This study has been conducted upon the presupposition that the Letter to
Titus still has to benefit from a thorough rhetorical critical analysis that will
demonstrate its uniqueness as a coherent, comprehensive portion of New
Testament literature that can be interpreted independently from the two letters
to Timothy. Accordingly, a review of existing scholarship on the Pastorals
generally and Titus specifically was conducted (Section1) followed by a
comprehensive text-centred rhetorical analysis of the Letter to Titus (Section
2). Finally, a summary of the results of this study was presented (Section 3).
In Section 1, the review of existing scholarship on the authorship, theology,
structure and coherency, and rhetorical approaches to Titus revealed how,
due to the pervasiveness of the authenticity or authorship debate about the
Pastorals, the Letter to Titus has been marginalised and interpreted in the
light of the Timothean correspondence. In all the above categories, the
individuality and uniqueness of Titus have been compromised. The
authenticity of the Pastoral Letters went unchallenged until the turn of the
nineteenth century when German scholars expressed their doubts about the
alleged Pauline authorship of this corpus. The key dispute issues related to
theological, ecclesiological, stylistic and historical inconsistencies that New
Testament scholars observed in their analysis of the three letters. In response
to these apparent inconsistencies, various theories were developed to
account for the origin of the three letters. The first was the pseudonymous or
fiction hypothesis according to which it is argued that the Pastorals were
authored by someone other than Paul, but who used his name, probably
some time after his death. Scholars who defend Pauline authorship of the
Pastorals have challenged pseudonymity on the basis of ethics, history,
hermeneutics, and apostolic objections. The origin of the letters have also
been explained by the following theories: fragment hypothesis, secretary or
amanuensis hypothesis and the allonymity or allepigraphy hypothesis.
Theology, Christology, pneumatology and soteriology are central emphases in the theology of Titus, but tend to be interpreted in relationship with the other
two letters. Structurally, the Letter to Titus, when compared to the other
Pastorals, has been described as not having any structure, being incoherent.
This position has been proposed by James Miller. In defence, Ray van Neste
has argued for the coherence of the letter. Rhetorical studies devoted
exclusively to Titus have been found to be severely lacking. The exception
has been the work by Joachim Classen entitled âA rhetorical reading of the
Epistle to Titusâ. While having much to commend it, the article has been
shown to have several serious shortcomings: although the article deals with
what is there, it does not address the issue of persuasion; in other words, it
does not evaluate why the author says things in the way he does; it is more
exegetical than rhetorical; it is not a comprehensive treatment of the whole
letter; it is silent about the obvious theological emphases in the letter. There
have been increasing calls for an appreciation of the three letters individually.
This study attempted to respond to that call on the basis of the following
hypothesis: A thorough text-centred rhetorical approach to the Letter of Titus
(i.e. without relating it to the other two Pastoral Letters or approaching it in
terms of the authenticity/inauthenticity debate) will yield new insights for its
interpretation.
In Section 2 the rhetorical situation was presented followed by a
comprehensive rhetorical analysis of the letter, using a text-centred, minimal
theory framework approach, formulated by D.F. Tolmie (2005). The objective
was to investigate and analyse the rhetorical strategy of the author from the
text, which was divided into 11 rhetorical units. Each unit was demarcated and
described in terms of the dominant rhetorical objective of the author. This was
done based on a verse-by-verse analysis of the text. This approach yielded
much insight into the unique rhetorical structure of the letter as a whole and
provided rich insights into the coherence of the letter. A variety of rhetorical
techniques revealed the intricate rhetorical structure that characterise this
short letter. Some techniques have been observed that may not yet have
been categorised by scholars to date. In Section 3 the results of the study have been summarised. It sets out the
rhetorical objective of the text in terms of the chronological development of the
authorâs argument as it develops from unit to unit. A second way to describe
the rhetorical strategy of the author has been described in terms of the
overlap between the various units which revealed several controlling rhetorical
objectives. Furthermore, the rhetorical techniques used in the letter have been
summarised in this section. New techniques have also been defined and listed
in the concluding section. The study concludes with the conviction that the
Letter to Titus can stand independently from the rest of the Pastorals and
makes a significant contribution in our understanding and appreciation of
Paulâs use of rhetoric.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-08252008-075815 |
| Date | 25 August 2008 |
| Creators | Genade, Aldred Auguse |
| Contributors | Prof DF Tolmie |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-08252008-075815/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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