Rhetoric for Sundays

In a previous post on rhetoric for Sundays I talked about how churches label the different parts of the church.  Specifically, I think how churches label the parts of the church communicates a great deal to the congregation. 

Today, because our church was so full I was asked to sit in the Narthex of the church in order to make room for visitors.  It made me think of something that has always puzzled me, and that is why my church calls the foyer the Narthex.

The Narthex was a common element of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church architecture.  A Narthex is the traditional name for the entrance to a church that is not considered part of the church itself.  It was where those who were not considered worthy (such as catechumens, but not full members) were allowed to come to hear the service, while not entering (and perhaps defiling) the sacred space of the church proper.  As time went on, this distinction between full members and non-members was lost, but the Narthex remained. 

So, what does my church communicate by their labeling of the church entrance hall as a Narthex?  They are communicating through uncommon language the sense that the church is a sacred space.  They are communicating that in entering the church, one is stepping on hallowed ground.  Not because the church itself (i.e., the building) is holy in its own right, but rather, that this is the place that God comes to meet his people.  The use of this word also tells the congregation that it is trying to reclaim church traditions rather than throw them aside in an attempt to be "inviting." Is the naming of the church foyer a Narthex a wise choice?  I am not sure, but I can tell you it was deliberate and clearly communicates a great deal about the message and stance of the church.

The Friday Figure

This week the Friday Figure comes from Matthew's Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 6:3 reads:

"But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,"

This verse displays the figure (or rather trope) synechdoche.  The Rhetorica ad Herennium defines synechdoche as the trope in which "the whole is known from the part, or the part from the whole." In the case of Matthew's verse, the person is represented by the right and left hand.  This is an interesting use of the trope because the whole person is denoted by both hands, but separately and unknown to each other. 

Silva Rhetoricae

I would like to point you to a fantastic website for those interested in rhetoric.  It is the site Silva Rhetoricae (Forest of Rhetoric) administered by Gideon Burton out of BYU.

 

The site is designed around the metaphor of a forest.  Burton wants to highlight both the macro and the micro of the rhetorical discipline.  On the left hand side is a column named "trees" in which he has links to his pages on the big categories in rhetoric.  Included are such headings as the "branches of oratory" the persuasive appeals in oratory, a timeline of rhetoric, rhetorical pedagogy.  Clicking on a link brings up the related article in the center column of the site.  On the right hand side Burton has a column with the title "flowers." Here he looks at the micro of the rhetorical world with a list of links to the rhetorical figures of speech in alphabetical order.

Burtons articles are concise and well written.  The only lack of the site is that sometimes an article is missing citations of the ancient sources.  This is frustrating for me as I often use his site to find specific locations of rhetorical terms in the ancient literature and sometimes he has the citation and sometimes he does not. 

Overall, this is a great site for easy navigation of the rhetorical discipline.

Rhetoric in the News

What is rhetoric?

I have a general conception of what the average person thinks about rhetoric, but just to test this idea, I thought I would try and find a way to gauge just what the public thinks.  In our wonderful technological age, one way to do this is to do a google search.  At least it will demonstrate the use of rhetoric in digital print.

A simple google search on the term rhetoric brings up 22,800,000 hits.  Wikipedia's definition is first on the list, followed by Dictionary.com and Webster's dictionary.  Their are a couple of sites dedicated to rhetoric, and a couple of links to Aristotle's Ars Rhetorica. 

I pulled up the three dictionary entries, and only one surprised me.  Wikipedia gave a definition grounded in Aristotle, as did Webster, but the Dictionary.com entry was shocking to me, not as a commonly held view, but as a dictionary definition.  Dictionary.com's definition is as follows:

"(in writing or speech) the undue use of exaggeration or display; bombast."

That was the first definition.  There are subsequent definitions that are more in line with the classical formulation, but that one was first.  Interestingly, I think that Dictionary.com at least has the pulse of the public view of rhetoric.  But how do we test this?  Again to the rescue, google news search.  This will show how the word is actually being used by journalists.

Look that the following headlines:

Japan sharpens rhetoric but yen hits 15-year high

Raise in rhetoric but not in pay by Plymouth Council

My turn: Large gap between Miller's promises, rhetoric

Rhetoric on immigration does nothing but scare

Columnist: Republican rhetoric ignores need for job rescue bill 

These are just on the first page.  In every one of these headlines, rhetoric is used in a negative way.  In essence, rhetoric stands in for the term "lies." I think these headlines get very much at the heart of what most people think of when they think of rhetoric.  They think that rhetoric is a way of telling lies in a way that doesn't sound so bad.  It is the "dressing up" of lies, or at least distortions of truth and making them sound good.  

 

In an interesting side note, a google image search has this image on the first page.  It reinforces the view demonstrated by the headlines, namely that rhetoric is just a pile of $#!+.

 So, where does this conception of rhetoric come from? It is not entirely without basis.  Rhetoric can be used, and too often is used, to "dress up" lies.  Yet, is this its only use?  If so, I would understand an outright condemnation of rhetoric, as some see 1 Cor. 2: 1-5 (see last post).  Yet, I think that rhetoric can also be used to communicate truth.  I think the biblical writers used it in such a manner. 

 

 

 

Paul and Rhetoric

With the following words Paul talks about his own preaching and Christian proclamation: 

1Cor. 2:1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom.
1Cor. 2:2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
1Cor. 2:3 And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
1Cor. 2:4 My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
1Cor. 2:5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

 Some, including Corin Mihaila, on whose book I just completed a review for RBL, claim that these five verses are Paul's condemnation and rejection of rhetoric, specifically in Christian preaching.  I will leave the specifics for the release of the review, but for now I will only say that Mihaila, who really takes his cue from Bruce Winter's book Philo and Paul among the Sophists, claims that the word "wisdom" (sophia) in this passage refers to "sophistic rhetoric."

Thus, when Paul claims that he did not come with "lofty words of sophia," or that the Corinthians' faith should not rest on "human sophia," he is talking specifically about sophistic rhetoric. 

For a background on sophistic rhetoric, or more specifically, the "Second Sophistic" movement, one should look at Winter's book.  He discusses not only the specific use of rhetoric by sophists in the second sophistic movement, he notes that the movement was already present in the first century, counter to some mainstream scholarship.  The existence of the second sophistic in the first century has great implications for NT scholarship.  It raises the level of rhetorical awareness present in the Greco-Roman world at the time of the writing of NT documents.

Another aspect of the second sophistic which Winter points out, has little to do with rhetoric, but rather with social practice.  Sophistic rhetors paraded around like present day movie stars.  They acquired an entourage of admirers as they traveled from city to city giving wonderful panegyrics to each city they visited.  The size and social status of their entourage depended upon their rhetorical skill.  The entourage members could gain status through their association with a gifted orator.

The question to be asked is whether Paul in I Cor. 2:1-5 is condemning all rhetoric, or rather, its specific application by the sophists and the social model that the sophists represented?  I think, given Paul's rhetorically gifted writing style, that the latter is more appropriate, but this question will receive greater attention as this blog rolls along.

Rhetoric for Sundays

This morning in church, our pastor highlighted some of the beautiful rhetoric of the gospel.  Much of the rhetoric of Jesus, especially in the gospel of Luke, has to do with paradox and antithesis.  Jesus exalts the poor and lowly and brings down the lofty and proud. 

To illustrate this powerful message, we examined the story of the bent woman in Luke 13.  With some wonderful rhetoric of his own, our pastor preached on this passage.  He referred to the fact that our world, as this woman,  is bent and twisted.  Yet, it was only with the bending of rules and regulations that Jesus was able to make the bent woman straight again.  There is a wonderful linguistic antithesis between bent and straight, and his bringing in the "bending" Sabbath rules illustrates this message all the more profoundly. 

This is also the use of another figure, that of antanaclasis, or the using the same word in close proximity but in different ways.  It is used quite literally with regard to the woman, she is bent and hunched over, yet it is used figuratively or metaphorically with the use of "bending" the rules.

Are there rules or regulations in our life that keep the world bent where God might have us straighten it?

The Friday Figure

This week's Friday figure comes from the book of Hebrews.

Hebrews 1-4 is one sentence in the Greek and displays several figures.  Here is the verse:

"Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs." (NRSV)

The first figure to notice here is the period.  A periodic sentence is a close-packed uninterrupted sentence that communicates a complete thought.  In this case, this long sentence (which the NRSV splits into three) communicates the superiority of God's son.  Also, it is periodic in its use of other figures.

The sentence begins with a comparison (syncrisis) in the form of an antithesis.  The comparison is between the revelation of the son in "these last days" to the revelation "of old" by the prophets.  The sentence ends with a comparison of the son to the angels, this time giving a value statement both that the son is greater and that the name he has inherited is more excellent.

Sandwiched in between these two comparisons is the figure notatio or character delineation, which the Rhetorica ad Herennium defines as "describing a persons character by the definite signs which, like distinctive marks, are attributes of that character."  The Greek actually uses the term Character (χαρακτὴρ), which the NRSV translates as "imprint."

Finally, in an ornamental flourish, the sentence begins with a nice alliteration that can only be recognized in the Greek:

Πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως πάλαι

Polumeros kai polutropos palai

This is indeed an impressive and rhetorical beginning to the book of Hebrews.