Polemic in the Book of Hebrews. Lloyd Kim

the most radical statements against Judaism in the epistle to the Hebrews. Though there are other passages that might also indicate anti-Semitic, anti-Judaic, or supersessionist statements (cf. 3:3; 9:8-10; 13:10), they are not as radical or clearly identified as speaking against Judaism.

2 Vernon K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity, 1996) 1.

3 Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969).

4 Burton L. Mack, Rhetoric and the New Testament, GBS (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990) 12.

5 Mack, Rhetoric and the New Testament, 12.

6 Amos N. Wilder, Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964) 25–26.

7 George Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984) 3. Kennedy draws many of his rhetorical categories from Aristotle’s Rhetoric. He also notes Cicero’s works On Invention and Partitions of Oratory, and Quintilian’s work, On the Education of the Orator. See Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, 12–13.

8 Some identify Hans Dieter Betz’s work, “The Literary Composition and Function of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,” NTS 21 (1975) 353–79 as the beginning of a new era in New Testament scholarship. Cf. Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979). See Carl Joachim Classen, Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament, WUNT 128 (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2000) 1–2.

9 Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, 5. Kennedy has come under recent criticism for his assertion that the New Testament writings primarily follow Greco-Roman rhetorical forms. Roland Meynet argues that the New Testament writings more appropriately follow Jewish rhetorical forms; Meynet, Rhetorical Analysis: An Introduction to Biblical Rhetoric, JSOTSS 256 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998) 21–22. Meynet distinguishes Hebrew rhetoric from Greco-Roman rhetoric in three ways: 1) Jewish rhetoric is more concrete than abstract; 2) it uses parataxis more than hypotaxis; and 3) it is more involutive than linear (173–75). Kennedy defends the idea that we can look at the New Testament using Greek rhetorical categories, even though it was written in-between two cultures. He bases his premise on the widespread Hellenization of the Near East and points to the works of Josephus and Philo as examples. Kennedy also makes a lengthy argument that Jesus and Paul were at least acquainted with Greek rhetoric if not formally trained. Thus he argues that it is historically and philosophically legitimate to use classical Greek rhetoric in analyzing the New Testament. He does note, however, that one must be aware of other influences, such as the Jewish chiasmus, in the unique rhetoric of the New Testament (Kennedy, 8–12). Whether one defines the New Testament as uniquely Hebraic with some parallel to Greco-Roman forms or primarily Greco-Roman with some Jewish influence seems to depend on the specific New Testament writing. Instead of thinking in binary terms of either Hellenistic or Jewish, it may be better to view each writing on a continuous spectrum between these two extremes.

10 Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, 34.

11 Ibid., 35.

12 Ibid., 36.

13 Ibid., 37.

14 Ibid., 38.

15 Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric.

16 Mack, Rhetoric and the New Testament, 14.

17 Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, 513.

18 Mack, Rhetoric and the New Testament, 15–16. See also C. Clifton Black, “Rhetorical Criticism,” in Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation, ed. Joel Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 263–64.

19 Mack, Rhetoric and the New Testament, 23–24. Mack notes the highly polemical nature of Christian rhetoric, which makes ample use of comparison and contrast with the surrounding culture in defining itself. He argues that this type of rhetoric often presents a straw man in the polemic and creates “inauthentic discourse.” Thus much of the New Testament shows the Christian perspective as superior, or paints the opponents unfairly or inadequately (96).

20 George H. Guthrie, The Structure of Hebrews: A Text-Linguistic Analysis, NovTSup 73 (Leiden: Brill, 1994; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998) 11–12.

21 Though Vaganay’s work preceded Muilenburg’s 1968 address, Muilenburg is still heralded as the one who initiated the major shift in New Testament scholarship toward rhetorical criticism.

22 Leon Vaganay, “Le Plan de L’Épître aux Hébreux,” in Mémorial Lagrange, ed. L.-H. Vincent (Paris: Gabalda, 1940) 271–72.

23 Albert Vanhoye, Structure and Message of the Epistle to the Hebrews, trans. James Swetnam, Subsidia Biblica 12 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute Press, 1989) 20.

24 Ibid., 40a-b.

25 Wolfgang Nauck, “Zum Aufbau des Hebräerbriefes,” in Judentum, Urchristentum, Kirche: Festschrift für Joachim Jeremias, ed. Walther Eltester, BZNW 26 (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1960) 199–206.

26 Otto Michel ended the second section at 10:18. See Otto Michel, Der Brief an die Hebräer, 13th ed., KEK (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975) 29–35.

27 Nauck, “Zum Aufbau des Hebräerbriefes,” 200–203.

28 Andries H. Snyman, “Hebrews 6:4-6: From a Semiotic Discourse Perspective,” in Discourse Analysis and the New Testament: Approaches and Results, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Jeffery T. Reed, JSNTSS 170 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999) 354–68.

29 Ibid., 354.