5.2 Rhetorical Criticism

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5.2 Rhetorical Criticism

• OT-Hermeneutics-2006

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1. Introduction

• 1.1 "Although the study of rhetoric is a
  classical discipline that goes back to Aristotle
  (Rhetoric) and includes works by Cicero (De
  Oratore) and Quintilian (Institutio oratoria), as
  a contemporary methodology for the study of the
  Hebrew Bible rhetorical criticism is relatively
  recent, having first been introduced by James
  Muilenburg in his 1968 Presidential Address to
  the Society of Biblical Literature, entitled
  "Form Criticism and Beyond" (1969 1-18)."
  Dozeman

3
1. Introduction

• 1.2 ". . . three main parts of classical rhetoric
  (inventio or search for ideas, dispositio or
  organization of ideas in a composition, and
  elocutio or ornatus, which is the manner by which
  a speech can be adorned with figures). . . ."
  Meynet

4
1. Introduction

• 1.3 "Rhetorical criticism is a form of literary
  criticism which uses our knowledge of the
  conventions of literary composition practiced in
  ancient Israel and its environment to discover
  and analyze the particular literary artistry
  found in a specific unit of Old Testament texts.
  This analysis then provides a basis for
  discussing the message of the text and the impact
  it had on its audience." Watson Hauser

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1. Introduction

• 1.4 "Rhetoric, according to Aristotle's classical
  definition, is "the faculty power of
  discovering in the particular case what are the
  available means of persuasion." Rhetoric is the
  art of putting a thought over in a particular
  manner. Rhetorical study is a pragmatic method of
  analysis that integrates the three dimensions of
  a literary work the author, the text itself, and
  the audience. The author/speaker establishes his
  or her thematic goal through the transmission of
  his or her thought into a text (speech). The
  listener's/reader's situation, ways of
  perception, and set of mind are also taken into
  consideration by the author/speaker." Gitay

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1. Introduction

• 1.5 "The discourse is structured and shaped
  thematically and stylistically in order to
  capture the audience's interest. Rhetoric, the
  art of persuasion, is concerned with an audience
  who may not share or may even oppose the
  speaker's/author's ideas, concepts, or
  ideologies. Rhetorical analysis reveals the
  speaker's strategy of appealing to or mastering
  the audience's mind."Gitay

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1. Introduction

• 1.6 "Since rhetoric is argumentative in nature,
  the study of rhetoric requires a reconstruction
  of the argumentative situation the condition
  that gave birth to a given discourse. In other
  words, the rhetorical utterance is a response to
  a specific argumentative situation (also known as
  the rhetorical situation). "It is the situation
  which calls the discourse into existence. . . .
  We need to understand that a particular discourse
  comes into existence because of some specific
  condition or situation which invites utterances."
  Gitay

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2. Summary of Classical Rhetoric

• 2.1 Introduction
• "In ancient Greece a professor or public speaker
  known as "rhetor" (rvh,twr) taught a subject
  called "rhetoric" (rvhtorikh,). It signified the
  "art" (te,cnh) of discourse that in time became a
  complex system of communication." Trible
• 2.2 Historic Overview
• 1. The Sophists (5th BCE) emphasized the verbal
  ability apart from the truth or morality of
  speech.
• 2. Isocrates (436-338 BCE) insisted that ethics
  and philosophy should be join to the art of
  discourse.
• 3. Socrates (469-399 BCE) and Plato (428-348 BCE)
  argued for the inclusion of logic (dialectic).

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2. Summary of Classical Rhetoric

• 4. Aristotle (384-322 BCE) The "Art" of
  Rhetoric argued that rhetoric involved the
  technique of argumentation.
• 5. The anonymous author of On the Sublime (1st
  cen. CE) suggested that rhetoric "is not to
  persuade the audience but rather to transport
  them out of themselves."
• 6. Cicero (106-43 BCE) developed rhetoric into
  the "art of arts." Presenting a system including
  form and content, theory and practice, thinking
  and speaking, ethics an style.
• 7. Quintilian (40-95 CE) understood rhetoric as a
  comprehensive whole, stressing persuasion and the
  moral power of public speech.

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2. Summary of Classical Rhetoric

• 2.3 Features of Classic Rhetoric
• 1. Three Elements of Communication
• Speaker or Author
• Speech or Text
• Audience or Reader
• 2. Three Goals of Communication
• Intellectual Goal of Teaching
• Emotional Goal of Touching the Feelings
• Aesthetic Goal of Pleasing so as to Hold
  Attention
• 3. Three Types of Communication
• Judicial forensic
• Deliberative -hortatory
• Demonstrative - epideictic

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2. Summary of Classical Rhetoric

• 4. Five Parts of the Rhetoric
• Invention (inventio) discovery of material
  suitable to the occasion
• Structure (dispositio) arrangement of material
  in an organized whole
• Style (elocutio) choice of appropriate words
  use of figures and tropes
• Memory (memoria) formulation of mnemonic
  systems as preparation for oral delivery
• Delivery (pronounciatio/actio) feature of oral
  presentation.

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3. A Short History

• 3.1 Biblical Period Patristics
• 1. "At the turn of the Common Era the Jewish
  philosopher Philo (c. 20 BCE-50 CE) claimed that
  Moses learned from the Egyptians the lore of
  Greek meter, rhythm, and harmony, all of which he
  used to compose Hebrew poetry."

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3. A Short History

• 2. "The Jewish historian Josephus (37-100 CE)
  similarly declared that Moses used hexameter
  verse to compose a song to God (Exod 15) and to
  recite a poem to the people (Deut 32) and that
  David, when free from fighting wars, fashioned
  "songs and hymns to God in varied meters some
  he made in trimesters, and others in pentameters."

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3. A Short History

• 3. "Among the early church fathers, Jerome
  (331-420) emerged as a consummate stylist, having
  studied Latin grammar and rhetoric. Comparing
  Roman and biblical literature, he judged the
  later superior. Who needs Horace, he asked when
  one has the Psalter? Who needs Virgil when on has
  the Gospels? Who need Cicero when one has Paul?"

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3. A Short History

• 4. "Augustine (355-430) also compared the two
  literatures. To this task he brought an education
  comparable to Jerome's and, beyond that, a
  professorship in rhetoric. At first Augustine
  found the Bible inferior to the "sublimity of
  Cicero" and so appealed instead to the deep
  mysteries of scripture that delighted the mind.
  But later he conceived a Christian rhetoric that
  judged the Bible no less worthy than the works of
  the best classic authors. Of the five parts of
  rhetoric, he concentrated on style (elocutio),
  asserting that its system of tropes and figures
  enhanced the understanding of scripture. Of the
  three goals, he considered teaching the most
  important. Of the three types of speech, he found
  each, judicial, deliberative, and demonstrative,
  to have a appropriate place. Using classical
  categories, he analyzed the eloquence of Paul and
  the prophets to conclude that in their
  compositions form and content blended perfectly."

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3. A Short History

• 3.2 Middle Ages
• 1. "Christian exegete of the Middle Ages
  continued literary and rhetorical studies.
  Cassiodorus of Italy (c. 487-580) upheld the
  Augustinian view that scripture partakes of
  classical learning, even though he developed it
  in a different way. His Psalms commentary over
  overflowed with stylistic identifications his
  analysis of Job led to the assertion that the art
  of rhetoric began in the Bible."
• 2. "The Venerable Bede of Britian (673-735)
  likewise claimed that Greek rhetorical devices
  originated from the Hebrew. Working within the
  Augustinian tradition, he classified biblical
  books according to their poetic structure, and he
  catalogued figures and tropes."

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3. A Short History

• 3. "In France the Victorines studied the letter
  of scripture, extolling its translucency and
  sensuousness."
• 4. "Hugh (c. 1096-1141) joined to the study of
  the Bible the liberal arts, especially grammar."
• 5. "Richard (c. 1123-73) delighted in metaphors."
• 6. "Andrew (c. 1110-75) followed Hugh and Jerome
  in the study of grammar and rhetoric. For all of
  them aesthetic features enhanced the spiritual
  meanings of scripture. From the patristic through
  the medieval period, these and other Christian
  scholars analyzed the Bible word by word and
  phrase by phrase. They preformed what secular
  literary critics call a "close-textured
  treatment."

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3. A Short History

• 7. "the scholar Saadya Gaon (882-942) of
  Babylonia prepared a dictionary of Hebrew poetics
  that emphasized grammar, style, and rhetoric.
  Rather than recognizing the presence of poetry in
  the Bible, he seemed to have worked with the
  concept of eloquent prose."
• 8. "More than a century later, Moses Ibn Ezra (c.
  1055-1140) of Spain declared the sacred text a
  prose document, with the exceptions of Psalms,
  Job, and Proverbs, and even them he found lacking
  in meter and rhyme. His study of Hebrew poetics
  explored metaphors and tropes such as antithesis,
  paranomasia, anaphora, and inclusio to conclude
  that the Bible exhibited rhetorical excellence
  second to none."

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3. A Short History

• 9. ". . . Judah Halevi (c. 1075-1141), . . .
  living in Spain, praised Hebrew as the language
  that God spoke. He held that wordplays on proper
  names such as Adam and Eve made sense only in
  that language that prophecy required elevated
  speech that Moses, David Joshua, and Solomon
  composed in a variety of genres such as
  exhortations, songs, and hymns and that the
  Hebrews eschewed metrical poetry, with its stress
  on sound, in favor of the more excellent value of
  meaning. Not unlike their Christian counterparts,
  Jewish medieval exegetes plumbed the literary
  treasures of scriptures, analyzing form, style,
  tropes, and related features to explicate
  meanings."

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3. A Short History

• 3.3 The Renaissance
• 1. "Although the Renaissance marked a rebirth of
  classical learning, sustained interest in the in
  the Bible, specifically in its literary features,
  did not go wanting. The story begins in Italy.
  The fourteenth century humanist Petrarch
  (1304-137) wrote of the power, beauty, and
  superiority of scriptural poetry even as he
  embraced the classical literary tradition."
• 2. "A century later the Jewish scholar Judah
  Messer Leon (c. 1420-c. 1498) produced a major
  study on rhetoric entitled Se?????????????????????
  ??? (The Book of the Honeycomb's Flow). Versed in
  Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, he not only
  catalogued biblical literary devices by classical
  terms but appropriated the entire system of
  ancient rhetoric for the scriptures. Yet he
  maintained, as had the Christian exegetes
  Cassiodorus and Bede, that the Bible, not the
  classics, constituted the source of rhetoric
  "It is the Torah which was the giver."
  Scripture became then the primary textbook for
  the art of discourse and persuasion."

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3. A Short History

• 3. "In the following century, the Jewish scholar
  Azariah de Rossi (c. 1511-c. 1578) analyzed
  biblical poetry by drawing upon classical,
  Christian, and Jewish sources. Aware that Philo,
  Josephus, Jerome, and other ancients had found
  classical meter in Hebrew poetry but that Judah
  Halevi and other rabbis had not, de Rossi sought
  to resolve these conflicting views. His scholarly
  work ????????????? (1573) advanced the concept of
  meter as ideas (or thought units), rather than as
  sound, and so proposed that counting ideas would
  disclose structure. This innovative approach laid
  the groundwork for later studies."
• 4. "As the Renaissance moved northward from
  Italy, other scholars contributed to literary
  study of the Bible. Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522)
  became the first non-Jewish scholar in Germany to
  master Hebrew, subsequently publishing a grammar
  and lexicon to introduce Christian students to
  the Old Testament in its original language."

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3. A Short History

• 5. "The Dutch humanists Erasmus (c. 1466-1536),
  whose influence extended throughout Europe and
  England, judged the study of rhetoric to be an
  essential tool for sound biblical exegesis. His
  publication of the New Testament in Greek (for
  the first time ever), together with a new Latin
  translation (1516), and his subsequent
  Paraphrases of the New Testament attest his
  linguistic, textual, and rhetorical interests."
• 6. "In the English Renaissance, Sir Philip Sidney
  (1554-86) declared biblical poesy representative
  of the chief kind of mimesis, with the intention
  "to teach and delight." Claiming that the Bible
  imitated "the inconceivable excellencies of God,"
  he named in particular "David in his Psalms
  Solomon in his Song of Songs, in his
  Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs Moses and Deborah in
  their Hymns and the writer of Job." He
  counseled, "Against these none will speak that
  hath the Holy Ghost in the due holy reverence."

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4. Comparison with other Criticisms

• 1. ". . . it is clear that not only is it often
  difficult to draw a sharp line between rhetorical
  criticism and other form of Old Testament
  literary criticism . . . there also seems little
  point in attempting to do so." Watson Hauser
• 2. "Rhetorical critics see substantial
  limitations in source criticism and form
  criticism, such as source criticism's tendency to
  use literary criteria derived from modern culture
  as a basis for finding inconsistencies in the
  biblical text and separating it into earlier
  sources, or source criticism's tendency to dice
  the biblical text into tiny components.
  Rhetorical critics recognize, however, a
  difference in purpose between their focus and
  that of these other approaches. Both source
  criticism and form criticism have as a primary
  goal the recovery of earlier literary units in
  order that these units might open the way for a
  more complete knowledge of the life of early
  Israel." Watson Hauser

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5. Muilenburg

• 1. Three Emphasis in the Canon
• 1.1 "First, rhetoric as the art of composition
  echoes the Socratic concept of organic unity, It
  also resonates with objective theories that view
  the text as an integral whole."
• 1.2 "Second, the method of close reading evokes
  the classical interest in content (inventio),
  structure (dispositio), and style (elocutio). The
  method also corresponds to objective procedures
  that show how the parts of a unit work together
  to produce the whole."
• 1.3 "Third, the purpose to discover authorial
  intent suggests the accent placed upon the
  speaker in demonstrative rhetoric. But this
  purpose diverges from objective theories to align
  with expressive orientations. What Abrams
  designated "insights into the mind and heart of
  the poet himself," Muilenburg transposed to "the
  writer's intent and meaning."

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5. Muilenburg

• 2. Proper Articulation of Form Yield Proper
  Articulation of Meaning
• ". . . proposed that "a proper articulation of
  form yields a proper articulation of meaning." .
  . . this version highlights artistic composition
  and involves the method of close reading. But
  rather than specifying authorial intent, it
  evokes only the general concept of meaning. By
  analogy with classical rhetoric, meaning may
  center in the text (the judicial genre) or in the
  reader (the deliberative), as well as in the
  author (the demonstrative). By analogy with
  literary theory, meaning may center in the world
  (mimetic theories) or in the audience (pragmatic
  theories), or in the text (objective theories),
  as well as in the author (expressive theories).
  Whichever orientation prevails, meaning always
  contains a theological dimension. Scripture as
  artistic composition engages the ultimate
  questions of life. Art serves faith."

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5. Muilenburg

• 3. Two Tasks of Rhetorical Criticism
• 3.1 "The first is to define the limits of a
  literary unit by using the criteria of form and
  content. Devices such as climax, inclusio, and
  chiasm set the boundaries." Major motifs, usually
  given at the beginning of a unit, come to
  resolution at the end. Yet defining limits can be
  difficult because a single text may contain
  several climactic points. To mistake an internal
  break for the conclusion disavows artistic
  integrity and skews authorial intent."
• 3.2 "The second task is to discern structure to
  delineate overall design and individual parts,
  show how they work together, identify literary
  devices and explicate their functions in marking
  sequences and shifts within units. In this
  formulation structure (dispositio) subsumes style
  (elocutio). Attention to both features discloses
  the art of Hebrew composition."

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6. The Technique

• 1. Articulation of Form-Content
• 1.1 ". . . in rhetorical criticism structure
  presents the ipsissima verba of the text. It
  shows the patterns of relationships residing in
  the very words, phrases, sentences, and larger
  units."
• 1.2 "Although structure and content may be
  distinguished for analytical purposes, they
  remain an inseparable whole. A literary artifact
  is not a container from which ideas or substance
  can be removed. Conversely, it is not a subject
  matter from which stylistic and structural
  wrappings can be removed. No form appears without
  content and no content without form. How a text
  speaks and what it says are mixed and mingled
  indissolubly to give meaning. The concept of
  organic unity (form-content) underlies all
  rhetorical critical readings."
• 1.3 "Decisions come text by text to meet the
  requirements of particularity. In general,
  rhetorical analysis begins and ends with the
  final form of a text, though it is not limited to
  that form. Synchronic analysis allows for
  diachronic reflection."

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6. The Technique

• 2. Articulation of Meaning
• 2.1 Authorial Meaning "Muilenburg equated
  meaning with authorial intentionality."
• 2.2 Textual Meaning "A second center for meaning
  is the text its content, interlocking
  structures, and artistic configurations. This
  center parallels judicial rhetoric in which
  speech (or text) predominates. . . . Within
  biblical scholarship the text-centered focus for
  meaning aligns itself with textual criticism in
  pursuing close readings but departs from that
  discipline in not seeking an "original" text
  (Urtext). The text-centered focus also aligns
  itself with canonical criticism in privileging
  the final form but departs from that discipline
  in embracing artistry and not dwelling on the
  failures of historical critical methods."

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6. The Technique

• 2.3 "One valid retort to the text-centered
  approach observes that a text is mute. It does
  not speak the reader gives it voice. . . .
  rhetorical critics obey the "notes" while
  bringing to the interpretive task various skills,
  knowledge, and sensitivities. Faithful in
  describing the structure, style, and substance of
  a mute text, they in the end multiple renditions.
  When rhetorical criticism highlights this element
  in the total act of communication, it exhibits
  similarities to classical persuasive rhetoric,
  contemporary experiential rhetoric, pragmatic
  theories of literature, and reader-response
  criticism."

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6. The Technique

• 3. Proper Articulation
• 3.1 "The formulation "proper articulation" occurs
  twice in the Muilenburg rubric, first for
  form-content and then for meaning. The adjective
  sets limits to analysis. "Proper" opposes
  improper. Not all articulation is valid, and not
  all valid articulation is equally valid. But the
  word "proper" does not itself identify what the
  limits are, who decides, and on what basis. Its
  meaning remains open to various interpretations.
  A classical rhetorician might define "proper" by
  how faithfully articulation adheres to the
  traditional system. An experiential critic might
  decide by how well it expresses intersubjective
  observations. . . ."

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6. The Technique

• 4. Practical Instruction
• 4.1 "Begin with the text. Read it again and
  again. . . . Jot down ideas that come your way.
  Some you may never use, but they all help to get
  the process started."
• 4.2 "Read various scholarly works on the text and
  take notes. Do not limit your reading to literary
  analyses. Rhetorical criticism needs the
  nourishment of other disciplines even as it
  nourishes them. . . ."
• 4.3 Utilize Form Criticism and other critical
  methodologies.
• 4.4 "Acquaint yourself with rhetorical terms."
• 4.5 "Attend closely to the following features of
  the a text 1) Beginning and ending. . . . 2)
  Repetitions of words, phrases and sentences. . .
  . 3) Types of discourse. . . . 4) Design and
  Structure. . . . 5) Plot Development. . . . 6)
  Character Portrayals. . . . 7) Syntax. . . . 8)
  Particles. . . ."

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6. The Technique

• 4.6 "Show structure by using the very words of
  the text in the order they occur. Even at the
  risk of awkward constructions, preserve the
  Hebrew word order as much as possible in
  translation. . . . Only the ipsissima verba of
  the text can yield the structure."
• 4.7 "Translate so as to retain not only the
  Hebrew syntax but also the original number of
  words. When a single Hebrew word requires more
  than one English word, inform the reader by using
  hyphens to join the English words that convey the
  one Hebrew word."
• 4.8 "Devise a series of markers to indicate
  prominent features of the text, particularly
  repetition. The markers signal associations among
  words, phrases, clauses, or sentences."
• 4.9 ". . . then describe in clear prose what the
  structural diagram shows and interpret both
  diagram and description."
• 4.10 "Correlate your discoveries. . . ."