its rhetorical goal.14
The “New Rhetoric”
A third trajectory is described as the “new rhetoric.” Burton Mack argues that the publication of Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca’s English translation of The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation15 moved the discipline from seeing rhetoric as simply an analysis of style and aesthetics, to seeing it as argumentation.16 Though this movement is similar to Kennedy’s rhetorical criticism, it emphasizes the social situation behind the text much more than Kennedy’s approach and focuses less on how the text follows Greco-Roman rhetorical forms. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca bring out the fact that the social situation in which the argument was made is an important factor in understanding the persuasive force of an argument.
All language is the language of a community, be this a community bound by biological ties, or by the practice of a common discipline or technique. The terms used, their meanings, their definition, can only be understood in the context of the habits, ways of thought, methods, external circumstances, and traditions known to the users of those terms.17
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca wanted to focus on the audience and the social context as well as the speaker and the speech. This led naturally to examining the rhetoric of a text in hopes of reconstructing the social history behind the text. This approach takes rhetorical criticism out of the context of analysis of style and ornamentation, and into the realm of a social theory of language.18 The reader can trace back each writing to a particular Christian persuasion and its view of authority. Then one can rank the various authorities and evaluate whether or not the use of these authorities has persuasive force.19 This third trajectory comes closest to socio-rhetorical criticism.
Focus on Hebrews
The history of scholarship of rhetorical criticism applied to Hebrews follows the three trajectories mentioned above.
Literary-Aesthetic Studies
Structural Analyses
Perhaps the best examples of the kind of rhetorical approach promoted by Muilenburg applied to the epistle to the Hebrews are the structural analyses of Leon Vaganay, Albert Vanhoye, and Wolfgang Nauck. Though they ended up with different results, they all focused on the literary character of the epistle.
Leon Vaganay’s work is thought to be the beginning of the modern discussion on the structure of Hebrews.20 He was perhaps the first to apply his knowledge of the rhetorical aspects of the book to his structural analysis.21 Perhaps most notable was his identification of “hook” words used to connect sections together.22 His approach led him to a five-part structure, which was thematically chiastic or concentric.
Albert Vanhoye followed Vaganay, but was able to synthesize the work of others as well. He identified the principal techniques used by the author in constructing the epistle: 1) announcement of the topics to be discussed; 2) inclusios, which determine the boundaries of the topics; 3) variation of literary genre (exposition or paraenesis); 4) words, which characterize a development; 5) use of “hook” words; and 6) symmetric arrangement.23 Using these devices he proposed a symmetrically arranged structure, with only minor differences from Vaganay.24
Wolfgang Nauck departed from the Vaganay / Vanhoye outline and revised Otto Michel’s three-part structure as an alternate view.25 He marked the end of the first section of Hebrews as 4:13 in light of the parallel he saw between 1:2b-3 and 4:12-13. He also saw a parallel between 4:14-16 and 10:19-23. Thus he identifies the beginning of the second section as 4:14 and the end as 10:31.26 The final section (10:32-13:17) begins and ends with similar exhortations.27
Semiotic Discourse Approach
Since Muilenburg, many scholars have concentrated simply on the aesthetics of the text, moving away from historical considerations. Andries Snyman in an article entitled, “Hebrews 6:4-6: From a Semiotic Discourse Perspective,”28 focuses on the text rather than the sender, recipient, or its history. The semiotic approach is derived from a structural approach to linguistics, which was one of the many approaches that moved away from a focus on the history of the text to the text itself.29
The basic premise of the approach is that meaningful relations occur not simply between words in a sentence, but also among larger groups—like sentences, pericopes, paragraphs, etc. One must understand these relationships in order to understand the flow of the argument. Three layers of meaning are identified: 1) the declarative, which simply describes the text as it is predicated lexically and semantically;30 2) the structural, which describes the clustering of individual cola into larger units (pericope) based on semantic considerations;31 and 3) the intentional, which describes the purpose or message of the discourse.32
After a brief evaluation of the method, Snyman applies it to Heb 6:4-6, which seems to indicate that it is impossible for apostates to repent and be brought back into the fold of God. On the declarative level the author states very simply, “those who have tasted the heavenly gift, etc., and then abandoned their faith cannot be brought back to repentance again.”33 On the structural level, the statement that his readers are babes in the faith prepares them for the warning in the following section. The author is arguing that his readers should not be reluctant to grow in their faith. Rather, they should seek to know the full significance of Jesus as their high priest. But before the author proceeds to teach them this significance, he warns them of the real danger of apostasy.34 On the intentional level, this passage challenges its audience to right action by eliciting an emotional response. Snyman sees it serving the purpose of the larger message in 5:11-6:20, namely, to call his readers to remain faithful to their faith.35
Rhetorical Criticism
General Studies
There have been several general studies on the book of Hebrews following the pattern of George A. Kennedy. Walter G. Übelacker, for instance, argues that Hebrews is an example of deliberative discourse written to persuade the audience to make a choice. Übelacker divides up the sections of the epistle as follows: 1:1-4 is identified as Prooemium (exordium); 1:5—2:18 is Narratio with Propositio in 2:17-18; 3:1—12:29 is Argumentatio with probatio and refutatio; 13:1-21 is Peroratio; and 13:22-25 is Postscriptum. The literary character of 1:1—13:21 is identified as a “word of encouragement.” 36
Übelacker
