Abstract
Reviews 427 Davida H. Charney, Persuading God: Rhetorical Studies of First-Person Psalms. Hebrew Bible Monographs 73; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2017. xii + 156 pp. ISBN: 9781909697805. The tension within rhetorical criticism of the Bible, whether the Hebrew Bible or New Testament in Greek, is how to think of and hence to utilize the Greek and Latin rhetorical traditions. That is, do they consti tute the metalanguage for rhetorical criticism or are they exemplified instan ces of how the ancients approached rhetoric? In this volume, Charney for the most part attempts to find a middle ground, what she calls "compara tive rhetoric" (p. 12). By this she means that, even though she draws heavily upon ancient rhetoric, she does not believe that the ancient Hebrews knew or drew upon Greco-Roman rhetoric. Nevertheless, many of the categories of ancient rhetoric—such as the genres and some of the stylistic techniques, such as stasis theory—are central to the argument that she makes, while she also draws on some of the techniques of the New Rhetoric, such as "amplitude" (Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca) or "amplification" (Burke) and "association" or "identification." She utilizes these helpful categories, pla ced in the service of a close reading of selected first-person psalms, to offer rhetorical explications of their persuasive power. Charney is not concerned with the many historical factors that tend to mire much psalm scholarship, but she posits a rhetorical situation appropriate to each psalm and is atten tive to each text's rhetorical features. The contents of this relatively short volume include, first, an introduc tion that lays out Chamey's view of the psalms as argumentative discourse within Israelite public life, her definition of rhetoric in relationship to literary analysis, and, most importantly, her definition of rhetoric that draws upon both ancient and contemporary theory—all in service of her reading of the psalms as instances of ancient rhetoric, attempts by the first-person speaker to persuade God through various authorial stances. The rest of the chapters comprise various examples of how rhetoric is exemplified by individual psalms. Chapter 1 concerns praise of God as a form of currency used to per suade God, what she labels a form of epideictic discourse. She here treats Psalms 71,16, 26, and 131. Chapter 2 focuses upon the few psalms addressed to the speaker's opponents, drawing upon notions of amplitude and amplifi cation to establish the focus of each psalm. The psalms here are 4, 62, and 82. Chapter 3 treats psalmic lament as a form of deliberative rhetoric, with an established psalmic form that functions as a "policy argument (pp. 56-58). Charney discusses the lament Psalms 54 and 13 in relation to their lack of amplification, proposing that the speaker was confident in his innocence before God. She usefully draws upon the conversational implicatures of Paul Grice especially regarding the maxim of quantity. In contrast to chapter 3, chapter 4 focuses on psalms in which the speaker argues, sometimes at length (amplitude), for his innocence and attempts to persuade God to act on his behalf, as in Psalms 4, 22, and 17. Chapter 5 concentrates upon psalms in which the speaker draws strong opposition between himself and his oppo nents as he seeks vindication from them based upon the fairness of God. 428 RHETORICA The psalms treated here are 7, 35, and 109. Chapter 6 encompasses the few psalms in which the speaker admits to his guilt, with treatment of Psalms 130, 38, and 51. Finally, chapter 7 discusses psalms in which the speaker is involved in persuading himself rather than simply expressing his opinion regarding God or his opponents. Treated here are Psalms 77 and 73. The vol ume concludes with a bibliography and helpful indexes, including one on rhetorical terms. There are a few problems with this volume that cannot be overlooked. These include Charney's sometimes appearing to rely too heavily upon the categories of the Greeks and the Romans. These might restrict her categories in some instances where modern interpretation has expanded the resources regarding language function. The categorization of lament as deliberative seems to be forced by her attempt to equate the ancient categories with the biblical...
- Journal
- Rhetorica
- Published
- 2019-09-01
- DOI
- 10.1353/rht.2019.0006
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