Hearing Revelation 1–3: Listening with Greek Rhetoric and Culture by Jerome H. Neyrey, S.J (review)

In this latest essay Jerome Neyrey trains his well-honed sociorhetorical eye on the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation. The agenda of the book is to reorient scholarly approaches to Revelation, dislodging the obsession with literary excavations typically found in the technical commentaries and commending instead an approach that reflects the rhetorical experience of an ancient audience, most specifically the way it establishes Jesus’s ethos for the communities it addresses, with careful attention to matters of honor and shame.

Part 1 opens with an introductory chapter outlining the twenty-one theses N. is keen to advance, followed by a chapter that urges a change in perspective, from reading Revelation as a text, to hearing Revelation as an oration or rhetorical communication. Part 2 expands on these observations, arguing in chaps. 3 and 4 that, although Revelation 1 displays epistolary elements, it is better treated as an exordium, the beginning of a rhetorical work intended to outline the ethos of the sender of the communication. Neyrey argues vigorously that, while conventional scholarship focuses on John as the sender, a rhetorical analysis rather highlights the importance of Jesus as the Proximate Sender (the Ultimate Sender being God).

Part 3 (chaps. 5 and 6) makes the case that Revelation 1 presents Jesus as a trustworthy rhetorical agent (by Aristotle’s canons; Rhet. 2.1.5), who knows what he is talking about (phronēsis), is virtuous (aretē), and exhibits goodwill toward the audience (eunoia). Jesus’s trustworthiness is accomplished both directly in 1:1–11 with the presentation of Jesus as the recipient of the revelation and the notice of his honorable deeds, and indirectly in 1:12–20 with an ekphrasis, a vivid description, of the Sender himself. The ekphrasis, N. contends, utilizes aspects of Daniel 7 and 10 but also resonates with Greco-Roman anatomical descriptions meant to establish honorability. Elements of this description are picked up in the letters to the seven churches, binding the honorable ethos of Jesus to the content of the letters.

If to this point N. has sought to expand the capacity of biblical scholars actually to hear Revelation, in part 4 he attunes the hearing of Revelation more narrowly to matters of honor and shame. In chap. 7, he briefly sketches the honorific agonistics of ancient Greek and Roman society: even in rhetoric there was a constant struggle for reputation, for honor. N. uses Libanius and a couple of ancient examples in chap. 8 to flesh out the oft-invoked epistolary categories, letters of praise and blame. Part 5, then, comprises a set of analyses (chaps. 9–15) of the dynamics of honor, of praise and blame, in each of the letters of Revelation 2–3. In the conclusion, N. reviews the elements of the argument and offers a few modest remarks on what this sort of analysis of Revelation 1–3 might say about studying the rest of the book—principally, that it ought to engage with similar insights from Hellenistic rhetoric.

The claims of the book ought to be taken seriously by any scholar working with Revelation. N. is undoubtedly correct that hearing Revelation with an ear for ancient rhetoric is a fruitful procedure. Still, my description of this book as an essay was deliberate: the elements of the argument are often schematic and lightly grounded. Moreover, N. is not conversant with current scholarship that would have aided his argument. This is especially true, as an example, in the case of ekphrasis. N. shows the right instinct in labeling Rev 1:12–20 as an ekphrasis, but his discussion is vague (pp. 67–69). He appears to be unaware of the considerable body of work on ancient ekphrasis that would have given this recognition some real heft (see Robyn J. Whitaker, Ekphrasis, Vision, and Persuasion in the Book of Revelation [WUNT 2/410; Tübingen...