Abstract

Reviews C. Clifton Black and Duane F, Watson, eds., Words well spoken: George Kennedy s Rhetoric of the New Testament (Studies in Rhetoric and Re­ ligion 8). Texas: Baylor University Press, 2008. xiii +253 pp. ISBN 1602580642 George Kennedy's importance to New Testament rhetorical criticism is that of groundbreaker, particularly for rhetorical scholars who are not Biblical scholars. Within the community of Biblical scholars, Kennedy's work introduced methods based upon classical rhetorical models that have been adapted, criticized, and sometimes replaced with alternatives. Duane Watson and Clifton Black's introductory essay provides a lucid guide to the range of rhetorica or the essays and are addressed in different ways by individual authors. An overarching recent debate has been the question of whether New Testament authors, particularly Paul, "knew" or "studied" rhetoric. A related issue has been the problem of identifying rhetorical and literary genres that make an appearance in the Christian scriptures, and related proposals that these categories be dispensed with entirely. To its credit, this collection presents the annoying alongside the enriching episodes in the debates. Following excellent essays on the history of Biblical rhetorical studies by Margaret Zulick and Thomas Olbricht, Duane Watson's "The Influence of George Kennedy on Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament" explains past and present debates about New Testament epistolary rhetoric and narrative genres. Kennedy was among the first, he notes, to define and explore the difference between "the rhetoric of the historical Jesus and the rhetoric of Jesus as preserved in the Jesus tradition and the gospels." Watson characterizes a more recent formulation of this distinction developed by Gregory Bloomquist: "While historical Jesus research may give us greater critical certainty regarding the words and deeds of the historical Jesus, these words and deeds have to be understood as the picture that the historical Jesus wanted to present. They are a picture of the rhetorical Jesus but not of the historical Jesus" (p. 48). Watson also surveys the debates concerning Paul's rhetorical education that were provoked by Kennedy's New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism. To accept that there is no hard evidence that Paul or other authors of the Christian scriptures were educated in rhetorical schools introduces three Rhetorica, Vol. XXIX, Issue 2, pp. 195-231, ISSN 0734-8584, electronic ISSN 15338541 . ©2011 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights re­ served. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintlnfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/RH.2011.29.2.195. 196 RHETORICA questions at the very least that bear not only upon Biblical studies but on classical and later rhetorical studies as well. First, what counts as evidence? Second, and related to the question of evidence, what is an author? Third, what does "educated" mean? Apart from Plato's representations, we have no evidence of Socrates' words; we must judge them through the lens of Plato's art. And what kind of evidence is the evidence of an artisan? Among New Testament authors, the question of rhetorical education comes up most often regarding Paul because his authorship is least questioned among the Christian scriptures. There seems to have been a person Paul and all the evidence we have suggests that he wrote his own letters. Or rather, according to the customs of the time, he dictated them, as the letters themselves state. Just as an authenticating narrative often appears at the beginning of Plato's dialogues, the scribe who wrote the letter is named in many of Paul's epistles. Words Well Spoken illuminates both the good news and the bad news among the answers to these questions of evidence, authorship, and rhetorical education. Clifton Black's essay on Kennedy's readings of the gospels provides a lucid survey of the major objections to Kennedy's work, particularly those of literary theorists and literary historians. According to these critics, Kennedy seems to want to reduce narrative gospels and speeches alike to, "logos, or logical argument, whereas the gospels tend more obviously towards ethos, the power of Jesus' authority" (p. 71). Essays by Blake Shipp, on...