentation. Fantasy Theme Analysis: a method of rhetorical criticism designed to analyze and describe the rhetorical artifacts produced by symbolic convergence, not just in small-group communication but also in social movements, political campaigns, etc. Analysis focuses on the content of the message and the relationship among message elements. Dramatizing Message (DM): a story that contains a pun, double entendre, personification, figure of speech, analogy, anecdote, allegory, fable or narrative. The story often deals with past conflict or the potential of future conflict and is thus set in time references of somewhere/ sometime rather than the here and now. It is based on some original facts. A DM is the basis for group fantasy sharing. If it is accepted by the group and is chained out in a process of elaboration and other

269

270

Appendix C

responses, then it becomes a group fantasy. Acceptance may be due to the rhetorical skill of the one conveying the message. Fantasy: “the creative and imaginative shared interpretation of events that fulfills a group’s psychological and rhetorical need to make sense out of its experience and anticipate its future.”1 Fantasy sharing is a means whereby groups establish identity and set boundary conditions for identifying insiders from outsiders. It is also a way in which group history and traditions are developed, thus enabling the group to think of itself as unique.2 Fantasy Theme: the content of the DM. They are stories or narratives “. . . that give meaning to [a] group’s environment and action.”3 Themes become part of the group consciousness; are artistic and organized; and are slanted, ordered, and interpretive. As a result, they provide a way for two or more groups of people to explain an event in different ways. Fantasy Type: a general scenario that covers several concrete fantasy themes. This scenario may be repeated with similar characters and may take the same form. It can be generalized so that characters become persona who act in predictable fashion. Rhetors simply make use of a familiar type, and the audience fills in the particulars. “Fantasy types allow a group to fit new events or experiences into familiar patterns.”4 Rhetorical Vision: a unified construction of themes and types that gives those sharing fantasy types and themes a broader view of things. A rhetorical vision may be indexed by a symbolic cue or key word. A number of rhetorical visions can be integrated by means of a master analogy.5 Seven principles apply to all rhetorical visions: novelty, explanatory power, imitation, critical mass, dedication, rededication, and reiteration.6 Master Analogy: “. . .a key word, a slogan, or a label” that pulls the elements of a rhetorical vision or visions together for easy reference. 1. Ernest Bormann, Small Group Communication: Theory and Practice (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 104; idem, The Force of Fantasy: Restoring the American Dream (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), 5. 2. Bormann, Small Group Communication, 115. 3. Margaret Duffy, “High Stakes: A Fantasy Theme Analysis of the Selling of Riverboat Gambling in Iowa,” Southern Speech Communication Journal 51 (1985): 119. 4. Sonja Foss, Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1989), 292. 5. Foss, Rhetorical Criticism, 293. 6. E. Bormann, J. F. Cragan, and D. Shields, “An Expansion of the Rhetorical Vision Component of the Symbolic Convergence Theory: The Cold War Paradigm Case, Communication Monographs 63 (1996): 25.

Symbolic Convergence Theory and Fanatasy Theme Analysis

271

Historical examples include The New Deal, The Great Society, The Silent Majority, or Contract with America.7 Consciousness Creating, Consciousness Raising, Consciousness Sustaining: the stages in the life cycle of a rhetorical vision. Failure by the community to adapt a vision during the third stage of the cycle will result in the failure of the vision to maintain group cohesiveness. Special Theories of Rhetoric: “Special theories of rhetoric are artistic formulations that specify the nature of conventional forms and usages and provide practical advice on how to take part in communication practices of which they are a part. Special theories relate only to the communication practices of a community restricted in time and sharing a common culture . . . [they] deal with conventional agreements among practitioners as to how communication should be formed and practiced.”8 Classical rhetorical handbooks are an example of special theories.

7. Ernest Bormann, Communication Theory (Salem, WI: Sheffield Publishing, 1989), 8. 8. Bormann, Communication Theory, 4.

Appendix D Theses Derived from the Axiom That Rhetoric Is a Form of Energy The following theses were first proposed by George Kennedy in “A Hoot in the Dark: The Evolution of General Rhetoric” Philosophy and Rhetoric 25 (1992): 1–21. They provided the foundation for his argument in Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). Thesis I

Thesis II

Thesis III

Thesis IV

Thesis V

Thesis VI

Rhetoric is prior to speech. That is, “. . . rhetoric, as energy, has to exist in the speaker before speech can take place.” The receiver’s interpretation of a communication is prior to the speaker’s intent in determining the meaning. That is, “. . . in nature the meaning is what the receiver does as a result of receiving the message . . . [i]f the receiver does nothing, the message has no meaning.” Rhetoric is prior to intentionality or to any belief on the part of a speaker about the meaning of a sign or its effect on others. Compare theses I and VIII. The function of rhetoric is the survival of the fittest. That is, “Rhetoric acts as a mechanism for survival by facilitating successful adaptation of an organism to environmental change. . . . Stripped to its minimum, rhetoric is a defense mechanism. . . .” The rhetorical code evolves by selective variation. That is, “The faculty of rhetoric, more than anything else in nature, is probably responsible for the development of individual personality. . . . Nature selects for survival those individuals whose skills are most adaptive to their environment.” Among the traditional parts of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, delivery, memory), delivery is prior to the others.

272

That Rhetoric Is a Form of Energy

Thesis VII

Thesis VIII

273

That is, some physical action in response to an exigence is present in all life forms. Writing is prior to speech but not prior to rhetoric. That is, marking—vocalizations and symbol making may be classified as a type of “marking”—as an expression of energy precedes writing as such. Rhetorical invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery are phenomena of nature and prior to speech. That is, “It does not seem possible for speech to have developed without the prior existence of the faculties represented in the traditional parts of rhetoric.”

Appendix E An Overview of Burkean Critical Methodology Kenneth Burke often defined “man” as “the symbol-making, symbolusing, symbol-misusing animal.” Unlike animals, which engage in motion and which are particularly impoverished symbolically, humans act intentionally and, frequently, through symbols. The most characteristic of human symbols are words. Through words, people achieve commonality (consubstantiality) with some of their fellow humans at the same time that their words divide them from others.1 If words are, indeed, actions, then language (or any meaningful communication) is a dramatic act. A student of language, then, may discover the meaning of a communication by analyzing it as a drama, using Burke’s “pentad” of elements: act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. Here is a simplified method for the student who is writing a “pentadic analysis” of a communicative drama.

USING PENTADIC ANALYSIS TO PERFORM RHETORICAL CRITICISM 1.

2.

3.

Choose an artifact that interests you and obtain a good facsimile of it. An artifact may be a speech, a political or sports event, a drama, an assassination or war, a ritual, a conversation, a poem, a campaign—any event in which meaning is communicated. Your job is to discover the meaning of the event, and how that meaning was enacted by symbolic means. First, obtain whatever information you can about the event and the people who participated. (“People” may include entities such as “the Bar Association,” “the Greek Orthodox Church,” or “NATO.”) You may analyze the event from the viewpoint of any participant. Choose which actor you wish to focus on; it should be the person most responsible for the symbolic act.

1. For example, in Galatians 2:15, Paul’s reference to “we who are Jews” unites him with his Jewish readers, but it simultaneously separates him from the “sinners of the Gentiles.”

274

Overview of Burkean Critical Methodology 4.

5.

6.

275

Now that you have the actor or rhetor chosen, identify the five elements of the pentad: the agent (actor), act, scene, purpose, and agency (means). Decide what the act was—give it a label. Name the act from the viewpoint of the actor. Do not give too simple a name! The act is not just “a speech,” but it may be “an apology,” “an act of revenge,” “a revisioning of values,” “an act of transcendence,” “a unification,” “a call to arms.” An act is not merely “a wedding,” but it might be “an act of consecration,” “community sanction,” “a commitment of love,” “an enslavement.” Label all five parts consistently, so that they fit together. For example, if you decide that the act of the “Sermon on the Mount” should be labeled as “a transformation of social values,” you would then label Jesus, the speaker, as “a revolutionary,” not as “a traditional Jewish rabbi.” Give evidence for your choice of terms. You may wish to determine the “critical ratio.” That is, what are the two most important elements? Which one shapes the other? For example, an act of study takes place in a library, by a student, through the means of books, for the purpose of learning. You may decide that this event should be seen through the scene/act ratio, because the scene, a library, largely determines the kind of act that will take place. You may wish to attribute a motive to the actor or agent. But remember that a “motive” (in pentadic criticism) means a completed action, not an intention. So your statement of motive might look like this: “The Montana Freemen wrote bad checks to victimize those who were not as enlightened as they were.”

Burke also defined “man” as a creature that is “goaded with the spirit of hierarchy.” That is, we have a need to achieve order, to find our proper place in society, and to live according to the demands of the role we play. Humans also are “rotten with perfection.” We also want to live out to the fullest those labels for ourselves that we accept (whether “scholar” or “clumsy.”) Given these two qualities, we understand that a writer or speaker reveals in his or her communications the terms that make sense of the universe. If writers are driven to reveal their thoughts when they communicate, then, as critics, we can chart the thoughts of the writer, in turn, if we can find the right methodology for examining their words and arranging them in order. For Burke, the methodology is indexing— charting words, seeing what words go together, what words are opposed, what words outrank other words. Here is a simplified method for students writing their first rhetorical criticism using indexing.

276

Appendix E

Using Burke’s Indexing to Perform Rhetorical Criticism 1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

Choose an artifact that interests you and obtain a good facsimile of it. If the artifact is brief, such as a poem, you may wish to use several artifacts. Determine who is the communicator, and research any available information about the occasion for the communication, including the speaker’s own life. Indexing consists of several processes. You may choose to use all of them or only one. The most familiar process is cluster analysis, the study of “what goes with what, or what equals what, or what is identified with what.”2 a. Read the artifact carefully, looking for key terms. Specifically, look for repetitions of terms, synonyms, and metaphors, as well as terms that serve the same purposes as other prominent terms. For example, in the movie, “Babe,” a sheep dies—its death is shown by its silence and lack of motion. The male dog, Rex, at a different time, is muzzled and sedated. He allows mice to crawl over him. Though not literally dead, his behavior is equivalent to that of the sheep. Symbolically, he is dead; later he is reborn as a father figure to Babe instead of a rival. b. Look for other terms that cluster around the key term, giving it context and meaning. These help you to explain how the key terms work. For example, in “The Glass Menagerie,” light is associated with freedom, pleasure, and excitement. These associations tell you the meaning of light in this artifact. These other terms may include variations of key terms. For example, if “form” is a key term in a specific text, so also may be “transform,” “conform,” and “deform.” c. Look for patterns of terms and meanings. Why are the terms used the way they are used? What meaning do they bear to the reader or listener? You may also study “what is opposed to what,” which is agon analysis. a. Read the artifact carefully, looking for opposites, god terms and devil terms, terms which are opposed to other polar terms.

2. All the quotations here are from William H. Rueckert, “A Field Guide to Kenneth Burke,” in Extensions of the Burkeian System, (ed. James W. Chesebro; Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993), 16–17.

Overview of Burkean Critical Methodology b.

6.

7.

8.

277

What worlds are created (or what stories are told) by the oppositions you discover? You may choose to study “what follows what,” or progressive form. a. Here, you are interested in the development of the characters and terms in a text. What expectations are set up and followed up on? b. Beginnings and endings are especially significant, since, according to Burke, beginnings tip you off to principles, and endings summarize purposes. So keep an eye out for the first and last words of a work, as well as, for example, the first and last appearance of the main character. Finally (as Rueckert summarizes Burke), you may study transformations. a. What terms (or people or concepts) change during the course of the text? b. What do they change into? How do characters develop or their qualities transform? Decide what the artifact accomplishes–which may not be what the communicator intended to accomplish. How does the artifact provide the communicator—and the audience—with “equipment for living”?


Select Bibliography for Rhetorics in the New Millennium The following bibliography is idiosyncratic. Some citations are referenced in the essays in this volume or have been provided by the authors. Others are included as a result of recommendations solicited by the editors of this volume from a wide range of scholars. Still others appear because of the interests of the editors. The overall goal of the collection, however, is to provide for the readers reference to diverse resources that can be consulted for rhetorical critical analysis and criticism of New Testament and other early Christian writings. The editors make no claim for a comprehensive or disinterested listing. Furthermore, they acknowledge the ready availability of other electronic and hard-copy bibliographies, including the 42-page bibliography of pre-1998 materials in Hester (Amador), Academic Constraints in Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament, listed below, and the astonishing 112page bibliography found in Aune, The Westminster Dictionary of Early Christian Literature and Rhetoric, also listed below. What they aim for in this bibliography is raising awareness that form, historical, and sociorhetorical critical studies of New Testament texts cannot be considered the end-all of rhetorical critical studies. The rich library of other methods illustrated in many of the listings here have to be exploited by New Testament scholars if effective rhetorical criticism of those texts is to be accomplished. The final idiosyncrasy: the listing is alphabetical by author. No attempt has been made to organize titles into categories on the thesis that some studies would invariably be miscategorized. Adamson, James B. James: The Man and His Message. Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1989. Alexander, L. C. A. “Acts and Ancient Intellectual Biography.” Pages 31–63 in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting. Volume 1: Ancient Literary Setting. Edited by Bruce W. Winter and Andrew D. Clarke. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993. Amadi-Azuogu, C. A. Paul and the Law in the Arguments of Galatians. A Rhetorical and Exegetical Analysis of Galatians 2,14–6,2. BBB 104. Weinheim: Beltz, 1996. Anderson, Graham. Sage, Saint, and Sophist: Holy Men and Their Associates in the Early Roman Empire. London & New York: Routledge, 1994. Anderson, R. Dean, Jr. Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Paul. Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1996.

279

280

Select Bibliography

Anderson, Walter Truett. Reality Isn’t What It Used to Be. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1992. Aristides. Aristides. Translated by H. Rackham. 4 vols. LCL. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. Aristotle. “The Rhetoric,” in The Rhetoric and The Poetics of Aristotle with an introduction and notes by Friedrich Solmsen. Translated by W. Rhys Roberts. New York: Modern Library, 1954. ———. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Translated with introduction, notes, and appendices by George A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. ———. The Poetics. Translated by W. Hamilton Fyfe. With “Longinus,” On the Sublime, and Demetrius, On Style. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960. ———. The Rhetoric and Poetics of Aristotle. Translated by W. Rhys Roberts. New York: Modern Library. Arnold, Carroll. “Oral Rhetoric, Rhetoric, and Literature.” Pages 157–73 in Rhetoric in Transition: Studies in the Nature and Uses of Rhetoric. Edited by E. White; University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980. Asher, Jeffrey. Polarity and Change in 1 Corinthians 15: A Study in Metaphysics, Rhetoric and Resurrection. HUT 42. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2000. Augustine. On Christian Doctrine. Translated by D. W. Robertson Jr. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs Merrill, 1958. Aune, David E. The New Testament in Its Literary Environment. Library of Early Christianity Series. Edited by Wayne A. Meeks. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987. ———. The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament & Early Christian Literature & Rhetoric. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Second edition. Edited by J. O. Urmson and Marina Sbisà. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. ———. “Performative Utterances.” Pages 233–52 in Philosophical Papers. Second edition. Edited by J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970. Bakhtin, M. M. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986. Bauer, David R. “The Literary and Theological Function of the Genealogy in Matthew’s Gospel.” Pages 129–59 in Treasures New and Old: Recent Contributions to Matthean Studies. Edited by David R. Bauer and Mark Allan Powell. SBLSymS 1. Edited by Gail R. O’Day. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996. Baumlin, James S., and Tita French Baulins, eds. Ethos: New Essays in Rhetorical and Critical Theory. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1994. Benson. Thomas W., ed. Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Criticism. Davis, CA: Hermagoras, 1993.

Select Bibliography

281

Berkenkotter, Carol, and Thomas N. Huckin. Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication: Cognition/Culture/Power. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995. Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: AnchorDoubleday, 1967. Betz, Hans Dieter. “The Problem of Rhetoric and Theology according to the Apostle Paul.” Pages 16–48 in L’Apôtre Paul. Edited by A. Vanhoye. BETL 73. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1986. Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 1–14. ———. “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge.” Pages 67–93 in Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Literature. Edited by D. Burks; Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1978. Black, C. Clifton. The Rhetoric of the Gospel: Theological Artistry in the Gospels and Acts. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001. Black, Max. Critical Thinking. Second edition. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1952. Bloomquist, L. Gregory. “The Intertexture of Lukan Apocalyptic Discourse.” Pages 45–68 in The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the New Testament. Edited by Duane F. Watson. SBLSymS 14. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002. ———. “A Possible Direction for Providing Programmatic Correlation of Textures in Socio-Rhetorical Analysis.” Pages 61–96 in Rhetorical Criticism and the Bible. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Dennis L. Stamps. JSNTSup 195. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002. ———. “The Rhetoric of Suffering in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: Socio-Rhetorical Reflections and Further Thoughts on a Post-Colonial Contribution to the Discussion.” Theoforum (2003): forthcoming. ———. “Rhetorical Argumentation and the Culture of Apocalyptic: A Socio-Rhetorical Analysis of Luke 21.” Pages 173–209 in The Rhetorical Interpretation of Scripture: Essays from the 1996 Malibu Conference. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Dennis L. Stamps. JSNTSup 180. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999. Bonneau, Normand. “The Logic of Paul’s Argument on the Resurrection Body in 1 Cor 15:35–44a.” ScEs 65 (1993): 79–92, 79. Bonner, Stanley F. Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. Booth, Wayne C. Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric Of Assent. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974 Bormann, Ernest G. The Force of Fantasy: Restoring the American Dream. With new preface by the author. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001. Bowman, Alan K., and Greg Woolf, eds. Literacy and Power in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

282

Select Bibliography

Branham, Robert, and W. Barnett Pearce. “Between Text and Context: Toward a Rhetoric of Contextual Reconstruction.” QJS 71 (1985): 19–36. Braun, Willi, ed. Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christianities. Studies in Christianity and Judaism 16. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2005. Briggs, Charles L., and Richard Bauman. “Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2 (1992): 131–72. Brockriede, Wayne. “Where Is Argument?” Argumentation and Advocacy 11 (1975): 179–82. Brown, Peter. Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards Christian Empire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. Brueggemann, Walter. Texts under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993. Burke, Kenneth. Counter-Statement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1931. ———. “A Dramatistic View of the Origins of Language.” Pages 419–79 in Language as Symbolic Action. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. ———. A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1969 ———. A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. ———. “Dramatism.” Pages 445–52 in The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Edited by D. L. Sills. New York: Macmillan/Free Press, 1968. ———. “Fact, Inference, and Proof in the Analysis of Literary Symbolism.” Pages 283–306 in Symbols and Values: An Initial Study, Thirteenth Symposium of the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion. Edited by Lyman Bryson et al. New York: Harper, 1954. ———. “The First Three Chapters of Genesis.” Pages 172–272 in Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology. Boston: Beacon, 1961. ———. “The Philosophy of Literary Form.” Pages 1–137 in The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action. Third edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. ———. “The Thinking of the Body: Comments on the Imagery of Catharsis in Literature.” Pages 308–43 in Language as Symbolic Action. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Burkert, Walter. The Orientalizing Revolution: Near East Influence on Greek Culture in the Archaic Age. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Cady, Linell. Religion, Theology, and American Public Life. SUNY Series in Religious Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Cameron, Avril. Christianity and the Rhetoric of the Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Campbell, Douglas A. The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3.21–26. JSNTSup 65. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992. Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. “Form and Genre in Rhetorical Criticism: An Introduction.” Pages 18–25 in Form and

Select Bibliography

283

Genre: Shaping Rhetorical Action. Edited by Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Falls Church, VA: Speech Communication Association, 1978. Castelli, Elizabeth A. Imitating Paul: A Discourse of Power. Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991. Chroust, Anton-Hermann, ed. Aristotle: Protrepticus. A Reconstruction. Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964. Clark, Donald L. Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education. New York: Columbia University Press, 1957. Classen, Carl Joachim. Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000. Conley, Thomas M. Rhetoric in the European Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Cooper, S. A. “Narratio and exhortatio in Galatians according to Marius Victorinus Rhetor.” ZNW 91 (2000): 107–35. Coulter, James A. The Literary Microcosm: Theories of Interpretation of the Later Neoplatonists. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976. Crafton, Jeffrey A. “Paul’s Rhetorical Vision and the Purpose of Romans: Toward a New Understanding.” NovT 32 (1990): 317–39. ———. The Agency of the Apostle: A Dramatistic Analysis of Paul’s Responses to Conflict in 2 Corinthians. JSNTSup 51. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991. ———. “The Dancing of an Attitude: Burkean Rhetorical Criticism and the Biblical Interpreter.” Pages 429–42 in Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference. Edited by S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. Crenshaw, James. “Wisdom and Authority: Sapiential Rhetoric and Its Warrants.” VTSup 32 (1981): 10–29. Cronjé, J. van W. “The Strategem of the Rhetorical Question in Galatians 4: 9–10 as a Means towards Persuasion.” Neot 26 (1992): 417–24. Crossan, John Dominic, and Jonathan L. Reed. Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts. San Francisco: Harper, 2001. Danker, Frederick William, ed. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Third edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Danove, Paul L. The Rhetoric of the Characterization of God, Jesus, and Jesus’ Disciples in the Gospel of Mark. New York: T & T Clark International, 2005. Darr, John A. On Character Building: The Reader and the Rhetoric of Characterization in Luke-Acts. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1992. Dawson, David. Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Dewey, John. The Public and Its Problems: An Essay in Political Inquiry. Chicago: Gateway Books, 1927.

284

Select Bibliography

Eden, Kathy. Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and Its Humanist Reception. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. Ehninger, Douglas. “On Systems of Rhetoric.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 327–39. Enos, Theresa. Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication From Ancient Times to the Information Age. New York: Garland, 1996. ———, and Richard McNabb, eds. Making and Unmaking the Prospects of Rhetoric. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997. Eriksson, Anders. Traditions as Rhetorical Proof: Pauline Argumentation in 1 Corinthians. ConBNT 29. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1998. Eriksson, Anders, Thomas H. Olbricht, and Walter Überlacker, eds. Rhetorical Argumentation in Biblical Texts. Emory Studies in Early Christianity. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002. Esler, Philip F. Galatians. New Testament Readings. Edited by John Cort. London: Routledge, 1998. Fairweather, J. “The Epistle to the Galatians and Classical Rhetoric.” TynBul 45 (1994): 1–38, 213–43. Farrell, Thomas B. Norms of Rhetorical Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Gadamer, Hans Georg. Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato. Translated by and introduction by P. Christopher Smith. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. ———. Truth and Method. Translated by G. Barden and J. Cumming. New York: Seabury, 1975. Gamble, Harry Y. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books, 1993. Given, Mark. Paul’s True Rhetoric: Ambiguity, Cunning, and Deception in Greece and Rome. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2001. Gowler, David B., L. Gregory Bloomquist, and Duane Watson, eds. Fabrics of Discourse: Essays in Honor of Vernon K. Robbins. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003. Greenspoon, Leonard. “Bible Scholars Need Not Apply: News Media and the Bible.” Religious Studies News/SBLEdition. Vol. 2, No. 7, October 2001. Cited 25 October 2001. Online: http://www.sbl-site.org/Newsletter/10_2001/Greenspoon.htm. Grice, H. P. “Logic and Conversation.” Pages 41–58 in Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 3. Edited by Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan. New York: Academic Press, 1975. Gross, Alan, and William M. Keith. Rhetorical Hermeneutics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of Science. New York: State University of New York Press, 1997. Gu, Y. “The Impasse of Perlocution.” Journal of Pragmatics 20 (1993): 405–32.

Select Bibliography

285

Hall, Robert G. “The Rhetorical Outline of Galatians: A Reconsideration.” JBL 106 (1987): 277–87. Hansen, G. W. Abraham in Galatians: Epistolary and Rhetorical Contexts. JSNTSup 29. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989. Harrell, Jackson, and Wil A. Linkugel. “On Rhetorical Genre: An Organizing Perspective.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 11, no. 4 (1978): 262–81. Harris, William H. Ancient Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Hartwig, John. “The Achievement of Moral Rationality.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 6 (1973): 171–85. Harvey, J. D. Listening to the Text: Oral Patterning in Paul’s Letters. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998. Hayles, N. Katherine, ed. Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Hazard, Paul. The European Mind, 1680–1715: The Critical Years. New York: Fordham University Press, 1990. Heath, Malcolm. Menander: A Rhetor in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. ———. “John Chrysostom, Rhetoric and Galatians.” BibInt 12 (2004): 369– 400. Heitanen, M. “The Argumentation in Galatians.” AcTSup 9 (2007): 99–120. Hellholm, David. Das Visionenbuch des Hermas als Apokalypse: Formgeschichtliche und texttheoretische Studien zu einer literarischen Gattung. Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1980. Henderson, Ian H. Jesus, Rhetoric, and Law. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996. ———. “‘Salted with Fire’ (Mark 9.42–50): Style, Oracles and (Socio) Rhetorical Gospel Criticism.” JSNT 80 (2000): 44–65. Hester, James D. “The Use and Influence of Rhetoric in Galatians 2:1–14.” TZ 42 (1986): 386–408. ———. “Speaker, Audience and Situations: A Modified Interactional Model.” Neot 32 (1998): 75–94. ———. “Apocalyptic Discourse in 1 Thessalonians.” Pages 137–64 in The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the New Testament. Edited by Duane F. Watson. SBLSymS 14. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002. ———. “A Fantasy Theme Analysis of 1 Thessalonians.” Pages 504–25 in Rhetorical Criticism and the Bible. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Dennis L. Stamps. JSNTSup 195. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002. ———. “Epideictic Rhetoric and Persona in Galatians 1 and 2.” Pages 181–96 in The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical Interpretation. Edited by Mark D. Nanos. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002. ———. “The Rhetoric of Persona in Romans 1:1–12.” Pages 83–105 in Celebrating Romans: Template for Pauline Theology. Edited by Sheila McGinn. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004.

286

Select Bibliography

Hester (Amador), J. David. “Socio-Rhetorical Criticism and the Parable of the Tenants.” JSNT 45 (1992): 27–57. ———. Academic Constraints in Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament. JSNTSup 174. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999. ———. “Revisiting 2 Corinthians: Rhetoric and the Case for Unity.” NTS 46 (2000): 92–111. ———. “Eunuchs and the Post-Gender Jesus: Matthew 19.12 and Transgressive Personalities.” JSNT 28 (2005): 13–40. Iamblichus. On the Pythagorean Way of Life. Translated by and introduction by Gillian Clark. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1989. ———. The Exhortation to Philosophy. Translated by Thomas M. Johnson. Grand Rapids: Phanes, 1988. Isocrates. Isocrates. Translated by George Norlan. 3 vols. LCL. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1956. Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell. “Rhetorical Hybrids: Fusions of Generic Elements.” QJS 68 (1982): 146–57. Jasinski, James. Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001. Jasper, David. Rhetoric, Power, and Community. Louisville: Westminster/ John Knox, 1993. Jeal, Roy R. “Rhetorical Argumentation in the Letter to the Ephesians.” Pages 310–24 in Rhetorical Argumentation in Biblical Texts: Essays from the Lund 2000 Conference. Edited by Anders Erikkson and Thomas H. Olbricht. Emory Studies in Early Christianity. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002. Johnson, Andy. “Firstfruits and Death’s Defeat: Metaphor in Paul’s Rhetorical Strategy in 1 Cor. 15:20–28.” WW 16 (1996): 456–64. Jost, Walter, and Wendy Olmstead, ed. A Companion to Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. Katz, Ronald. The Structure of Ancient Arguments: Rhetoric and Its Near Eastern Origin. New York: Shapolsky/Steinmatsky, 1986. Kennedy, George A. Aristotle: On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civil Discourse. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. ———. A New History of Classical Rhetoric. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. ———. Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980. ———. Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction. New York: Oxford, 1998. ———. Invention and Method: Two Rhetorical Treatises for the Hermogenic Corpus. Translated with introduction and notes. Edited by Cecil Wooten. Writings from the Greco-Roman World 14. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005. ———. New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.

Select Bibliography

287

———. Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric. Translated with introduction and notes. Edited by D. A. Russell. Writings from the Greco-Roman World 10. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003. Kern, Philip H. Rhetoric and Galatians: Assessing an Approach to Paul’s Epistle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Kinneavy, James L. Greek Rhetorical Origins of Christian Faith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Kittredge, Cynthia B. Community Authority: The Rhetoric of Obedience in the Pauline Tradition. Harvard Theological Studies. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International Press, 1998. Koptak, Paul E. “Reading Scripture with Kenneth Burke: Genesis 38.” Pages 84–94 in To Hear and Obey: Essays in Honor of Fredrick Carlson Holmgren. Edited by B. J. Bergtalk and P. E. Koptak. Chicago: Covenant, 1997. ———. “Judah in the Biblical Story of Joseph: Rhetoric and Biography in the Light of Kenneth Burke’s Theory of Identification.” Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1990. ———. “Rhetorical Identification in Paul’s Autobiographical Narrative in Galatians 1:13–2:14.” JSNT 40 (1990): 97–115. ———. “Rhetorical Identification in Preaching.” Preaching (1988): 11–18. Kristeva, Julia. “Word, Dialogue and Novel.” Pages 34–61 in The Kristeva Reader. Edited by Toril Moi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. Kuypers, Jim A., ed. The Art of Rhetorical Criticism. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2005. Lamberton, Robert. Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Lamberton, Robert, and John J. Keaney, eds. Homer’s Ancient Readers: The Hermeneutics of Greek Epic’s Earliest Exegetes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Lambrecht, Jan. “Line of Thought in 1 Cor 15,1–11.” Greg 72 (1991): 655–70. Langsdorf, Lenore, and Andrew R. Smith. Recovering Pragmatism’s Voice: The Classical Tradition, Rorty, and the Philosophy of Communication. New York: State University of New York Press, 1995. Larson, C. U. Persuasion: Reception and Responsibility. Eighth edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998. Lausberg, Hans. Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study. Edited by D. Orton and R. D. Anderson; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998. Lawrie, Douglas G. “The Dialectical Grammar of Job and Qoheleth: A Burkean Analysis.” Scriptura 66 (1988): 217–39. Leroux, N. R. “Repetition, Progression, and Persuasion in Scripture.” Neot 29 (1995): 1–25. Lesher, J. H., ed. Xenophanes of Colophon. Fragments. Phoenix Suppl. 32. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.

288

Select Bibliography

Lentricchia, Frank and Thomas McLaughlin, eds. Critical Terms for Literary Study. Second edition. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1995. Litfin, A. Duane. St. Paul’s Theology of Proclamation : 1 Corinthians 1–4 and Greco-Roman Rhetoric. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Ling, David A. “A Pentadic Analysis of Senator Edward Kennedy’s Address to the People of Massachusetts, July 25, 1969.” CSSJ 21 (1970): 80–86. Long, Fredrick J. Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology: The Compositional Unity of 2 Corinthians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Longenecker, Bruce W., ed. Narrative Dynamics in Paul. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 2002. ———. Rhetoric at the Boundaries: The Art and Theology of the New Testament Chain-link Transitions. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2005. Lucian. Lucian II. Translated by A. M. Harmon. New York: Macmillan, 1915. Mack, Burton. Rhetoric and the New Testament. Guides to Biblical Scholarship. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990. Mailloux, Steven. Disciplinary Identities: The Rhetorical Paths of English, Speech, and Composition. New York: Modern Language Association, 2006. ———. Rhetorical Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996. Malherbe, Abraham J. Ancient Epistolary Theorists. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988. Malina, Bruce J. The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. Marrou, H. I. A History of Education in Antiquity. Translated by George Lamb. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956. Martin, Troy. “Apostasy to Paganism: The Rhetorical Stasis of the Galatian Controversy.” JBL 114 (1995): 437–61. Matlock, R. Barry. Unveiling the Apocalyptic Paul: Paul’s Interpreters and the Rhetoric of Criticism. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996. Maximus of Tyre. The Philosophical Orations. Translated by M. B. Trapp. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997. McFague, Sallie. Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982. McGuire, Michael. “The Structure of Rhetoric.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 15 (1982): 149–69. McKeon, Richard. Rhetoric: Essays in Invention and Discovery. Edited with an introduction by Mark Backman. Woodbridge, CT: Ox Bow, 1987. Miller, Carolyn R. “The Aristotelian Topos: Hunting for Novelty.” Pages 130–46 in Rereading Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Edited by Alan G. Gross and Arthur E. Walzer. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000. ———. “Genre as Social Action.” QJS 70 (1984): 151–67. ———. “Rhetorical Community: The Cultural Basis of Genre.” Genre

Select Bibliography

289

and the New Rhetoric. Edited by Aviva Freedman and Peter Medway. London: Taylor & Francis, 1994. 69–78. Minas, Anne. “Why ‘Paradigms’ Don’t Prove Anything.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 10 (1977): 217–31. Mitchell, Margaret. Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1992. Mitternacht, Dieter. Forum für Sprachlose: Eine kommunikationspsychologie und epistolär-rhetorische Untersuchung des Galaterbriefs. ConBNT 30. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1999. ———. “A Structure of Persuasion in Galatians: Epistolary and Rhetorical Appeal in an Aural Setting.” AcTSup 9 (2007): 53–98. Moore, Stephen D. Literary Criticism and the Gospels: The Theoretical Challenge. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. Morland, Kjell A. The Rhetoric of Curse in Galatians: Paul Confronts Another Gospel. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995. Nanos, Mark D. The Irony of Galatians: Paul’s Letter in First-Century Context. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002. ———. The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical Interpretation. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002. Nemerov, Howard. “The Winter Addresses of Kenneth Burke with Some Thoughts about Interpretation.” Pages 200–209 in New & Selected Essays. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985. Neyrey, Jerome. Paul, In Other Words: A Cultural Reading of His Letters. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990. O’Hara, Maureen, and Walter Truett Anderson. “Welcome to the Postmodern World.” The Family Therapy Networker 15, no. 5 (1991): 18–25. O’Leary, Stephen. “A Dramatistic Theory of Apocalyptic Rhetoric.” QJS 79 (1993): 385–426. ———. Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. O’Mahony, Kieran J. “The Rhetoric of Resurrection (1 Cor 15): An Illustration of Rhetorical Method.” Milltown Studies 43 (1998): 112–44. Olbricht, Thomas H. “Classical Rhetorical Criticism and Historical Reconstructions: A Critique.” Pages 108–24 in The Rhetorical Interpretation of Scripture: Essays from the 1996 Malibu Conference. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Dennis L. Stamps. JSNTSup. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999. Okigbo, Vincent C. “A Dramatistic Analysis of Selected Biblical Texts.” Ph.D. diss., Howard University, 2001. Olympiodorus. Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias. Translated by, with introduction and notes by Robin Jackson, Kimon Lycos, and Harold Tarrant. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998. Palmer, Darryl W. “Acts and the Ancient Historical Monograph.” Pages 1–29 in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting. Volume 1: Ancient Literary Setting. Edited by Bruce W. Winter and Andrew D. Clarke. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.

290

Select Bibliography

Perelman, Chaim. The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its Applications. Translated by W. Kluback. Boston: D. Reidel, 1979. ———. The Realm of Rhetoric Translated by William Kluback. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982. ———, and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Translated by J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969. Perry, Ben Edwin. Secundus the Silent Philosopher. Ithaca, NY: American Philological Association, 1964. Pervo, Richard I. Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987. Phelan, James, ed. Narrative as Rhetoric: Techniques, Audiences, Ethics, Ideology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Philo. Philo IV. Translated by F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968. Philodemus. The Rhetorica of Philodemus. Translated by and commentary by Harry M. Hubbell. Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Science 23 (Sept. 1920): 243–382 = New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1920. Philostratus and Eunapius. Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists. Translated by Wilmer C. Wright. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921. Pierce, Dann L. Rhetorical Criticism and Theory in Practice. Boston: McGrawHill, 2003. Plato. Plato I: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus. Translated by H. N. Fowler. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. ———. Plato III: Lysis, Symposium, Gorgias. Translated by W. R. M. Lamb. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925. ———. Plato V: Republic I. Translated by Paul Shorey. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. ———. Plato VI: Republic II. Translated by Paul Shorey. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. ———. Plato VII: Theaetatus, Sophist. Translated by H. N. Fowler. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925. ———. Plato IX: Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles. Translated by R. G. Bury. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Pogoloff. Stephen M. Logos and Sophia: The Rhetorical Situation of 1 Corinthians. SBLDS 134. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992. Polanyi. Michael. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. Porphyry. The Cave of the Nymphs in the Odyssey. Edited and translated by John M. Duffy et al. Buffalo, NY: Arethusa, 1969. ———. To Marcella. Edited and translated by Kathleen O’Brien Wicker. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987. ———. De l’abstinence. Edited and translated by Jean Bouffartigue. Paris: Société d’Édition ‘Les Belles Lettres,’ 1977.

Select Bibliography

291

Porter, Stanley E. “The Theoretical Justification for Application of Rhetorical Categories to Pauline Epistolary Literature.” Pages 100–122 in Rhetoric and the New Testament. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Thomas H. Olbricht. JSNTSup 90. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. ———, ed. Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period 330 B.C.– A.D. 400. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001. Poster, Carol. “Persuasion in an Empty Ontology: The Eleatic Synthesis of Poetry, Philosophy, and Rhetoric.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 27, no. 4 (1994): 277–99. ———. “Being and Becoming: Rhetorical Ontology in Early Greek Thought.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 29, no. 1 (1996): 1–14. ———. “Silence as a Rhetorical Strategy for Neoplatonic Mysticism.” Mystics Quarterly 24, no. 2 (1998): 48–73. ———. “Being, Time, and Definition: Towards a Semiotics of Figural Rhetoric.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 33 (2000): 116–36. ———. “The Affections of the Soul: Pathos, Protrepic, and Preaching in Hellenistic Thought.” Pages 23–37 in Paul and Pathos. Edited by Thomas H. Olbricht and Jeffrey L. Sumney. SBLSymS. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001. Proclus. In Platonis Rem Publicam comentarii. Edited by W. Kroll. 2 vols. Leipzig: Teubner, 1899–1901. Ramsaran, Rollin A. Liberating Words: Paul’s Use of Rhetorical Maxims in 1 Corinthians 1–10. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996. Reed, Jeffrey T. A Discourse Analysis of Philippians: Method and Rhetoric in the Debate over Literary Integrity. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. Resseguie, James L. Narrative Criticism of the New Testament: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005. Richards, E. Randolph. The Secretary in the Letters of Paul. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1990. Ricoeur, Paul. “The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text.” Social Research 38 (1971): 529–662. Robbins, Vernon K. Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996. ———. “The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the Gospel of Mark.” Pages 11–44 in The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the New Testament. Edited by Duane F. Watson. SBLSymS 14. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002. ———. Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Mark. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984. ———. “Progymnastic Rhetorical Composition and Pre-Gospel Traditions: A New Approach.” Pages 111–47 in The Synoptic Gospels: Source Criticism and the New Literary Criticism. Edited by Camille Focant. BETL 110. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993.

292

Select Bibliography

———. “The Rhetorical Full-Turn in Biblical Interpretation: Reconfiguring Rhetorical-Political Analysis.” Pages 48–60 in Rhetorical Criticism and the Bible. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Dennis L. Stamps. JSNTSup 195. New York: T & T Clark, 2002. ———. The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society and Ideology. London: Routledge, 1996. ———. “Socio-Rhetorical Criticism: Mary, Elizabeth and the Magnificat as a Test Case.” Pages 164–209 in The New Literary Criticism and the New Testament. Edited by Elizabeth Struthers Malbon and Edgar V. McKnight. JSNTSup 109. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994. Roberts, K. A. “Toward a Generic Concept of Counter-Culture.” Sociological Focus 11 (1978): 111–26. Robinson, T. M. Heraclitus: Fragments: A Text with a Commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987. Rueckert, William H. “A Field Guide to Kenneth Burke–1990.” Pages 3–41 in Extensions of the Burkean System. Edited by J. W. Chesebro. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993. Russell, D. A., and M. Winterbottom, eds. Ancient Literary Criticism: The Principal Texts in New Translations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. Ryan, Halford Ross. “Kategoria and Apologia: On Their Rhetorical Criticism as a Speech Set.” QJS 68 (1982): 254–61. Salyer, Gary D. Vain Rhetoric: Private Insight and Public Debate in the Book of Ecclesiastes. JSOTSup 327. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001. Saw, Insawn. Paul’s Rhetoric in 1 Corinthians 15: An Analysis Utilizing the Theories of Classical Rhetoric. Lewiston, NY: Mellen Biblical Press, 1995. Schiappa, Edward. “Neo-Sophistic Criticism or the Historical Reconstruction of Sophistic Doctrines?” Philosophy and Rhetoric 23 (1990): 192–217. Schiappa, Edward, ed. Landmark Essays on Classical Greek Rhetoric. Davis, CA: Hermagoras, 1994. Schryer, Catherine F. “The Lab vs. the Clinic: Sites of Competing Genres.” Pages 105–24 in Genre and the New Rhetoric. Edited by A. Freedman and P. Medway. London: Taylor & Francis, 1994. Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999. Scott, Bernard Brandon, and Margaret E. Dean. “A Sound Map of the Sermon on the Mount.” Pages 311–78 in Treasures New and Old: Recent Contributions to Matthean Studies. Edited by David R. Bauer and Mark Allan Powell. SBLSymS 1. Edited by Gail R. O’Day. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996. Scott, R. L. “On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic.” Central States Speech Journal 18 (1967): 9–17. Scult, Allen. “Perelman’s Universal Audience: One Perspective.” CSSJ 27 (1976): 176–80. Searle, John R. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.

Select Bibliography

293

Sloane, Thomas, editor in chief. Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Sloane, Thomas, and Chaim Perelman. “Rhetoric.” In Encyclopedia Britannica. Fifteenth edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. 15:803–10. Smit, Joop. “About Idol Offerings”: Rhetoric, Social Context, and Theology of Paul’s Discourse in First Corinthians 8:1–11:1. Leuven: Peeters, 2000. Smith, Abraham. Comfort One Another: Reconstructing the Rhetoric and Audience of 1 Thessalonians. Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1995. Snyder, Lee. “Invitation To Transcendence: The Book of Revelation.” QJS 86 (2000): 402–16. ———. “The Rhetoric of Transcendence.” Pages 193–217 in Rhetorics and Hermeneutics. Edited by James D. Hester and J. David Hester. Emory Studies of Early Christianity Series. Harrisburg, PA: T & T Clark, 2004. Stanley, Christopher D. Arguing with Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul. New York: T&T Clark International, 2004. Sterling, Gregory E. Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephus, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992. Stirewalt, Martin Luther. Studies in Ancient Greek Epistolography. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993. Stoner, Mark. Making Sense of Messages: A Critical Apprenticeship in Rhetorical Criticism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Swart, G. J. “Reconstructing Rhetorical Strategies for the Text of Galatians— Syntax-based Discourse Analysis as a Monitoring Device.” AcTSup 9 (2007): 162–73. Thiemann, Ronald. Constructing a Public Theology: The Church in a Pluralistic Culture. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991. Thurén, L. Derhetorizing Paul—A Dynamic Perspective on Pauline Theology and the Law. WUNT 1. Tübingen: Mohr, 2000. ———. “Hey Jude! Asking for the Original Situation and Message of a Catholic Epistle.” NTS 43 (1997): 451–65. ———. “Style Never Goes out of Fashion—2 Peter Re-evaluated.” Pages 329–47 in Rhetoric, Scripture and Theology. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Thomas H. Olbricht. JSNTSup 131. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,1996. ———. The Rhetorical Strategy of 1 Peter with Special Regard to Ambiguous Expressions. Åbo: Åbo Academy University Press, 1990. ———. “Was Paul Angry? De-rhetorizing Galatians” Pages 302–20 in The Rhetorical Interpretation of Scripture: Essays from the 1996 Malibu Conference. Edited by Dennis Stamps and Stanley Porter. JSNTSup 180. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999. ———. “Was Paul Sincere? Questioning the Apostle’s Ethos.” Scriptura 65 (1998): 95–108. Tolmie, D. F. Persuading the Galatians: A Text-centred Rhetorical Analysis of a Pauline Letter. WUNT 2.190. Tübingen: Mohr, 2005.

294

Select Bibliography

———. “The Rhetorical Analysis of the Letter to the Galatians: 1995–2005.” AcTSup 9 (2007): 1–28. Toulmin, Stephen. Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. ———. The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958. Rpt., 1964. Tracy, David. The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism. New York: Crossroad, 1981. ———. “Defending the Public Character of Theology.” Christian Century 98 (1981): 350–56. Tsang, S. From Slaves to Sons: A New Rhetoric Analysis of Paul’s Slave Metaphors in His Letter to the Galatians. New York: Peter Lang, 2005. ———. “‘Abba’ Revisited: Merging the Horizons of History and Rhetoric through the New Rhetoric Structure of Metaphors.” AcTSup 9 (2007): 122–41. Tyler, Stephen A. The Unspeakable: Discourse, Dialogue, and Rhetoric in the Postmodern World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987. Überlacker, Walter. Der Hebräerbreif als Appell. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1989. Valesio, P. Novantiqua: Rhetorics as a Contemporary Theory. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1980. Van Heerden, Willie. “Imagination and the Interpretation of the Old Testament.” Old Testament Essays 7 (1994): 343–59. Van Unnik, W. C. “Luke-Acts, A Storm Center in Contemporary Scholarship.” Pages 15–32 in Studies in Luke-Acts. Edited by Leander E. Keck and J. Louis Martyn. Nashville: Abingdon, 1966. Vander Stichele, Caroline, and Todd Penner, eds. Her Master’s Tools?: Feminist and Postcolonial Engagements of Historical-critical Discourse. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2005. Verster, P. “The Implications of Non-Authentic Questions in Galatians.” AcTSup 9 (2007): 142–61. Vickers, Brian. In Defense of Rhetoric. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988. Vitanza, Victor J. Negation, Subjectivity, and the History of Rhetoric. Albany: State University Press of New York, 1997. Vorster, Johannes. “Toward an Interactional Model for the Analysis of Letters.” Neot 24 (1990): 107–30. Vos, J. Die Kunst der Argumentation bei Paulus: Studien zur antiken Rhetorik. WUNT 149. Tübingen: Mohr, 2002. ———. “Paul and Sophistic Rhetoric: A Perspective in His Argumentation in the Letter to the Galatians.” AcTSup 9: 29–52. Wachob, Wesley Hiram. The Voice of Jesus in the Social Rhetoric of James. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Wan, Sze-kar. Power in Weakness: Conflict and Rhetoric in Paul’s Second Letter of the Corinthians. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000. Wansink, Craig S. Chained in Christ: The Experience and Rhetoric of Paul’s Imprisonments. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996.

Select Bibliography

295

Ward, R. F. “Pauline Voice and Strategic Communication.” Semeia 65 (1994): 95–106. Warnick, Barbara. “Two Systems of Invention: The Topics in the Rhetoric and The New Rhetoric.” Pages 107–29 in Rereading Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Edited by Alan G. Gross and Arthur E. Walzer. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000. Watson, Duane, ed. The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the New Testament. SBLSym 14. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002. ———. “James 2 in Light of Greco-Roman Schemes of Argumentation.” NTS 39 (1993): 94–121. ———. Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament Rhetoric in Honor of George A. Kennedy. JSNTSup 50. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. ———, and Alan J. Hauser, eds. Rhetorical Criticism of the Bible: A Comprehensive Bibliography with Notes on History and Method. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994. Wcela, Emil. “Who Do You Say That They Are? Reflections on the Biblical Audience Today.” CBQ 53 (1991): 1–17. Weaver, Richard. “Language is Sermonic.” Pages 201–25 in Language Is Sermonic: Richard M. Weaver on the Nature of Rhetoric. Edited by R. L. Johannesen, R. Strickland, and R. T. Eubanks. Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 1970. West, M. L. The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997. Wilder, Amos. Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Williams, David J. Paul’s Metaphors: Their Context and Character. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999. Winter, Bruce. Philo and Paul among Sophists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Wire, Antoinette Clark. The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul’s Rhetoric. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990. Rpt., 1995. Wisse, Jakob. Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero. Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1989. Witherington, Ben III. The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001. Wuellner, Wilhelm. “Greek Rhetoric and Pauline Argumentation.” Pages 177–88 in Early Christian Literature and Classical Intellectual Tradition: In Honorem Robert M. Grant. Edited by W. Schoedel and R. Wilken. Théologie Historique 53. Paris: Beauchesne, 1979. ———. “Death and Rebirth of Rhetoric in Late Twentieth Century Biblical Exegesis.” Pages 917–30 in Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in Their Textual and Situational Contexts. Edited by David Hellholm and T. Fonberg. Stockholm: Scandanavian University Press, 1995. ———. “Haggadic Homily Genre in I Corinthians 1–3.” JBL 89 (1970): 199–204.

296

Select Bibliography

———. Hermeneutics and Rhetorics: From “Truth and Method” to “Truth and Power.” Scriptura Special Issue 3. Journal of Bible and Theology in Southern Africa. Stellenbosch, South Africa: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1989. ———. “Is There an Encoded Reader Fallacy?” Pages 41–54 in Reader Perspectives on the New Testament. Edited by Edgar McKnight. Semeia 48. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989. ———. “Paul as Pastor. The Function of Rhetorical Questions in First Corinthians.” Pages 49–77 in L’Apôtre Paul: Personalité, style et conception du ministère. Edited by A. Vanhoye. BETL 73. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1986. ———. “Paul’s Rhetoric of Argumentation in Romans: An Alternative to the Donfried-Karris Debate Over Romans.” CBQ 38 (1976): 330–51. Reprinted in The Romans Debate. Edited by Karl Donfried. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977. ———. “Reconceiving a Rhetoric of Religion: A Rhetorics of Power and the Power of the Sublime.” Pages 23–77 in Rhetorics and Hermeneutics. Edited by James D. Hester and J. David Hester. Emory Studies in Early Christianity. New York: T&T Clark, 2004. ———. “Rhetorical Criticism.” Pages 149–86 in The Postmodern Bible. Bible and Culture Collective. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. ———. “Rhetorical Criticism and Its Theory in Culture-Critical Perspective: The Narrative Rhetoric of John 11.” Pages 167–81 in Text and Interpretation. New Approaches in the Criticism of the New Testament. Edited by P. J. Hartin and J. H. Petzer. New Testament Tools and Studies. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991. ———. “The Argumentative Structure of 1 Thessalonians as Paradoxical Encomium.” Pages 117–36 in The Thessalonian Correspondence. Edited by R. F. Collins. BETL 87. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1990. ———. “The Rhetorical Structure of Luke 12 in Its Wider Context.” Neot 22 (1989): 283–310. ———. “Toposforschung und Torahinterpretation bei Paulus und Jesus.” NTS 24 (1978): 463–83. ———. “Where Is Rhetorical Criticism Taking Us?” CBQ 49 (1987): 448–63. Yates, Joanne, and Wanda J. Orlikowski. “Genres of Organizational Communication: A Structurational Approach to Study Communication and Media.” Academy of Management Review 17 (1992): 299–326. Zulick, Margaret. “The Active Force of Hearing: The Ancient Hebrew Language of Persuasion.” Rhetorica 10 (1990): 367–80.

Index of Key Words

act 7, 14, 34, 165, 166, 252, 263, 264, 274, 275, 281, 290 interpretive 68 rhetorical 20 speech 237, 251 Adam 39, 81, 90, 92, 93, 95, 98 agent/agency 7, 14, 15, 186, 274, 275 analysis 8, 12, 13, 14–15 agon 149 cluster 149 genre 187 rhetorical critical 1–3, 11, 51, 62, 64, 245 socio-rhetorical 28, 115–18, 124, 134, 137, 144–5 topical 13, 135 argument 28, 32, 34, 56, 57–9, 61, 63, 69, 71, 74, 78–80, 82, 135, 140, 152, 155, 159, 161, 163, 165, 167, 194, 198, 200, 205, 208, 210, 212, 252 association 227, 239 attitudinizing conventions 53 audience 2, 4–6, 32, 34, 35, 45, 51, 55, 61, 66, 72, 75, 88, 118, 126, 133, 140, 141, 145, 169, 173, 174, 176, 178, 184, 190, 194, 199, 202–6, 209, 228, 235, 236, 246, 250 postmodern 78, 83, 85–7 universal 6, 57, 58, 89

dialogue 42, 82, 163, 163, 188, 198, 202, 215 diatribe 101, 198, 199, 201, 209, 236, 245 discourse 2, 4, 6, 7, 11, 23, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 35, 46, 50, 55, 64, 94, 110, 115, 123, 135, 138, 139, 144, 186, 187, 189, 243 dissociation 61, 267 dramatism/dramatistic 14, 147, 148 enthymeme 127, 159, 165, 205, 258 ethics/ethical 37, 44–6, 48, 105, 110, 111, 133, 236 ethos 26, 34, 36, 38, 42, 47, 71, 138, 194, 222, 231, 258 exigence 3, 6, 16, 19, 27, 34, 168, 181, 185, 186, 189, 211, 273 Fantasy Theme Analysis/FTA 7, 10, 12, 269–71 genre/genre theory 62, 103, 168–92, 236–8, 243, 246 handbooks 1, 24, 26, 193, 214, 271 hermeneutics 1, 27, 39, 47, 50, 56, 62, 82, 106, 109, 110

Bitzer, Lloyd 1, 51, 52, 62, 88, 89, 186 Bormann, Ernest 6–8, 269 Burke, Kenneth 148–50, 155, 161, 165, 258, 274–7

imagination 34, 42, 75, 76, 87 analogical 83, 88, 89 cultural 107 metaphorical 83 imitatio/imitation 60, 196, 229, 230, 234, 245, 266 indexing 147–50, 165, 275 irony 63, 74, 102, 110, 162

comedy 148, 166 conversion 237, 242

Jewish education 96, 98–100

297

298

Index of Key Words

Jewish (continued) hermeneutics 39 literature 109, 172, 206, 216, 226, 247, 248 rhetoric 93, 97, 106, 108 Judaism 107, 109, 133, 172, 182, 198, 207, 226–8, 236 Palestinian 94, 96, 98, 142 rabbinic 93 knowledge 12, 14, 17, 25, 27, 31, 32, 35, 36, 40, 43, 47, 51, 90, 91, 123, 194, 198–202, 204–6, 208, 209, 214, 229, 240, 250 peer 53, 65, 67 private 51, 52 public 50, 51, 53, 55, 58, 62, 67, 73, 84, 86, 89, 103 Kuhn, Thomas 29, 36, 40 links 59, 61, 260 logic 31, 33, 40–1, 63, 64, 69, 76, 79, 83, 84–8, 99, 170, 206 logology 163 logos 26, 27, 34, 36, 87, 110, 175, 194, 240, 258 metaphor 14, 55, 60, 64, 74–6, 176, 246 metaphorical imagination 75 model/models 61, 69, 74, 76, 78, 148, 179, 191, 196 neo-Aristotelian 50, 55, 66, 68, 118, 145 New Rhetoric 5, 55, 260–8 orthodox/orthodoxy 40, 222–4, 226 paideia 7, 18, 19, 96, 97, 99, 106, 109, 133, 249 parable 39, 126–9, 132, 133, 136, 141, 143, 144, 152, 154

paradigm/paradigms 31, 32, 35–8, 43, 44, 47 pentad 7, 14, 147, 148, 165, 274 performative 34, 245, 246, 251 persuasion 4–6, 12, 17, 25, 26, 28, 34, 46, 47, 62–4, 66, 71, 75, 193, 231 phonology 161 progressive form 150, 277 prophetic 153, 155, 160 pseudepigraphy 220, 224, 225, 228 pseudonymity 216–34 purpose 176, 178, 179, 183, 189, 213, 236, 244, 246, 267 quasi-logical argument 59, 71 reality 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 25–7, 34, 42, 50, 59–61, 69–70, 73–5, 77–9, 87–8, 123, 176, 262–3, 266 rhetorical 49 social 7, 9, 10, 269 rhetoric of inquiry 24, 28, 29, 30, 32 rhetoric reinvented 64, 67 rhetoric restrained 64, 65, 67 rhetorical situation 26, 28, 34, 54, 65, 67, 68, 72, 73, 87, 186, 188 rhetorical unit 26, 27 rhetorics 2, 4, 12, 17, 20, 46, 50, 55, 64, 67, 88, 121, 193 scene 23, 30, 31, 290, 291 socio-rhetorical criticism 1, 13, 27 analysis 115, 116, 118, 124, 134, 137, 143–6 sound 161 speech act 68, 237, 245 structuration theory 203 style 7, 26, 97, 101, 105, 170, 193, 219, 229, 233, 235, 238, 242, 245, 247, 252, 258 Symbolic Convergence Theory/ SCT 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 23–6, 269 syncretism 100, 236, 250

Index of Key Words texture 115–46 inner 13, 28, 117 inter 13, 28, 117 sacred 13, 28, 117, 122 social/culture 13, 28, 117, 118 ideological 13, 28, 117, 123 theories general 6, 8, 269 rhetorical 10, 18, 83, 261 special 8, 17, 18, 271 topical 137, 193 topics 13, 117, 119, 120, 135, 138, 139, 182, 196, 229, 253, 258

299

topoi 35, 135–40, 143, 145, 197 topos 135, 136, 137, 140, 146, 196, 198, 200, 215, 242, 245, 252 transformation analysis 150, 163 universal audience 5, 6, 57, 58, 89 utterance 3, 4, 188, 251 validation 52, 53 validity 57

Index of New Testament Texts

Matthew 7:24, 25 17:1–9 22:15–46 23:2 26:53 26:63 27:11, 12 27:37 27:41-43

162 227 148 165 164 158 158 158 158

Mark 1:27 2:9, 11 4:2–9 9:2–10 12:28–34 13

143 221 124 227 152 124

Luke 1–2 2 4:18ff. 9:28–36 10:25–37 19–21 24:13–22, 44–46

136 124 136 227 152 124 227

John 5:8

221

Acts 1:1b

136

Romans 1:13 1:16ff. 1:16–32

204 137 140

1:18–32 2 2:1–3 2:1–3:8 2:2, 23 2:4 2:17–21a 3:2–9 6:1–2 6:3 6:16 11:1, 11 11:11–12 11:26

199 201 198 140 200 202, 204 199 199 199 202 202 199 207 206

1 Corinthians 1:12 1:14–16 1:20 3:5–9 3:16 4:14–21 5:6 6:2–3 6:9–11 6:12–20 8 8:1–7a 9:13 10:1–4 11:3 12–14 13:2 14:37–38 15 15:34

211 211 100 211 203 211 203 203 203 203 200, 201 200 204 205 207 209 201 201 51, 69 201

2 Corinthians 1:8

204

300

Index of New Testament Texts 11:4 12 12:1–4 12:6, 7

213 213 213 213

Galatians 1–2 1:6–9 1:11–12 1:18–2:14 2:2–7 2:9 3:16

170 213 210 210 210 210 161

Ephesians 3:20–21

143

Philippians 1:12

204

1 Thessalonians 4:1–5:11 4:13–14

205 206

James 1:5 1:18 1:19 1:22 2:1–26 2:3 2:14 3:1 3:2–12 3:4–5 3:6–8 3:7–9 3:11–12 5:7–9 5:12 5:13–18

301 251 252 246 245 252 250 251 246 252 250 246 250 251 250 250 253

Rhetorics in the New Millennium: Promise and Fulfillment

Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium

Neem: Today and in the New Millennium

Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium

Midnight In New Promise

Rhetorics

Fulfillment

The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium

The Fulfillment

New Promise

Balkans in the New Millennium, The

Fulfillment

Particle Physics in the New Millennium

Literacy for the new millennium

The Fulfillment

Hvac Controls In The New Millennium

The Davidic Messiah in Luke-Acts: The Promise and Its Fulfillment in Lukan Christology

Holography for the new millennium

New Millennium Fibers

Fantasy Fulfillment in Vegas

Ethics for the New Millennium

O for the New Millennium

Literacy for the New Millennium

New Millennium Fibers

New Millennium Fibers

New Technology-Based Firms in the New Millennium, Volume 6

Globalization: Culture and Education in the New Millennium

Technology and Security: Governing Threats in the New Millennium

Ian Prater - New Promise

Ian Prater - New Promise

The Rhetorics of Power

Rhetorics in the New Millennium: Promise and Fulfillment

Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium

Neem: Today and in the New Millennium

Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium

Midnight In New Promise

Rhetorics

Fulfillment

The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium

The Fulfillment

New Promise

Balkans in the New Millennium, The

Fulfillment

Particle Physics in the New Millennium

Literacy for the new millennium

The Fulfillment

Hvac Controls In The New Millennium

The Davidic Messiah in Luke-Acts: The Promise and Its Fulfillment in Lukan Christology

Holography for the new millennium

New Millennium Fibers

Fantasy Fulfillment in Vegas

Ethics for the New Millennium

O for the New Millennium

Literacy for the New Millennium

New Millennium Fibers

New Millennium Fibers

New Technology-Based Firms in the New Millennium, Volume 6

Globalization: Culture and Education in the New Millennium

Technology and Security: Governing Threats in the New Millennium

Ian Prater - New Promise

Ian Prater - New Promise

The Rhetorics of Power

Recommend Documents