George A. Kennedy
- Published in print:
- 1984
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807841204
- eISBN:
- 9781469616261
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9781469616254_Kennedy
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
This book provides readers of the Bible with an important tool for understanding the Scriptures. Based on the theory and practice of Greek rhetoric in the New Testament, the book's approach ...
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This book provides readers of the Bible with an important tool for understanding the Scriptures. Based on the theory and practice of Greek rhetoric in the New Testament, the book's approach acknowledges that New Testament writers wrote to persuade an audience of the truth of their messages. These writers employed rhetorical conventions that were widely known and imitated in the society of the times. Sometimes confirming but often challenging common interpretations of texts, this is a systematic study of the rhetorical composition of the New Testament. As a complement to form criticism, historical criticism, and other methods of biblical analysis, rhetorical criticism focuses on the text as we have it, and seeks to discover the basis of its powerful appeal and the intent of its authors. The book shows that biblical writers employed both “external” modes of persuasion, such as scriptural authority, the evidence of miracles, and the testimony of witnesses, and “internal” methods, such as ethos (authority and character of the speaker), pathos (emotional appeal to the audience), and logos (deductive and inductive argument in the text). The first chapter presents a survey of how rhetoric was taught in the New Testament period and outlines a rigorous method of rhetorical criticism that involves a series of steps. The book provides in succeeding chapters examples of rhetorical analysis, including close looks at the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus's farewell to the disciples in John's Gospel, and the distinctive rhetoric of Jesus.Less
This book provides readers of the Bible with an important tool for understanding the Scriptures. Based on the theory and practice of Greek rhetoric in the New Testament, the book's approach acknowledges that New Testament writers wrote to persuade an audience of the truth of their messages. These writers employed rhetorical conventions that were widely known and imitated in the society of the times. Sometimes confirming but often challenging common interpretations of texts, this is a systematic study of the rhetorical composition of the New Testament. As a complement to form criticism, historical criticism, and other methods of biblical analysis, rhetorical criticism focuses on the text as we have it, and seeks to discover the basis of its powerful appeal and the intent of its authors. The book shows that biblical writers employed both “external” modes of persuasion, such as scriptural authority, the evidence of miracles, and the testimony of witnesses, and “internal” methods, such as ethos (authority and character of the speaker), pathos (emotional appeal to the audience), and logos (deductive and inductive argument in the text). The first chapter presents a survey of how rhetoric was taught in the New Testament period and outlines a rigorous method of rhetorical criticism that involves a series of steps. The book provides in succeeding chapters examples of rhetorical analysis, including close looks at the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus's farewell to the disciples in John's Gospel, and the distinctive rhetoric of Jesus.
Gunther Martin
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199560226
- eISBN:
- 9780191721427
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199560226.003.0012
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The relative scarcity of religious argumentation and the restriction to certain argumentative patterns in assembly and private speeches suggest the existence of relatively strict, though unwritten, ...
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The relative scarcity of religious argumentation and the restriction to certain argumentative patterns in assembly and private speeches suggest the existence of relatively strict, though unwritten, rhetorical conventions of appropriateness according to the genre. In the assembly a different, more restraint manner of speaking was practised, possibly as a consequence of a more result-oriented culture. The private speeches are as antagonistic as the public forensic speeches, but since the subject-matter is often too petty to have public significance, religion as a means of arousing attention and pathos may in such cases have seemed inappropriate and exaggerated. This is supported by the observation that the more significant and individual religious argumentation occurs in speeches that do have (or are presented as having) wider significance.Less
The relative scarcity of religious argumentation and the restriction to certain argumentative patterns in assembly and private speeches suggest the existence of relatively strict, though unwritten, rhetorical conventions of appropriateness according to the genre. In the assembly a different, more restraint manner of speaking was practised, possibly as a consequence of a more result-oriented culture. The private speeches are as antagonistic as the public forensic speeches, but since the subject-matter is often too petty to have public significance, religion as a means of arousing attention and pathos may in such cases have seemed inappropriate and exaggerated. This is supported by the observation that the more significant and individual religious argumentation occurs in speeches that do have (or are presented as having) wider significance.
