The Performative Dimensions Of Rhetorical Questions In The Hebrew Bible

This book sets out to describe the multi-dimensional nature and function of rhetorical questions in the Old Testament. Biblical scholars have previously analyzed the use of rhetorical questions in both Testaments, but consistently describe their function in persuasive terms. While this understanding is appropriate in a number of instances, many rhetorical questions do not operate this way, and Jim W. Adams focuses in particular on rhetoric expressing the self-involvement of both the speaker and hearer. Among linguistic philosophers, speech act theory has illuminated the fact that uttering a sentence does not merely convey information; it may also involve the performing of an action. The concept of communicative action provides additional tools to the exegetical process as it points the interpreter beyond the assumption that the use of language is merely for descriptive purposes. Language can also have performative and self-involving dimensions. In relation to speech act theory, linguistic specialists continue to research the nature of rhetorical questions.

Rhetoric is intimately related to interaction and cognition. This book explores the cognitive underpinnings of rhetoric by presenting a case study of the rhetorical use of interactional structures, namely expository questions and rhetorical questions, in the classical Chinese tradition. Such questions are generally meant to evoke silent answers in the addressee’s mind, thereby involving a fictive type of interaction. The book analyzes fictive questions as intersubjective mixed viewpoint constructions, involving a viewpoint blend of the perspectives of the writer, the assumed prospective readers, and possibly also that of the discourse characters. The analysis further shows that in addition to attention, other late developing human capacities such as mental simulation and perspective taking also have a pivotal role to play in rhetoric, on the basis of which a simulation-based rhetorical model of persuasion is proposed to account for meaning construction in rhetorical practices. The book will influence our understanding of rhetorical practices outside the Western tradition but within the framework of cognitive semantics.

What is a question? Kenneth Craig poses this query in the introductory chapter of his innovative study on the function of interrogatives in the Hebrew Bible. He describes a question as “a special literary phenomenon. A question is an opening that seeks to be closed, and its rhetorical play derives from how it disposes its energies: how it invites opening, how it imposes closure” (p. 2). Carefully analyzing texts from Genesis, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, Haggai and Zechariah, Craig demonstrates the nuanced and multifaceted ways in which the Hebrew Bible’s interrogatives function to advance the Bible’s literary and ideological goals.

Analysis of text structures has been a dominant feature in Biblical studies for quite some time. More recently, scholars have focused on rhetorical strategies that have been employed in Biblical texts. In this volume, rhetorical as well as structural approaches to the Hebrew Bible have been brought together. It contains studies on a range of topics and on a good many texts and textual corpuses. Interpretation culminates in translation. The contributors to this volume have discussed the implications of their findings for Bible translators. Many of these translational implications have been put together in an epilogue. The volume thus not only intends to show the present state of our knowledge of literary and rhetorical techniques employed in the Bible; on these points it aims to be a selective guide to translators as well. The volume has been edited by Lenart de Regt, Jan de Waard (both of the Free University of Amsterdam), and Jan Fokkelman (Leiden University).

This dissertation presents the basic philosophical concepts of speech act theory in order to accurately implement them alongside other interpretive tools.

Craig provides fresh insight into the literary and rhetorical features of the many question forms that appear in the Hebrew Bible. Particularly attention is given to question clusters in Genesis, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, Haggai and Zechariah.

Completely retypeset including a new chapter on the history of rhetorical criticism in North America and a fully updated bibliography, Jack Lundbom’s landmark contribution to rhetorical criticism is here reissued by Eisenbrauns. This book serves a dual purpose as both an introduction to Jeremiah and an introduction (with illustration) to rhetorical criticism of the Hebrew Bible.

"In the studies collected in this volume, the author aims at highlighting salient literary modes which can be identified in the books of the Hebrew Bible. The application of such modes is illustrated by analysing the biblical writers' technique of underscoring the concurrency of events by splitting a narrative account, intersplicing it with a second account, and then resuming the first. Thus they steer clear of conveying the impression of a chronological succession of the events in question which would be unavoidable in a one-line sequential presentation." "A reinvestigation of the question whether biblical literature ever knew a 'national epic' culminates in the conclusion that ancient Israel rejected this Gattung because of its intrinsic affiliation with pagan cults. In its stead it developed the genre of the 'historiographical psalm'. In a group of studies, identifiable literary traits are brought to bear on the investigation of principles and problems relating to the 'comparative approach' in biblical exegesis. Initial methodological considerations are illustrated by their application to the analysis of aspects pertaining to the spheres of religion and myth, such as 'divine kingship', 'navel of the earth', and 'repha'im/rpu(i)m', and to social and political phenomena, such as 'nomadism', 'desert ideal', and 'democratic' institutions." "In a concluding analysis, the book of Esther, is shown to be woven around a literary core which narratively illuminates the applicability of proverbial wisdom teachings to the handling of actual life situations." "These essays will be of interest to scholars and students of the Bible, theology, sociology of religion, and comparative literature."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved