Corpus-Paul

["Jim Hester" <hester AT jasper.uor.edu>]

Boy do I like this "summer reading" idea, although if Jeff Peterson will 
permit it, I would like to suggest some things that might not necessarily
end up on a seminarian's or pastor's shelf.

Kathy Eden, Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition:  Chapters in the
Ancient Legacy and its Humanist Reception, Yale University Press, 1997

    It list it because she forced me to re-think the relationship of
    rhetoric to hermeneutic and argues that foundationalist
    understanding of argumentation misunderstands the classic rhetorical
    theorists -- there ain't a single truth that once described can be
    applied to a case free of contextual constraints (pace Plato!).  They
    were concerned with relating the parts of an argument
    to the whole and being pragmatic in their use of argumentation.  Thus
    understanding the arguments in Paul's letters becomes in part
    understanding the topography of his thought in a letter, not a
    description of the trajectory of his thought.

Kjell Arne Morland, The Rhetoric of Curse in Galatians, Scholars Press,
1995.

    I list it because it makes good use of semantic field analysis --
    a method not widely applied by pauline scholars -- and has the best
    exegesis of the anathema  and cursing formulas in Galatians that I
    know about.

Anders Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof:  Pauline Argumentation in 1
Corinthians, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1998.

    Quite simply the best rhetorical critical analysis of 1 Corinthians
    that I know.  Anders is able to use both ancient and modern theory to
    illustrate, among other things, that the argumentation in 1 Corinthians
    is coherent and audience centered.  That is, it is of a piece and
    written to an audience that knew the traditions and could, therefore,
    complete the argument Paul was making.

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Jim Hester
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hester AT uor.edu
"Let the games begin!"