This programmatic socio-rhetorical investigation approaches the Epistle of James as an instance of written deliberative rhetoric, and it seeks to ascertain the social texture of James 2.5, a rhetorical performance of language that in other contexts is explicitly attributed to Jesus. Utilizing the conventions of Greco-Roman rhetoric, Dr Wachob successively probes the inner texture, the intertexture, the social and cultural texture, and the ideological implications of the rhetoric in James 2.1-13. He analyses James' activation of antecedent texts in the LXX, common conceptions and topics in the broader culture, and also sayings in the Jesus tradition. He concludes that James emanates from the same milieu as the pre-Matthean Sermon on the Mount and shows James 2.5 to be an artful performance of the principal beatitude in that early epitome of Jesus' teachings.
Author(s): Wesley Hiram Wachob
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 266
Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series-title......Page 5
Title......Page 7
Copyright......Page 8
CONTENTS......Page 9
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 11
SOURCES AND ABBREVIATIONS......Page 13
1 INTRODUCTION......Page 17
The Epistle of James and rhetoric......Page 18
The overlap between letters and rhetoric......Page 24
James as rhetorical discourse......Page 27
James' allusions to sayings of Jesus and rhetorical theory......Page 33
James' rhetorical discourse and its social function......Page 36
The present investigation......Page 38
The Epistle of James as a problem......Page 41
James as a historical problem......Page 42
James as a theological problem......Page 46
James as a literary problem......Page 48
Martin Dibelius and the present situation in Jamesian research......Page 52
Paraenesis and kerygma: a theological problem......Page 53
Paraenesis and literature: a literary problem......Page 56
Paraenesis: a literary genre or mode of persuasion?: a historical problem......Page 57
The return to rhetoric......Page 68
Introduction......Page 75
The pattern of argumentation......Page 80
The text......Page 87
The analysis......Page 89
The analysis......Page 95
The text......Page 106
The analysis......Page 107
The text......Page 114
The analysis......Page 115
The text......Page 120
The analysis......Page 121
Conclusions......Page 127
Introduction......Page 130
An intertextual analysis of James 2.1–13......Page 132
Conclusions......Page 167
Introduction......Page 170
The rhetorical situation......Page 172
The rhetorical exigence......Page 173
The rhetorical audience......Page 176
Excursus. Christian Jews in the dispersion......Page 179
The rhetorical constraints......Page 186
The question and stasis of the unit, and its species of rhetoric......Page 187
The question and stasis of the unit......Page 188
The species of rhetoric in the unit......Page 191
The social and cultural rhetoric of the unit......Page 193
The cultural scripts of honor, limited good, and patron–client relations......Page 194
The social nature of the rhetoric in the unit......Page 201
The cultural nature of the rhetoric in the unit......Page 205
6 CONCLUSION......Page 210
BIBLIOGRAPHY......Page 218
Ancient authors......Page 250
Modern Authors......Page 251
Old Testament and Apocrypha......Page 256
New Testament......Page 257
INDEX OF SUBJECTS......Page 262
