Hundie Jo [dot] Com

Something I have been wondering about recently is the use of judicial language in letters and our interpretation of said letters. Often antique rhetoric (art of persuasion) would employ the language of judicial proceedings to describe/persuade the recipient. In fact these authors were not saying their subject matter functioned as law courts, but the language of law courts was the form through which they made their argument.  [1]

Hank rightly warns us what might be at stake:

The judicial cannot be cast out or our justification before God is lost.

I like this quote from Hank. It encapsulates my worry about all of this as well. It tells us what is at stake. If we look at the judicial language primie facie, we arrive at certain views on justification before God. If we move towards a rhetorical functioning of this language, then we may have to rethink or at least readjust our thinking on things as foundational as justification. And that is a big deal. It is not reason to sweep this question under the rug and ignore it, but the very reason I want to look at it.

And all of this could be nothing, it is very possible that all of this is really meant to have a 1:1 correspondence.

Now, this is just some stuff off the top of my head and I’d need some examples for me to be taken seriously. I am just wondering about this over breakfast.

Does anyone know of good sources for Roman rhetorical strategies?  ESF’s commentary on the Apocalypse of John has a primer of the subject.  Since then, I have happened upon and requested the following books from Mobius.

1. R. Dean Anderson, Ancient rhetorical theory and Paul (Peeters Publishers, 1999).
2. Justin T. Gleeson, Rediscovering Rhetoric (Federation Press, 2008).
3. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Gerhard A. Krodel, Revelation (Fortress Press, 1991).
4. Donald Lemen Clark, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman education (Columbia University Press, 1957).

1. When I use the term “rhetoric,” I am not talking about the use of propaganda or something else that does not correspond to truth or fact. Instead, I am talking about rhetoric in the classical sense of the art of persuasion. Ancient judicial rhetoric was for the purpose of accusation / defense in contradistinction to deliberative rhetoric (persuasion-dissuasion) and epideictic rhetoric (praise and blame). It functioned like a law-court, moving the person to be convinced of very real truths. [↩]