Teaching rhetoric as part of NT Exegesis: Some helpful sources.

I have the privilege of teaching the graduate course "Introduction to New Testament Exegesis" every two years. This year, I've decided to shake up my normal way of teaching the class and add in a part on "New Testament Rhetoric," which I've begun dabbling in, for better of for worse!

Now, "rhetoric" itself is difficult to define, and scholars do not always agree amongst themselves. Carl Joachim Classen provides us a good starting point: "The deliberate, calculated use of language for the sake of communicating various kinds of information  ini the manner intended by the speaker (and the theory of such a use)" (Classen 2002, 45). In a nutshell, the study of rhetoric assumes that how an author says something is important in addition to what he or she says. 

In modern scholarly treatments on NT rhetoric, the focus is often on macro-rhetoric, or the overall structure of a letter and its persuasive power. This was popularized with Hans Dieter Betz's commentary on Galatians (1979), where he mapped the structure of the epistle according to formal Greco-Roman conventions. This, however, is highly controversial, as seen in a recent issue of Bulletin for Biblical Research which included a debate between Ben Witherington + Jason Myers vs. Stanley Porter on this topic (see below). Interestingly, out of all the New Testament epistles besides Galatians, 2 Peter is perhaps the most likely to be analyzed in terms of formal Greco-Roman rhetoric (ever since Duane F. Watson published his highly influential monograph in 1988).

I'm a bit more interested in "micro-rhetoric," which deals with the minutiae such as word-order, word-play, alliteration, etc., as well as how such items impact or illuminate the social relationship between the author and his or her audience. To a certain degree rhetorical studies and discourse analysis overlap here, though virtually nobody that I know of discusses how the two intersect (except, intriguingly, Alan Kam-Yau Chan's 2016 monograph on Melchizedek Passages in the Bible, though all too briefly). 

Anyways, here are some resources I've found especially helpful for studying the topic. All of them are reasonably priced (we're not talking inaccessible $100 monographs here). I should also mention that I will require my students to read my Doktorvater, David Alan Black's Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek, which has sections on both rhetoric and discourse analysis.

Helpful resources:

Black, C. Clifton. The Rhetoric of the Gospel: Theological Artistry in the Gospels and Acts, 2nd ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2013. C. Black's essay in the 2010 book Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation (2nd ed.) is also helpful.

Bulletin for Biblical Research 26 no. 4 (2016), with an initial article by Stanley E. Porter, a response by Jason A. Myers and Ben Witherington, and a rejoinder by Porter. For more on Porter vs. Witherington, see The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 55 no. 2 (2012) for a critique by Porter of Witherington's work in social-rhetorical criticism, and then JETS 58 no. 1 (2015) for Witherington's defense of analyzing NT texts in light of Greco-Roman rhetoric.

Classen, Carl Joachim. Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament. Boston: Brill Academic, 2002.

Kennedy, George A., trans. and ed. Invention and Method: Two Rhetorical Treatises from the Hermogenic Corpus. Writings from the Greco-Roman World. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005. This is one of the key ancient sources on rhetoric, and we can thank Dr. Kennedy for providing a modern translation (I've tried to translate parts of this on my own from TLG; I didn't fare too well!). The reader should also be aware that Aristotle's The Art of Rhetoric is a much earlier Greek source on the topic.

Kennedy, George A. New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.

Martin, Troy W., ed. Genealogies of New Testament Rhetorical Criticism. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014. Personally, I found this book very helpful in explaining the various views out there on rhetorical criticism in NT studies.

Muilenburg, James. "Form Criticism and beyond." Journal of Biblical Literature 88 no. 1 (1969): 1-18. Notwithstanding its somewhat misleading title, this article (originally a presidential address) is considered a landmark source that reignited interest in rhetorical criticism in biblical studies.

Watson, Duane Frederick. Invention, Arrangement, and Style: Rhetorical Criticism  of Jude and 2 Peter. SBLDS 104. Atlanta: Scholars, 1988.

Witherington, Ben, III. New Testament Rhetoric: An Introductory Guide to the Art of Persuasion in and of the New Testament. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2009.

Wuellner, Wilhelm. "Where Is Rhetorical Criticism Taking Us?" Catholic Biblical Quarterly 49 no. 3 (1987): 448-63. Wuellner helped facilitate a movement to pay more attention to the social dimensions of rhetoric.

Warning! Closing theological digression alert! As a final point, for those of us that  believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, we must take the issue of rhetoric a step farther: how the Holy Spirit says something is relevant, in addition to what He said in Scripture. More than just the choice of words, such things as structure,  word-order, word-play, etc., are all part of the inspiration of the original documents. Which is why any claim for perfection of a particular translation actually diminishes the doctrine of inerrancy: The Holy Spirit himself inspired the alliteration in Hebrews 1:1, alliteration which is lacking in the King James (and almost all English translations). This means that no matter how solid a translation might be on Hebrews 1:1 (and the KJV translators did an excellent job here), if it did not alliterate in the target language, it is not perfectly preserving all that the Holy Spirit inspired. End of theological digression!

What I'm requiring my "Intro to NT Exegesis" students to read

I'm grateful for the privilege of teaching the grad class "Intro to New Testament Exegesis" this year at Baptist College of Ministry and Baptist Theological Seminary (10 students in the class). At the seminary level, I'll be alternating between Biblical Hebrew and NT Greek Exegesis classes every other year. This semester is a bit of an experiment, but here's what I'm having them read:

First off, the following three textbooks: 
1. Richard J. Erickson's A Beginner's Guide to New Testament Exegesis, which I felt was overall the most accessible, user-friendly, and well-rounded (narrowly beating out Gordon Fee's classic work), despite the fact he gives credence to "Q" (sort of).
2. Secondly, to give them a basic intro to textual criticism, they need my own Doktorvater's book New Testament Textual Criticism: A Concise Guide.
3. Finally (and this is the more experimental choice), I'm requiring them to read the brand new Discourse Grammar of the New Testament by Steven R. Runge. I like what I see in this book so far, and discourse analysis is extremely important, but this might be a bit too much for them to chew for now. We'll see. I might replace it next time around with the fantastic Advances in the Study of Greek by Constantine R. Campbell (though this book also is a bit heavy).

I'm focusing on a number of topics in this class, including background, lexical semantics, textual criticism, and the debate over the verb tenses.
1. For the verb tenses, I'm making them read Andrew Naselli's "A Brief Introduction to Verbal Aspect in the New Testament Greek" (Detroit Seminary Journal vol. 12), since it's a decent overview of the topic (though I suspect I'm less swayed by Porter's views than Naselli). In addition, I'm making them read both Frank Stagg's classic "The Abused Aorist" (JBL vol. 91) and Charles Smith's "Errant Aorist Interpreters" just to get the point across that they should not be basing a theological point on the Aorist tense! (the other tenses, maybe, but not the Aorist!)
2. For background studies, I have them read Stanley Porter's "Why the Laodiceans Received Lukewarm Water" (Tyndale Bulletin vol. 38). I stress repeatedly, in multiple classes, that a knowledge of the background of Laodicea (the problem with the water supply) helps avoid misunderstanding Jesus' point in Revelation 3. Of course, common sense helps a bit too: imagine you're living in Asia Minor, as a farmer, before the advent of the air conditioner. Why in the world would you think of "cold water" as a bad thing. Jesus' point is that, unlike refreshing cold water or therapeutic hot water, the Laodiceans, like their lukewarm water supply, are worthless and vomit-inducing. A failure to stop and think has caused many a pastor to preach this as if "cold" = "opposed to God" and "hot" = "on fire for God," with the odd theological result that somehow God prefers unbelievers dead-set against him to "lukewarm" believers. (I was delighted, however, to recently hear an excellent sermon by an evangelist that "gets it," referring specifically to the background of the city in his sermon; I believe this was the first sermon on this passage in 10+ years that I've heard that "got it right." Naturally the Holy Spirit can use even a relatively poor/lightweight sermon, provided it's not heretical, but I do believe He's grieved when we don't do our homework in our sermon prep!)
3. For lexical semantics, I have them read an excellent (and in-depth) article by Eckhard Schnabel on "The Meaning of Baptizein in Greek, Jewish, and Patristic Literature" in Filologia Neotestamentaria vol. 24. Schnabel, by giving us an extensive survey of the word in Greek literature, once for all puts to rest the idea that that baptizw is somehow a "technical" term that needs to be transliterated instead of translated.
4. Finally, I bring in some of my own textual biases and introduce them to the textual work of Maurice Robinson, specifically his "The Case for Byzantine Priority" in TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism vol. 6 and his "Rule 9, Isolated Variants, and the 'Test-Tube' Nature of the NA27/UBS4 Text" in Translating the New Testament: Text, Translation, Theology, eds. Stanley E. Porter and Mark J. Boda (Eerdmans, 2009).

There are, of course, quite a few more sources I would recommend for exegetical study, not least of which would be some helpful background resources such as the classic work by Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity and Burge, Cohick, and Green's The New Testament in Antiquity. In choosing a textbook for this class, I was actually very disappointed in how few good options there were. I felt I was limited pretty much to Erickson, Fee, Guthrie/Duvall (Biblical Greek Exegesis: A Graded Approach . . .), and Blomberg/Markley (A Handbook of New Testament Exegesis), and none of them felt "right," though I ended up going with Erickson. Hopefully there are some enterprising and budding scholars out there that would rise to the challenge! Specifically, I'm looking for something that focuses on block diagramming and the interplay of various clauses. Guthrie/Duvall deal with that, but in their own way, with what I consider a more "advanced" discourse-centered style of block-diagramming. That's all good and well, but I'm looking for a more "basic" system of block-diagramming.

Ultimately, for this class, the building blocks for New Testament Exegesis are (as I see it) a solid competency in Greek, a humble yet informed perspective on textual criticism, and understanding of words and their meanings (meaning is determined by the interplay of context and semantic range, not etymology), carefulness with the tenses, ability and desire to research the background of a text, a basic understanding of the flow of the discourse, and, most importantly, a love for the Word of God!

Anyways, a great class, with great students, and a great topic: the New Testament in Greek! More the Lord bless the teacher and the students!