Style and the Rhetorical Situation of Romans 8.31–39

Abstract

The long history of research on Paul's style has neglected to a large extent the question of the functions of the various stylistic techniques used in his letters. This statement, however, needs some clarification. By ‘style’ here is not meant the traditional figures of speech and figures of thought, but all the linguistic choices an author has made in the light of restrictions imposed on him by the rhetorical situation. These choices include such things as vocabulary, grammatical forms, sentence patterns, sentence length, coherence devices, rhetorical figures, paragraphing, etc. ‘Function’ again does not refer to the familiar efforts of linking these linguistic choices with Greek and Roman textbooks on rhetoric and style; nor does it refer to the general remarks in grammars and other works on the Greek NT, when they speak of the emotional or emphatic or forceful function of certain stylistic figures. By ‘function’ here is meant what Kennedy calls ‘function in context’.