Udo Schnelle: Early Christianity and Culture

[DCHindley]

FWIW:

Someone (sorry to have forgotten whom) challenged my assertion that Latin Rhetoric was more complicated than Greek rhetoric. I was trying to make a point that Paul, a Greek speaking person from the Greek speaking provinces of Asia Minor and Syria, would be more likely to practice Greek style rhetoric, if he employed it at all (he may just as easily have used a semetic form of persuasive speech), than Roman rhetoric, for which Greek terms were not available/agreed on.

Why then do modern critics imagine Paul employed complicated rhetorical arrangements only possible in a Roman (Latin) style? It may explain things, but seems to me to be similar to "explaining" the cause of a draught as the product of the nefarious acts of inter-dimensional space aliens.

Aristotle only acknowledges two essential parts of rhetoric, diēgēsis (latin narratio, narrative, where the subject or case is clearly stated) and pistis (confirmatio, proof). The narrative can be preceded by a prooimion (Latin exordium, the beginning of a speech, paving the way for what follows, and often contains praise, blame, exhortation, dissuasion, appeals to the hearer), and the confirmatio (proof) followed by a epilogos (Latin peroration, composed of four parts: to dispose the hearer favourably towards oneself and unfavourably towards the adversary; to amplify and depreciate; to excite the emotions of the hearer; to recapitulate).

Latin rhetoric had two additional arrangements:

*partitio (or divisio, division, an outline of what is to follow, located between narratio and confirmatio;
*refutatio, refutation, section of a speech between confirmatio and peroratio, was devoted to answering the counterarguments of one's opponent).

As far as I can tell, there were no formal Greek equivalents to these two Latin words, as these were inventions by the Romans, although I suppose there could be Greek technical terms from which these arrangements were composed.

DCH

I shamelessly adapted this from Aristotle's The "Art" of Rhetoric, edited & translated by John Henry Freese (1926)
and the Silva Rhetorica website @ http://rhetoric.byu.edu/

[Peter Kirby]

More or less in agreement with Schnelle, this author focuses more on the physical practice of writing itself (rather than the contents of the original texts) and creates an analogy between the attraction of the codex for early Christians in the 2nd/3rd/4th centuries and the attraction of computer technology for late 20th century / early 21st century sectarians.

http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/faculty/reese/ ... ecodex.pdf

In each case, the new religious movement is more technically-inclined than the broader population. It's therefore not appropriate to assume that the overall average applies; we actually expect that it doesn't. Instead we expect a higher degree of literacy (in the early centuries AD) or computer literacy (in the early days of the Internet) on the part of the emerging religious organizations, as they used this specific technology extensively to organize.

[outhouse]

Aristotle only acknowledges two essential parts of rhetoric, diēgēsis (latin narratio, narrative, where the subject or case is clearly stated) and pistis (confirmatio, proof). The narrative can be preceded by a prooimion (Latin exordium, the beginning of a speech, paving the way for what follows, and often contains praise, blame, exhortation, dissuasion, appeals to the hearer), and the confirmatio (proof) followed by a epilogos (Latin peroration, composed of four parts: to dispose the hearer favourably towards oneself and unfavourably towards the adversary; to amplify and depreciate; to excite the emotions of the hearer; to recapitulate).

Understanding your on the teaching level to my student level.


I was taught there were 3 parts. Ethos, pathos, logos. As you know.

There are three modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself. (Rhetoric, I.2)

The art of persuasion is something no one here should be lacking, even if on a basic level.

[outhouse]

.

http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/faculty/reese/ ... ecodex.pdf

.

Thank you, ill take a look.

Been suffering vision issues, new glasses will be here in a few days.

[DCHindley]

Outhouse,

I am no teacher, and to be honest am just a mere "piker" wrt rhetoric. My comments are about "arrangement" of different parts of rhetorical speech. The web p[age I had previously posted a link to, Silva Rhetorica
( http://rhetoric.byu.edu/ ) calls Logos, Pathos & Ethos, "Persuasive Appeals."

My understanding is that the Greeks (like Aristotle) tended to prefer speech that was a bit simpler and direct than the Romans later did. Greek city states were not very rich, so most folks, even the elites, worked their farms. In fact, many cities actually had to pay the population to assemble to vote, just to get them to engage in the democratic process. Sure, some issues needed to be argued before the assembly, but it wasn't long prolix type stuff.

Now the Romans, on the other hand, were much wealthier as a whole, so folks had far more leisure time available to hone their public speaking abilities. It was more of a "see and be seen" sort of thing for many Romans clawing their way up the social ladder through the various positions in Roman government. You get elected/picked for these positions because you have become well known. When spectators went to see a court case in Rome, they were expecting to see a show. They were also jaded, having seen numerous such orations and were well aware that the orator would attempt "manipulate" them mentally and/or emotionally. The more successful orators were the ones who succeeded in surprising the listeners nonetheless by making them think one thing and then turning their expectations inside out to make their point.

Greeks, in spite of Roman rule over the east, did not seem to adopt this kind of approach to rhetorical speech, as there is little evidence (to me at least) that they created new Greek technical terms for the corresponding Roman arrangements for speech.

I think that those who want to believe that the Pauline letters, apparent contradictions and all, were written by a single man (perhaps with a few small interpolations added by scribes, etc), have turned to Roman rhetorical arrangements as a way to explain the apparent contradictions. They were designed to manipulate the hearer into accepting his conclusions. However, the fact remains, not a single ancient writer (church father or no), whether writing in Greek or Latin, ever called Paul a rhetorical genius, but rather held him up as an example of one who uses "simple" communication, more concerned with communicating divine "truth" than "tickling the ears" of his audience members.

DCH

Aristotle only acknowledges two essential parts of rhetoric, diēgēsis (latin narratio, narrative, where the subject or case is clearly stated) and pistis (confirmatio, proof). The narrative can be preceded by a prooimion (Latin exordium, the beginning of a speech, paving the way for what follows, and often contains praise, blame, exhortation, dissuasion, appeals to the hearer), and the confirmatio (proof) followed by a epilogos (Latin peroration, composed of four parts: to dispose the hearer favourably towards oneself and unfavourably towards the adversary; to amplify and depreciate; to excite the emotions of the hearer; to recapitulate).

Understanding your on the teaching level to my student level.


I was taught there were 3 parts. Ethos, pathos, logos. As you know.

There are three modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself. (Rhetoric, I.2)

The art of persuasion is something no one here should be lacking, even if on a basic level.

[outhouse]

I think that those who want to believe that the Pauline letters, apparent contradictions and all, were written by a single man

That's just it. The first thing they taught me was that it was never a single man. It was a community effort as noted in many of the epistle headers.

Even when its just Paul they claim it was still a community effort.

How much was actually Paul or Tim is not really know with any degree of certainty. I cannot in good conscious think it was just Pauls work.


The thing I see about Paul is that he wanted to be viewed as a real apostle very bad. I see it influencing his rhetoric to build his own character with ore artistic freedom then normal.

He was no genius, but his personal need to be taken seriously after being a murderer, to me leaves quite the room for rhetorical artistic expression.

[outhouse]

not a single ancient writer (church father or no), whether writing in Greek or Latin, ever called Paul a rhetorical genius, but rather held him up as an example of one who uses "simple" communication, more concerned with communicating divine "truth" than "tickling the ears" of his audience members.

Yet they listed him as having great zeal for the movement.

Take into account they knew no other prose then rhetorical for these kinds of writing. It mirrored the same rhetorical theology of the OT.


I think the fact these were theological epistles, plays into what you notice.

[outhouse]

Thing is. This was a community that was trying to elevate itself above others who' standards and practices were looked at almost as heretical.

They had to build on every aspect of community or Paul to try and win a fight that was still in progress. The rhetorical leash was off. They had to persuade these other communities they had gods own favor here.