A socio-rhetorical analysis of the development and function of the Noah-Flood narrative in "Sibylline Oracles" 1--2
Creators: name: Beech, Timothy
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2008
Subjects: subject: Literature, Classical.
subject: Theology.
subject: Language, Rhetoric and Composition.

description: The purpose of this dissertation is a socio-rhetorical exploration of the development and function of the narrative of Noah and the Flood in Sibylline Oracles 1-2. As such, it entails three major emphases: (1) a 21st century western methodology (socio-rhetorical analysis) which is used to examine, on the one hand, (2) a diverse body of Judeo-Christian (but guised as Greco-Roman) literature (the Sibylline Oracles) that emerged primarily during the Second Temple period, and on the other, (3) how a traditional and textual resource (the Genesis flood narrative) has been developed and used within this body of literature to further the particular rhetorical purpose of the Sibyl. Thus, throughout the course of this dissertation, a contribution will be made to the scholarship on each of these three aspects in a number of innovative ways. First, a contribution will be made to the ongoing development of socio-rhetorical analysis, and in particular, as to how it pertains to our understanding of rhetorolects (rhetorical discourse types). Based on our analysis of the discourse and major rhetorical topoi of Sibylline Oracles 1-2 in relation to the topoi of other similar ancient Mediterranean discourses, it will be suggested that the current socio-rhetorical understanding of rhetorolects should be broadened to better reflect not only early Christian discourse, but the discourse of the entire ancient Mediterranean generally. For early Christians enacted their own discourse through reconfiguration of other rhetorical discourses from other Mediterranean cultures. This is especially clear in the Sibylline Oracles, which seems to be an interweaving of various Jewish, Christian, Greco-Roman, and possibly even Gnostic and Babylonian threads of discourse. In particular, we will affirm the insight in early explorations of socio-rhetorical analysis that the early Christian rhetorical discourses described by Vernon K. Robbins are primarily specific localizations of more general ancient Mediterranean discourse types. The case in point for this dissertation concerns both the similarities and differences between the discourses to which the Sibylline Oracles are most often compared---Judeo-Christian apocalyptic discourse and Greco-Roman Sibylline discourse (in addition to the discourse of Greco-Roman oracles generally)---both of which seem to exhibit the same array of major rhetorical topoi, while articulating these topoi in remarkably different ways. Second, the implications of this discussion for future development of the sociorhetorical understanding of rhetorolects are immediately apparent in exploring the Sibylline books as rhetorical productions. It will be demonstrated that a socio-rhetorical approach is able to offer fresh insight into a number of long-debated questions concerning the Sibylline Oracles and their contemporary literary environment. To this end, it will be suggested that what we find in Sibylline Oracles 1-2 (and the Sibylline Oracles generally) is a unique blending of two specific localizations of mantic discourse---namely Judeo-Christian apocalyptic discourse and Greco-Roman oracular discourse. These two localizations blend together to create a discourse that was truly unique among the variegated discourses of the ancient Mediterranean. Significantly, this remarkable blending of these two specific localizations of mantic discourse revitalized the character of the Sibyl by incorporating her into the biblical tradition of prophets. Third, and finally, one of the rhetorical resources that contributed to this transformation was the Noah-Flood narrative---a rhetorical resource that, while permeating the majority of the Sibylline books, is used most extensively in Sibylline Oracles 1-2. Within the discourses of the Second Temple period, the flood narrative as a topographically and topologically rich rhetorical resource appears to have been of greatest interest to two very different sets of authors: (a) the writers of priestly rhetorolect, who saw within the flood narrative a compelling resource that could give legitimacy to their argument for the 364-day calendar and its accompanying implications for religious feasts and festivals, as well as the establishment of pre-Mosaic precedents for various legal prescriptions and priestly responsibilities; and (b) the writers of apocalyptic rhetorolect, who saw within the flood narrative the authoritative typological resources necessary to give credence to their own prophecies of cataclysmic destruction and global re-creation. Significantly, the writers of Sibylline Oracles 1-2 seem to draw upon most fully and contribute to this apocalyptic trajectory. However, unlike a number of apocalyptic texts that seem to blend both priestly and apocalyptic rhetorolects (e.g. the Enoch Astronomical book), the writers of Sibylline Oracles 1-2 actually subordinate the elements of priestly rhetorolect within the flood narrative by eliminating them completely. They appear to do so in order to emphasize the elements of apocalyptic rhetorolect that more usefully contribute to their mantic agenda. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)