Corpus-Paul

["Mark Matson" <mmatson AT aswest.aas.duke.edu>]

Jim Hester wrote: 

> There is an explanation to this phenomenon provided by Perelmannian
> rhetorical theory.  Perelmann speaks of the "argumentative situation",  as
> distinct from what Bitzer calls the "rhetorical situation." This is the
> situation created by the argument itself, or at least the situation that the
> speaker hopes to create, given the fact that as a neo-Aristotlean Perelmann
> believes the argument is completed in and by the audience.  This situation
> is not only contextual but fluid.  In the circumstance Paul usually faced,
> he would have had to try to imagine the impact of his argument on his
> audience and calculate their level of persuasion.  It would seem that we
> might be able to identify points where he believed that the audience might
> hold a new understanding of the rhetorical situation and thereby be ready to
> be moved to a new argumentative situation.  This change on Paul's part might
> be a kind of "bolt from the blue"!  In my essay for the Kennedy festschrift,
> "Placing the Blame:  The Presence of Epideictic in Gal 1 and 2," I try to
> show that there is a shift in the argumentative situation from the end of
> the chreia elaboration in 2:14-21 to the opening of Chapter 3:  "I do not
> nullify the grace of God...You stupid Galatians..."  The blame has been
> shifted from Paul to the Galatians by the argument in Chapters 1 and 2!

I can agree with this perspective.  Of course the argumentative 
needs can change within the course of an argument -- there are stages 
of development.  And a dramatic turn can be effective.  But there 
should be some reasonable connection.

But what I don't see is the occasion for a dramatic shift based on 
Paul's argumentation.  Paul begins 2 Corinthians being conciliatory, 
gentle, encouraging -- all from a presumption of strong ethos.  He is 
in a position of authority, of fatherly concern, for the Corinthian 
church.  Any past disagreements are to be put behind them, to focus 
on ways that they can deal constructively with the Paul and the other 
churches.  Notice how chapters 8 and 9 assume a strong degree of 
trust and confidence in Paul.  Paul argues from the confidence that 
the Corinthian church will hear him and perhaps respond. 

But chapter 10 moves to a new argument (a new argumentative situation 
as you put it).  But where is the foundation for this rather dramatic 
shift?  What has occasioned it?  I find nothing in the text leading 
up to this that would prepare us for this shift in ethos.  Does he 
now all of a sudden realize (based on what evidence?) that the 
audience harbored ill feelings toward him, and that he needed to 
defend himself?  

> 
> In a argument like the one in 2 Cor it is probably better to assume that the
> audience may have had one perspective of the speaker's ethos, a perspective
> that the speaker had to change, or upon which the speaker had to elaborate.
> The judgment that there appears to be a radical change in ethos is,
> therefore, the audience's judgment, the point that the speaker was trying to
> make in order to make his argument and bring them (us?) to the point of
> conviction!

I agree with your general statement about a speaker needing to 
change a misperception of the speaker's ethos as part of the 
argumentative strategy. But I don't see this working in this 
instance.  If Paul thought the audience harbored ill feelings toward 
him, then would have been ineffective in arguing from a perspective 
of positive ethos (chapters 1-9) until he has first neutralized or 
overcome the negative feelings.  He does this in chapters 10-13.   
How could he be effective in the former arguments until the 
establishment of positive ethos?

Mark Matson
 
Mark A. Matson, Ph.D.
Asst. Director, Sanford Institute of Public Policy
Adjunct Professor of New Testament
Duke University
Durham, NC  27713
(919) 613-7310