Journal for the Study of the New Testament

Although John relies on narrative and on `radical rhetoric' to effect persuasion, he also develops appeals to rational argumentation ( logos), particularly within the seven oracles, using basic strategies known from classical rhetorical handbooks and progymnastic exercises. He supports his conclusions and exhortations with arguments from analogy, from the consequences, from the contrary, from historical example and from the revelation of contradictions. He employs topics of courage, the just, the feasible, the (in)expedient and relative expediency in framing enthymemes. John's argumentation, however, requires previous acceptance of certain premises derived from Christian `cultural knowledge', for example, that Christ will come again in judgment, both in interim and ultimate interventions, that Christ makes his intentions known through prophetic speech, and that Christ's story provides a paradigm for the disciples to follow per aspera ad astra. Rational argumentation indeed tempers the authoritarian dimension, but these appeals to reason will largely only work within Christian culture and would likely be dismissed outside of early Christian congregations.

Interpreters of Paul have made substantial progress in identifying anti- or counter-imperial strands in the writings of the apostle. In many cases, postcolonial theory has been an important resource for such interpretations. It has emphasized the imperial (or colonial) character of Roman rule and provided avenues of analysis of resistant action and discourse that are well grounded in theoretical and comparative context. Postcolonialism, however, does more than identify and valorize resistance; it also attends to the discourses of affiliation that colonial subjects so often generate. Homi Bhabha's articulation of `hybridity' as a rubric under which to understand the relationship between resistant and affiliative responses by colonial subjects enables a deeper understanding of Paul specifically in that area that the politically engaged readings of Paul have made even more enigmatic, namely the relationship of the affiliative Rom. 13.1-7 to the apostle's evidently resistant discourse elsewhere in his literary corpus.

2 Thessalonians has suffered from neglect in biblical scholarship for many reasons, such as its brevity, its similarities in content and structure with 1 Thessalonians and its supposed dubious authorship. However, detecting an allusion to Ps. 78.8 (LXX Ps. 77.8) in 2 Thess. 3.5 (that includes verbal and thematic parallels) may offer insight into literary features of the hortatory section of the letter—a portion commonly considered to be disjointed and almost incoherent. Psalm 78 recounts the history of Israel, demonstrating God's goodness and Israel's ingratitude and persistent stubbornness and failure. The psalmist's hope that the `next generation' would rise above the `wicked and perverse' previous generation is re-envisaged by Paul in an apocalyptic fashion, with the new generation (those `in Christ') able to attain a faith(fulness) not possible for the `Israel' of the Psalm—an important message for a church in turmoil.