The Performative Dimensions of Rhetorical Questions in the Hebrew Bible: Do You Not Know? Do You Not Hear? By Jim Adams

Abstract

Adams focuses on rhetorical questions in this monograph, suggesting that said questions expect and infer assent to obvious answers, and this can then lead to actions or behavioral changes. Adams draws on speech act theory and understands rhetorical questions as a type of indirect speech act. Speech act theory and indirect speech act are given an entire chapter of analysis and discussion, so that exegesis of rhetorical questions in the biblical material does not begin until page 126. Although this means that exegesis is slightly delayed, it does enable the reader to acquire a firm theoretical grasp of speech act and indirect speech acts and to understand their implications and why it is important to examine rhetorical questions using this theoretical grounding. While a good deal of biblical scholarship makes use of speech act theory, drawing on indirect speech act is less common. For clarity, indirect speech act differs from speech act theory because for the indirect speech act, speaker-meaning and sentence-meaning differ. Therefore, it becomes important to think carefully about the ways in which addressers and addressees use and respond to rhetorical questions. This is because several things are being communicated in indirect speech acts. These include the rhetorical question itself, but also the assertion or request that accompanies it.