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Chapter 9: Kennedy and the Reading of Paul: The Energy of Communication
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139 Chapter 9 Kennedy and the Reading of Paul The Energy of Communication James D. Hester The previous chapter by Frank Hughes assesses the impact of George Kennedy’s rhetorical approach upon Pauline studies in general. While the reader will be reminded of that survey in James Hester’s contribution, the latter moves the conversation several steps further. In this chapter Hester concentrates our attention on a particular letter of Paul that for decades has been a storm center in rhetorical research: the Epistle to the Galatians. Moreover, by tracing the development in Kennedy’s own thoughts across those decades, Hester shows us how the unfolding of Kennedy’s theory offers Paul’s interpreters fresh and specific insights into the exegesis of Galatians. In that process we are privileged to observe how a skillful Pauline commentator constructs an argument that is, in its own right, at once scholarly and rhetorical. The Early Kennedy: Method in Rhetorical Criticism I categorize Professor George Kennedy as primarily a social and intellectual historian. At least in his earlier writing, it is that perspective that tends to inform his conversation with the New Testament’s rhetorical critics. In the first chapter of New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism, he observes that, while scholars had picked up on the need for rhetorical analysis of New Testament texts, they had not developed a widely accepted methodology. From his perspective , much of what had been written up to that time bore closer resemblance to adaptations of either biblical form criticism or literary criticism than to rhetorical criticism as such.1 He wanted to correct that tendency by reminding us what rhetorical training was in the ancient world, how it functioned, how widely it was practiced in the educational system of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, and, within that context, how its artifacts ought to be analyzed. Black Watson Rhetoric final.indd 139 8/27/08 9:02:09 AM 140 James D. Hester Kennedy’s reminder of the extent and importance of rhetorical training is elaborated in the introduction to his translations of the progymnasmata . There he points out that, although the first full-fledged textbooks did not appear until the late first century C.E., earlier references to forms appearing in exercises are found in Aristotle. Cicero alludes to them in De inventione rhetorica; they appear also in Ad Herrenium .2 The textbooks themselves structure and formalize training in composition and rhetoric, and the educational system concentrated on those textbooks for several centuries.3 Because the system of rhetorical education was so widespread in the Hellenistic and Roman world, and because everyday life exposed so many to the rhetorical artifacts produced by that education, Kennedy argues that not only would one expect New Testament authors to have had some exposure to such things as narration, elaboration of chreiai, paraphrase, encomia , description, and personification, but also that their readers and hearers would have been acquainted with such techniques.4 It follows that rhetorical analysis of New Testament texts should include identification of argumentative tools and strategies common in first-century Greco-Roman society, as well as a description of their function. The methodological, or analytical, program suggested to New Testament rhetorical critics by Kennedy is made up of the following elements: 1. Determining the rhetorical unit; 2. Defining the rhetorical situation; 3. Identifying the rhetorical problem, or stasis, and the species of rhetoric employed; 4. Analyzing the text’s invention, style, and arrangement; 5. Evaluating the effectiveness of the rhetorical unit in meeting its exigence.5 While this program includes concepts defined in modern rhetorical theory—specifically the “rhetorical unit,” the “rhetorical situation,” and the “exigence,” about which more will be said below—its goal seems to be the description and evaluation of the rhetorical abilities of a New Testament author as judged by the use of classical rhetorical models found in first-century imperial Rome. Rhetorical analysis is, therefore, largely an exercise in historical, style, and form criticism. Its underlying theory is found in the teaching of ancient rhetors. Black Watson Rhetoric final.indd 140 8/27/08 9:02:09 AM [3.236.240.48] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 13:40 GMT) Kennedy and the reading of Paul 141 Among the many important points Kennedy makes about aspects of rhetorical method, there are three I want to highlight: (1) the identification of a rhetorical unit, (2) the concept of the rhetorical situation, and (3) the exigence.6 1. A rhetorical unit is that segment of...