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hermeneutical rhetoric. The four gospels also contain substantive sections that use stories of Jesus as major grounds or vehicles for hermeneutical rhetoric. Large portions, though not all, of the New Testament use Old Testament scripture as major grounds or vehicles for hermeneutical rhetoric. New Testament letters and Acts, and a few sections in the Gospels, use followers of Jesus as major grounds or vehicles for hermeneutical rhetoric. Perhaps the best way to show how this works is to identify moments in New Testament discourse when major shifts occur in modes of hermeneutical rhetoric. For the purposes of this essay, we will look briefly at 30-50, 50-70, and 70-100 CE. A. Oral and Anecdotal Traditions as Messianist Rhetorolects during 30-50 CE During the first two decades of early Christianity (30-50 CE) the primary vehicles for the hermeneutical rhetoric of followers of Jesus were sayings and stories of Jesus. Different groups of "messianists" viewed Jesus as a person through whom God had worked in remarkable and extraordinary ways. As people enthusiastically transmitted sayings and stories of Jesus during this formative period, they created a spectrum of messianist rhetorolects that, while differing significantly from one another in topic, argumentative style, and reasoning, nevertheless agreed with one another in their focus on Jesus as truly exceptional in the realm of God's activity. "A rhetorolect is a form of language variety or discourse identifiable on the basis of a distinctive configuration of themes, topics, reasoning, and argumentation" (Robbins 1996c: 356). On the basis of data available to us, five major rhetorolects appeared in early Christian discourse during the first two decades (30-50 CE): wisdom, miracle, apocalyptic, opposition, and death-resurrection. Analysis of these five rhetorolects in a socio-rhetorical mode is at its very beginning stages (Robbins 1996c: 357-61). It will be possible to understand and explicate the nature of the hermeneutical rhetoric in each of the five rhetorolects only when there has been socio-rhetorical analysis of the questions, if-then statements, when-then statements, rationales, negatives, commands, analogies, comparisons, examples, authoritative testimony, and narrative story in them (Robbins 1997). Analysis of questions is important, since questions place topics in a formative position for the creation of culture. If-then statements are also important, since with these statements people express their convictions and hopes in a mode that is almost argumentative. When-then statements are more assertive than if-then statements. A person entertains greater probability with an assertion of "when" than "if." When people present rationales, they begin to move into a fully |