New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism (Studies in Religion)

Rating:
Summary: A must book for any NT scholar
Review: Few books have changed my thinking on any one particular subject as has this volume by Kennedy. I was trained in New Testament academics heavy on the German, largely Lutheran, "higher critical" method. While this methodology has strengths, it is based largely on the study of the written text as a literary document. That is all well and good, but Kennedy reminds us that these were most likely oral documents, transcriptions, if you will, of texts that were intended to be heard by the audiences to which they were written.

In other words, although the letters of the Apostle Paul were in fact written down and sent to the various congregations to which they are addressed, they were most likely experienced by that vast majority of people there as something that was read to them and not as something that they read. This oral presentation was based on a number of factors that we forget in the post-Guttenberg (printing press) era: The first century was an oral culture. Many people could not read, but even those who could expected to listen to texts as much as read them. Rhetoric, the art of oral persuasion, was held as the highest demonstration of a well-educated man (it was also a man's world).

Thus, to communicate within the framework of the Greco-Roman world, Kennedy maintains, Paul wrote rhetorically, with the intention that it would be listened to, like a sermon. Even the Gospels were written in this fashion, as long stories of Jesus to be heard in in one sitting among the communities of faith.

Studying the New Testament from a purely literary framework, therefore, without "listening" to the text as rhetoric, misses much of what the first century audiences would have know and appreciated. This book opened a whole new world for me, when I first read it over fifteen years ago as a well-trained student in the New Testament. Since then, I have deepened by appreciation for Kennedy's methodology and incorporated much of what I have learned in my own investigations.

If you a a studentof the New Testament, this book will invite to see a whole new way of thinking and, more importantly, of "hearing." Enjoy!