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argumentative mode concerning their convictions about action and belief: this because of this. Negatives are important, because they exhibit those social, cultural, and ideological topics over against which a culture builds its positive assertions. Citations of authoritative testimony show the traditions this emerging culture uses to authenticate its assertions. Narrative is important, since small, limited stories generate paradigmatic principles of behavior and function as building blocks in an overarching story that may emerge as a representational model for all the discourse. One of the most important aspects of these rhetorolects is the manner in which reference to antecedent scripture is presence or absent in them. Currently, many interpreters proceed as though scriptural recitation were present in every rhetorolect at work in early Christian discourse. Initial analyses of the five rhetorolects indicates that this is not the case. Rather, the process by which early messianist rhetorolects were "scripturalized" is one of the major tasks New Testament interpreters need to undertake and exhibit. The Gospel of Thomas calls attention in dramatic fashion to the potential for early Christian rhetorolects to be transmitted in a cultural environment that did not "scripturalize" them (Robbins 1997). The four New Testament Gospels and the letters of Paul, in contrast, exhibit diverse ways in which the early messianist rhetorolects were infused with scriptural discourse. By the time Christian writers penned texts during the last thirty years of the first century, the activity of scripturalizing Christian discourse had become such a common practice that people considered this manner of speaking, writing, and reading to have been present from the earliest days of the Christian community. B. Pauline Letters as a Primary Shift in Hermeneutical Rhetoric during 50-70 CE 50-70 CE reveals the emergence of Pauline discourse, which moved decisively away from sayings and stories of Jesus as major vehicles for addressing critical issues that arose in early Christianity. Pauline discourse makes stories about Paul, his associates, and his communities the primary vehicle for its hermeneutical rhetoric. The first moment visible to us appears in 1 Thessalonians 1-3, a text written ca. 50 CEća time when sayings and stories of Jesus had functioned for two decades as the major] vehicle for dealing with the issues of the time. In 1 Thessalonians the activities of Paul, Paul's associates, and people in certain Pauline communities take center stage as the vehicle for Paul's hermeneutical rhetoric. In 1 Thessalonians, the new vehicle for Christian hermeneutical rhetoric appears in 1:2-3 where Paul gives thanks to God for the Thessalonians' "work of faith, labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus |