The Historical Approach to New Testament Rhetorical Criticism: A Rhetorical Analysis of 1 Corinthians 15

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See comments in file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment. I responded to each of your comments using the comments feature in Adobe. Thank you so much for your helpful feedback.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I do not find a clear thesis from this article for which the author seeks to argue.  If the purpose is to demonstrate that rhetorical/socio-rhetorical criticism is a helpful and indispensable tool for interpreting the NT, it is already a common consensus or approach in interpreting 1 Corinthians and other Pauline letters.  It is not a thesis that generalises some novel understanding of 1 Corinthians 15 or NT.

     Besides the works cited by the author, some other representative works, not in the Bibliography interpreted 1 Corinthians from historical/diachronic rhetorical criticism.  The main points in this introductory article can also be found here:

Duane F. Watson (1989), “1 Corinithians 10:23—1:1 in the Light of Greco-Roman Rhetoric: The Role of Rhetorical Questions” https://doi.org/10.2307/3267299

C. Mihaila (2009), The Paul-Apollos Relationship and Paul's Stance toward Greco-Roman Rhetoric (LNTS 402)

 

Some scholars develop further from rhetorical criticism of 1 Corinthians, such as

John Heil Paul (2005), The Rhetorical Role of Scripture in 1 Corinthians

 

The rhetorical analysis of 1 Corinthians and 1 Cor 15 in pp. 14 and 15 is a summary or systematic treatment of previous scholarship, strikingly similar but not exactly identical to Raymond F. Collins (1998) commentary on First Corinthians in the Sacred Pagina series.  

 

In all, I find this article suitable for MDPI’s Encyclopedia, for it is like an article in a Dictionary of NT / Introduction to the NT / Encyclopedia article for beginners to understand how to read NT from rhetorical criticism on which there are already numerous scholars working.

 

 

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. I’m going to address each one in order.

As for the thesis issue, that has more to do with the task that my editor set for this special issue of the journal (Hermeneutics: Contextual Approaches to Biblical Interpretation). My editor did not want a traditional research article that argues a new thesis. Instead, our task was to explain succinctly a method of biblical interpretation (in my case, rhetorical criticism) and then provide and example of it applied to a biblical text, and that’s just what I have done in this article. As you say in your final paragraph, it would make for a good encyclopedia, dictionary, or introductory article instead of a research article. I think your observation demonstrates that I accomplished what my editor asked me to do.

Moreover, I state this on p. 2: “Thus, the purpose of this article will be to provide a rigorous step-by-step process for interpreting and analyzing the rhetoric of the NT from the historical, Greco-Roman standpoint.” That, in a way, is my thesis. Nothing new, but that was not the goal of this special issue of the journal.

As for the scholarly treatments of 1 Cor 15 which you mentioned from Watson, Mihaila, Heil, and Collins, again it was not my goal to provide a full scholarly review of rhetorical interpreters. Instead, it was to provide my own rhetorical interpretation of 1 Cor 15 as an example of the method. Of course, I want it to be informed by scholarship and build on the works of others, but the larger purpose was to provide an example of the historical method of rhetorical criticism using the ancient rhetorical theory and practice (the primary sources) more so than recounting what every rhetorical scholar said about it (and I think I did that). A large part of the historical method is being familiar with the primary sources, so that’s why I have more citations of the Greco-Roman sources than scholarly citations.

Yet I did cite much scholarly research on the historical approach to the method. Nevertheless, I decided to add a footnote to acknowledge these other scholarly works that you have mentioned as a further resource for readers to find more examples of the method.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for the opportunity to review "The Historical Approach to New Testament Rhetorical Criticism: A Rhetorical Analysis of 1 Corinthians 15." I think it is an important topic as the Historical approach to Rhetorical Criticism does not seem to be as common as it used to be and, in my opinion, should be. So, a huge thank you to the author for this contribution!

I also think this article contributes to the larger interpretation of the NT by highlighting the use of insinuatio, that is, the technique of slowly and perhaps indirectly introducing an especially difficult topic. The identification of this technique at play in 1 Cor generally and 1 Cor 15 specifically is helpful  and sheds light on Paul's goals and the severity of the Corinthians' objections. The essay excites my interest to read the author's dissertation!

So, if I could summarize, I would say the author's goals are twofold, one, to introduce the historical approach of rhetorical criticism and, two, to illustrate it with 1 Cor 15, with special attention to the insinuato.

While I suspect the article will be published with only minor changes (which is fine with me), I hope the author will consider my critique, detailed in the attachment, but summarized here:

(1) I do not find labeling parts of a speech or figures of speech helpful unless it is shown how such a label helps us better understand the text. What difference does it make if we label one section a probatio or exordium? I think our time is better spent digging into the details of the text and its argument within the literary culture of the time. On this point, see Margaret Mitchell's article in the Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies (2006), as she says, rhetorical criticism is "not just a procedure but an awareness about ancient literary culture that one brings to the reading of any individual piece. It is an attempt to meet ancient paideia with modern paideia" (623).

(2) I would have loved to hear more about insinuatio in 1 Cor--the evidence that it is being used from 1 Cor, the ancient evidence from handbooks how teachers taught such a technique, and other speeches/literary works that used it and how it was similar and different in those works. This would be a more helpful illustration of how the historical approach to rhetorical criticism sheds light on a text.

You can see the rest of my comments, some minor, some major, in the attached document. 

Overall, my goal is to be helpful and encouraging. I believe the essay and its goals are worthy and important for this time and place!

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing my article. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf