Q. About the work de elocutione which as you say is falsely attributed to Demetrius, the recent scholarly work on that indicates that the work comes from the first century A.D. if not a bit later (see the monograph by Rhys Roberts). I mention this because I don’t think we have evidence for a handbook on writing various kinds of letters before the time of Paul.  In any case this development considerably post-dates the teaching of rhetoric and handbooks on... Read more

Q. You say that Paul offers a new sort of prophetic rhetoric. New in both form and content, or simply new in that it is a rhetoric with Christian content?  Can you explain what you mean a bit as we get going on this dialogue?   A. Although Paul’s facility with Greek and his upbringing in the diaspora acquaint him with good orators, many of his proofs would not have been persuasive outside the group because he speaks for God... Read more

Q. You say in the Introduction that theology and rhetoric are inseparable parts of Paul’s effort to convince or persuade his audience in regard to their behavior (and I would add in regard to various of their beliefs as well— e.g. about resurrection in 1 Cor. 15). I entirely agree with you about this— the goal is the moral transformation of the audience.  This also means that theology and ethics are also not neat discreet categories for Paul.  His ethics... Read more

Q. I was pleased to see your comment on the fact that a thanksgiving period was not a stock item in ancient Hellenistic letter writing. Nor for that matter is ‘the body middle’ an ancient category as described in the epistolary handbooks of the 2nd-3rd century A.D. One of the things that has constantly frustrated me about the way Paul’s letters have been analyzed is that rhetoric was a regular and major part of ancient education beginning with the progymnasmata,... Read more

Cyrano de Bergerac is a story by Edmund Rostand, written in 1897, and it was a play written in French. And quelle surprise, there really was a person of this name which Rostand based his play on.  The entire play is in fact poetry, written in rhyming couplets with 12 syllables per line.  Interestingly, the play, translated into many languages, first introduced the word panache into English.  If you read it in English, the best version is Anthony Burgess’ translation. ... Read more

Q. Early on you rightly point out the difficulties systematicians have with Paul not least because his letters are ad hoc, i.e. responses to queries and the needs of the moment and situation. I have emphasized elsewhere that part of the problem is anachronism—the attempt to impose later theology categories and a desire for consistency and completion in a way of dealing with ideas abstracted from their letter contexts that leads to inherent frustration and head-scratching. If Paul is a... Read more

First of all thank you very much for writing this insightful and helpful book. My students will be happy with its clarity of expression and the fact that the chapters are each of a manageable length so they can be read in one setting. Q. You say in the introduction that you are focusing on the interface between Paul’s theology and his rhetoric. Was there an overarching reason you chose this approach as opposed to, say, focusing on the interface... Read more

Certainly one of the most important and convincing books on Paul’s theology and rhetoric written in the last decade or so is James Thompson’s Apostle of Persuasion.Theology and Rhetoric in the Pauline Letters, (Baker Academic, 2020; 309 pages). I will certainly be using this book in my classes on Paul and on rhetoric as well.  The book is fair, balanced, interacts with a good swath of the scholarly discussion of the last 30 years, and is comprehensive– dealing with the whole Pauline... Read more

Q. Sometimes faith is pitted against reason and logic, but clearly you think this is wrong. We are not called to blind faith, spitting into the prevailing wind of contradictory evidence. Faith involves trusting in the truths for which there is good evidence. But as you know, especially in some more Evangelical contexts there is a strong anti-intellectual ethos. It’s like my old granny who only had an eight grade education. When I went off to seminary she gave me... Read more

Q. Sometimes the big problem is anachronism, asking the wrong and all too modern questions of the Bible. The Bible’s subject matter is history, theology, and ethics, not cosmology, not anthropology, not modern science, and we could go on. Knowing what the Bible actually teaches is where the issue of the truthfulness and trustworthiness of Scripture should be assessed. The Bible touches on many things, like the sun rising and setting, which it does not teach. So I agree that... Read more