Table Of ContentJOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
SUPPLEMENT SERIES
19
Editors
David J A Clines
Philip R Davies
David M Gunn
Department of Biblical Studies
The University of Sheffield
Sheffield S10 2TN
England
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ART AND MEANING:
RHETORIC IN
BIBLICAL LITERATURE
Edited by
DAVID J.A.CLINES, DAVID M.GUNN
and ALAN J.HAUSER
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Supplement Series,19
Sheffield
1982
Copyright © 1982 JSOT Press
ISSN 0309-0787
ISBN 0 905774 38 8 (hardback)
ISBN 0 905774 39 6 (paperback)
Published by
JSOT Press
Department of Biblical Studies
The University of Sheffield
Sheffield S10 2TN
England
Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Burn Ltd.,
Trowbridge, Wiltshire.
1982
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Art and meaning: rhetoric in Biblical literature.-
(Journal for the study of the Old Testament.
Supplement series, ISSN 0309-0787; 19)
1. Bible O.T.-Criticism, interpretation, etc.
I. Clines, David J.A. II. Gunn, David M.
III. Hauser, Alan J. IV. Series
221.6 BS1171.2
ISBN 0-905774-38-8
ISBN 0-905774-39-6 PbK
CONTENTS
Martin Kessler
A Methodological Setting for Rhetorical
Criticism 1-19
Alan Jon Hauser
Genesis 2-3: The Theme of Intimacy and
Alienation 20-36
Charles Isbell
The Structure of Exodus 1:1-14 37-61
Ann M. Vater
"A Plague on Both our Houses": Form - and Rhet-
orical - Critical Observations on Exodus 7- 11 62- 71
David M. Gunn
The "Hardening of Pharaoh's Heart": Plot,
Character and Theology in Exodus 1-14 72-96
George W. Coats
Humility and Honor: A Moses Legend in
Numbers 12 97-107
J. Cheryl Exum
"Whom will he teach knowledge?": A Literary
Approach to Isaiah 28 108-139
J. Kenneth Kuntz
The Contribution of Rhetorical Criticism to
Understanding Isaiah 51:1-16 140-171
John S. Kselman
"Why have you abandoned me?" A Rhetorical
Study of Psalm 22 172-198
David J.A. Clines
The Arguments of Job's Three Friends 199-214
Charles Thomas Davis, III
The Literary Structure of Luke 1-2 215-229
Edwin C. Webster
Pattern in the Fourth Gospel 230-257
Index of Biblical References 258-262
Index of Authors 263-266
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PREFACE
The title of this book expresses the viewpoint common to all
the contributors that Biblical authors were artists of language.
Through their verbal artistry - their rhetoric - they have
created their meaning. So meaning is ultimately inseparable
from art, and those who seek to understand the Biblical
literature must be sensitive to the writer's craft.
Among Biblical scholars in recent decades a critical approach
that adopts such a viewpoint has often been termed "rhetorical
criticism". We call it an "approach" because it is not the
method of a new school with a binding and polemical
programme. The present studies, samples of this approach, are
the work of scholars who adopt a stance that is essentially
neutral towards the past praxis of Biblical scholarship and who
probe in diverse ways the many dimensions of the Biblical text
as literary work.
Another characteristic of the papers presented here is that
the primary focus of their interest is the final form of the
Biblical text. The received text is not viewed, that is, as a
barrier beyond which one must - in order to do Biblical
scholarship - necessarily press, nor an end product that should
most properly be analysed for evidences of its origins. True
though it is that its literary history may at times encompass
many centuries, several strata of tradition, and a variety of
editorial influences, it is itself - the final text - susceptible of
study as a system of meaningful and artistic wholes.
We should note finally that a majority of the papers
contained in this volume originated in the Rhetorical Criticism
Section of the (American) Society of Biblical Literature, and
represent the continuing work of that group.
David J.A. Clines
David M. Gunn
Alan 3. Hauser
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A METHODOLOGICAL SETTING FOR RHETORICAL CRITICISM
Martin Kessler
Trinity Lutheran Church
Danville, Pennsylvania 17821
USA
Discussions dealing with biblical methods of interpretation
have become a veritable confusion of tongues. Not only is the
scholar confronted by a host of different labels (such as literary
criticism, form criticism, traditio-historical criticism, structural-
ism, redaction criticism, rhetorical criticism, text-criticism,
not to speak of the perhaps equally important interdisciplinary
approaches) but the precise definition of each of these is a
matter of much controversy, partly because some of the
above-mentioned methods necessarily overlap in part.
In this situation, one cannot help but experience a kind of
sympathy with a statement by a grand old literatus of another
day, Sir Walter Scott:
As to the herd of critics, it is impossible for me to pay
much attention to them, for, as they do not understand
what I call poetry, we talk in a foreign language to each
other. Indeed, many of these gentlemen appear to me to
be a sort of tinkers, who, unable to make pots and pans,
set up for menders of them, and, God knows, often make
two holes in patching one.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the scope of
rhetorical criticism and to propose a setting within the
methodological spectrum.
I
The basic problem with rhetorical criticism is that English
literary critics are by no means agreed as to what that
well-worn term "rhetoric" signifies or ought to signify. In the
light of this it can hardly be deemed surprising if biblical critics
wonder. Unfortunately, rhetoric has since classical times been
looked upon as an instrument of dubious morality, as bombast,
1
Description:Biblical authors were artists of language who created their meaning through their verbal artistry, their rhetoric. These twelve essays see meaning as ultimately inseparable from art and seek to understand the biblical literature with sensitivity to the writer's craft. Contents: David Clines, The Arg
