New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism (Studies in Religion) by George A. Kennedy (PDF)

Description

New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism 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, George Kennedy’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 the first 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. Kennedy 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).In the opening chapter Kennedy 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. He provides in succeeding chapters examples of rhetorical analysis, looking closely at the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus’ farewell to the disciples in John’s Gospel, the distinctive rhetoric of Jesus, the speeches in Acts, and the approach of Saint Paul in Second Corinthians, Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐If you’re doing work in NT and are doing anything with Rhetoric, this is your basic, foundational book. As an OT doctoral student, I found this particularly helpful when trying to navigate rhetorical criticism in NT texts (since rhetorical criticism is different in OT and NT). Easy read and helpful shelf reference.

⭐Great product and Great service.

⭐Mostly of academic interest. For the average Bible reader it is enough to know that many New Testament writers were probably aware of Greek rhetorical styles and may have used them in writing the New Testament.

⭐Books were in excellent shape

⭐Few books have changed my thinking on any one particular subject as has this volume by Kennedy. I was trained in New Testament academics heavy on the German, largely Lutheran, “higher critical” method. While this methodology has strengths, it is based largely on the study of the written text as a literary document. That is all well and good, but Kennedy reminds us that these were most likely oral documents, transcriptions, if you will, of texts that were intended to be heard by the audiences to which they were written.In other words, although the letters of the Apostle Paul were in fact written down and sent to the various congregations to which they are addressed, they were most likely experienced by that vast majority of people there as something that was read to them and not as something that they read. This oral presentation was based on a number of factors that we forget in the post-Guttenberg (printing press) era: The first century was an oral culture. Many people could not read, but even those who could expected to listen to texts as much as read them. Rhetoric, the art of oral persuasion, was held as the highest demonstration of a well-educated man (it was also a man’s world).Thus, to communicate within the framework of the Greco-Roman world, Kennedy maintains, Paul wrote rhetorically, with the intention that it would be listened to, like a sermon. Even the Gospels were written in this fashion, as long stories of Jesus to be heard in in one sitting among the communities of faith.Studying the New Testament from a purely literary framework, therefore, without “listening” to the text as rhetoric, misses much of what the first century audiences would have know and appreciated. This book opened a whole new world for me, when I first read it over fifteen years ago as a well-trained student in the New Testament. Since then, I have deepened by appreciation for Kennedy’s methodology and incorporated much of what I have learned in my own investigations.If you a a studentof the New Testament, this book will invite to see a whole new way of thinking and, more importantly, of “hearing.” Enjoy!

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