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Arguments from analogies to plants and animals elaborate this view, as well as arguments from examples like turning the other cheek (Matt 5.39/Luke 6.29) and giving beyond what someone takes from you. This reasoning extends into a perception that the poor are blessed and the rich have difficulty entering the kingdom of God. This rhetorolect also includes narrative parables that exhibit the difficulties of people like the Rich Man who stored his grain in barns (Luke 12.16-20; Gosp Thom 63) and the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16.19-31). Wisdom discourse is widespread in the Q material, the epistle of James, the Sermon on the Mount, special Lukan material, and the Gospel of Thomas. This discourse is both deliberative and epideictic. From the perspective of Bryan Wilson's sociology of different types of religious responses to the world, this discourse is gnostic-manipulationist (Robbins 1996a: 148-149; 1996b: 73). It presupposes that proper insight into life can equip people to live satisfactorily in the world. 3.2 Miracle Discourse Another rhetorolect in early Christianity produces miracle discourse. This discourse presupposes that God responds to humans in contexts of danger or disease and that Jesus is the mediator of these benefits to humans. "Fear" and "cowardice" are common topics in this discourse, and belief is perceived to be the proper response (Robbins 1994d). Central to this rhetorolect is the reasoning that all things are possible for God. From this presupposition flows various conditions which people must fulfill in order to receive extraordinary benefits in times of crisis, special need, or affliction. In Mark 9.23, the reasoning occurs as follows: "If you can! All things are possible to the one who believes." In Mark 9.28, the statement is made that prayer (in addition to faith) is required with certain kinds of unclean spirits. The story of the Cursing of the Fig Tree, intermingled with the cleansing of the temple, elaborates miracle argumentation further (Mark 11.12-25). When the disciples see the withered fig tree and call it to Jesus' attention, Jesus responds at first as he responded to Jairus--"Have faith in God"--adding God as the one to whom faith is to be directed. Jesus elaborates this statement, including an argument from the contrary: He who requests an incredible thing (like casting Mount Zion into the sea) and does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says (like the woman with the flow of blood), it will be done for him (as it was for her). The next verse then integrates the topic of prayer with the other topics. The reader now is to understand that the statements of Jairus, the woman with the flow, the father of the demoniac boy, and blind Bartimaeus were prayers (Robbins 1994d). The logic seems to be this: if a person asks out of belief, that plea is a prayer to God. The final verse then integrates the topic of forgiveness with this well-elaborated miracle argumentation. It is informative that this thaumaturgic rhetorolect appears in James 5.15-18:
Example and ancient testimony: Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest. Wisdom discourse, then, with its emphasis on the generosity of God, naturally bridges toward miracle discourse. The issue with miracles is the conditions under which God will |