Socio-rhetorical interpretaion in practice: Recent contribuions in perspective1

Abstract

Socio-rhetorical analysis of the gospels focuses on a specific text's strategy and situation. As such, it is interested in what any given text wanted to communicate (ideology) in its original socio-historical and socio-cultural situaion. In this article attenion is given to contibuions in a recent publicaion entitled Gospe linterpretation: Narrative-critical and social-scientiic approaches (with Kingsbury as editor) that has as focus what can be described as a socio-rhetoricalanalysis of the gospels, that is, readings of the gospels that aim to integrate narrative-critical and sociological readings of the gospels. Ater a few introductory remarks, some of the contribuions in the above-mentioned publicaion are summarized and then evaluaed in terms of their own explicitly stated aim, that is, to read the gospels from a socio-rhetoical perspective. Finally, a few remarks are made concerning both the necessiy for a socio-rhetoical reading of ancient texts and the possibilities that a socio-rhetorical analysis of ancient texts holds for gospel interpretain.