Interweaving Innocence: A Rhetorical Analysis of Luke's Passion Narrative (Lk 22:66–23:49) by Heather M. Gorman

Abstract

Reviewed by: Interweaving Innocence: A Rhetorical Analysis of Luke's Passion Narrative (Lk 22:66–23:49) by Heather M. Gorman Shelly Matthews heather m. gorman, Interweaving Innocence: A Rhetorical Analysis of Luke's Passion Narrative (Lk 22:66–23:49) ( Cambridge: Lutterworth, 2016). Pp. x + 198. Paper ₤16.75. This book is a revision of a dissertation written under the supervision of Mikeal Parsons at Baylor University (2013). As with a number of recent creative scholarly works produced by Parsons and his students, it provides a compelling argument that study of ancient rhetorical handbooks—including the progymnasmata—allows for deeper insight into Luke's compositional techniques and rhetorical concerns. In chap. 1, the introduction, Gorman lays out three unsettled issues in Lucan interpretation that she aims to illuminate through rhetorical analysis: (a) the question of whether Luke used an additional preexisting written source, along with the Gospel of Mark, in composing his passion narrative; (b) the precise connotation of the repeated insistence on Jesus's "innocence"; and (c) the function of the parallels between narratives of Jesus, Stephen, and Paul. In chap. 2, she provides a very useful introduction to the ancient educational system, including discussion of the extant progymnasmata and their contents, the handbooks of key orators (Cicero and Quintilian), and common rhetorical techniques (refutation and confirmation, synkrisis or comparison, paraphrase, and so forth). Chapter 3, "The Pre-Trial Hearing (22:66-71) and the Formal Trial (23:1-25)," and chap. 4, "Transition to the Cross (23:26-32) and the Informal Trial (23:33-49)," contain the heart of the argument. Here G. applies the techniques she has introduced from the rhetorical handbooks to Luke's passion narrative as a means of elucidating Luke's compositional choices. The exegesis here is careful and clear, and readers are aided by helpful charts and subheadings. G. works closely with the Greek text and with the technical terms of the handbooks, identifying rhetorical figures such as assonance, epanaphora, and antonomasia as key to the meaning of direct speeches in the passion. In chap. 5, she synthesizes her findings. The grouping of issues on which G. has chosen to concentrate—sources for the passion narrative, the meaning of dikaios, and the function of parallels across Luke-Acts—has something of a "grab bag" feel. In particular, the discussion of the function of Jesus–Stephen–Paul parallels seems out of place, with respect both to her central question concerning Jesus's innocence within the passion narrative and to the question of how the principles of rhetorical composition direct Luke's narrative choices relating to these parallels. The observation that Luke is engaging in synkrisis here, as did ancient authors like Plutarch, is a generalization at best, and her conclusion that Luke has a pastoral motivation to provide models for readers facing similar circumstances of persecution is not much developed. As another weak spot in the argument, I note that the bibliography with respect to Lucan scholarship—even for a revised dissertation—is rather thin. But these reservations should not detract from the most distinctive and valuable contribution of the book, namely, the method by which G. approaches the question of whether Luke used an additional written source for the passion narrative, and her persuasive answer. While she is careful not to insist that Luke would have been necessarily and precisely familiar with the materials found in the progymnasmata reviewed in her book, she makes the sensible case that, given the quality of Luke's Greek, the length of his text, and Luke's literary pretension, this Gospel author would have been exposed to similar educational content. As she notes with respect to the ancient educational system, "even students who [End Page 726] were near the beginning of their education were not only capable of altering their sources in various ways for the sake of variety or to achieve their own point, but they were even encouraged to do so" (p. 78). Working from this assumption, and with a skilled understanding of the criterion by which ancient composers of narrative worked, G. is able to demonstrate that passages from the passion narrative that have often been identified as deriving from the earlier...