Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem
Clarifying Markan Priority
By (author) A. Damm
Paperback (Published)
(May 2013)
ISBN: 9789042926998
Price: $107.00
On back order
Only recently have studies of the synoptic problem begun to ground their assessments of literary dependence in ancient literary conventions. In an effort to appreciate more fully the evangelists’ modus operandi, this study examines their appeal to Greco-Roman rhetoric, the “science of speaking well”. Focusing on a rhetorical form called the chreia, the book examines rhetorical techniques and reasons for chreia adaptation, particularly reasons why authors changed this form, both in theory and in the practice of the Hellenistic authors Plutarch and Josephus.
Only recently have studies of the synoptic problem begun to ground their assessments of literary dependence in ancient literary conventions. In an effort to appreciate more fully the evangelists’ modus operandi, this study examines their appeal to Greco-Roman rhetoric, the “science of speaking well”. Focusing on a rhetorical form called the chreia, the book examines rhetorical techniques and reasons for chreia adaptation, particularly reasons why authors changed this form, both in theory and in the practice of the Hellenistic authors Plutarch and Josephus. With these reasons in mind, the study assesses literary dependence among the synoptic gospels, examining in detail a Triple Tradition and Double Tradition _chreia_. In the end, this work illustrates that hypotheses of Markan priority, like the Farrer Hypothesis and Two-Document Hypothesis, are more rhetorically plausible than hypotheses of Matthean priority. While Matthew and Luke’s adaptations of Mark tend to reflect the rhetorical reasoning that we should expect, Mark’s reasoning is often problematic, for Mark repeatedly works against the fundamental rhetorical principles of clarity and propriety.
- By (author) A. Damm
"One rarely stumbles upon a monograph in New Testament studies that begs to be written. Alex Damm just may have done that, and he has acquitted himself with honor. [...] At all events Damm has given us a learned, elegantly designed study that repays careful attention." --C. Clifton Black, Review of Biblical Literature
—
Other Titles in this Series
New Studies in the Synoptic Problem. Oxford Conference, April 2008
Essays in Honour of Christopher M. Tuckett
Volume 239
La structure ontologique-communionnelle de la personne
Aux sources théologiques et philosophiques du père Dumitru Staniloae
Volume 315
Kindness, Courage, and Integrity in Biblical Texts and in the Politics of Biblical Interpretation
Festschrift Reimund Bieringer
Volume 333
Theological Renewal and the Resurgence of Integrism
The René Draguet Case (1942) in Its Context
Volume 266
Le Récit: Thèmes bibliques et variations
Lectures et réécritures littéraires et artistiques. VIIIe Colloqueinternational du RRENAB: Metz, 26-29 Mai 2016
Volume 293
The Normativity of History
Theological Truth and Tradition in the Tension between Church History and Systematic Theology
Volume 282
L’Europe de l’exégèse au XVIe siècle
Interprétations de la parabole des ouvriers à la vigne (Matthieu20,1-16)
Volume 174
Similar Books
Athanasius of Alexandria, Epistula ad episcopos Aegypti et Libyae
Old Slavonic Version and English Translation
Volume 261
Cyril of Alexandria’s Christological Exegesis
Explorations of Partitive Exegesis in the Dialogues on the Trinity
Volume 70
Drunk the Potion, No Whit Charmed
The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Souls from Iamblichus to Damascius
Epiphanies of the Divine in the Septuagint and the New Testament
Fifth International Symposium of the Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti (CJHNT), 14-17 May 2015, Nottingham
Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land
Texts, Rituals, and Material Culture in Late Antique Palestine
From Joseph to Jesus
The Joseph Narrative as a Compositional Template from Old Greek Esther to the Gospel of Luke
Volume 125
Language and Power in the Roman Empire and Early India
Hierarchy, Ambiguity, and the Art of Reading the Signs in Cosmopolitan Cultures
Late Antique villae in the Balkans (3rd–7th c. AD): Current Research Questions and Perspectives
HAEMUS Companion to the Late Antique Balkans 1
Volume 4
Nurturing the Elite
Representations of Drinking, Eating, and Religious Vessels in Palmyrene Funerary Iconography
Volume 13
Paradise Lost in Transmission
The Return to Eden in the Apocalypse of Peter within Its Ethiopic and Early Christian Contexts
Punning in Odd or Elegant Constructions in Jeremiah
The Convergence of Linguistics, Rhetoric, and Textuality in the Hebrew Text of Jeremiah
