"The Deuteronomistic History contains many vast troop and casualty numbers. What purpose does this literary device of numerical hyperbole serve? What rhetorical purposes do any of the numbers in this text serve? In The Rhetorical Use of Numbers in the Deuteronomistic History: "Saul Has Killed His Thousands, David His Tens of Thousands," Denise Flanders explores the variety of rhetorical effects that numbers have on the narrative of Joshua-2 Kings. Flanders demonstrates that numbers in Joshua-2 Kings often work in surprising and subversive ways. Rather than regularly glorifying a leader, large casualty numbers may actually anticipate a ruler's downfall. Rather than underscoring an Israelite battle victory, numbers sometimes qualify or undermine the triumph of victories"--
Church planting ministries in Kyrgyzstan have been going on for over twenty-five years since Kyrgyzstan became independent from the former Soviet Union. There were great advances in the many people in Kyrgyzstan who came to Christ and for the churches that were planted in many different places in Kyrgyzstan. In spite of the great advances in the past, nowadays many local church pastors or leaders and expatriates are expressing that the churches in Kyrgyzstan are facing stagnation or even decreasing in numbers. This study seeks to understand the fruitful practices for church planting among Muslims being used by indigenous churches in Bishkek Kyrgyzstan, theoretical frameworks of the church planting models, and the socio-cultural and historic-religious characteristics of Muslims in Kyrgyzstan. Field research was conducted at three, registered, Kyrgyz-speaking churches using participant observation and with seven Kyrgyz church pastors who have church planting experience and are engaged in church ministry in the Bishkek area using semi-structured interviews. Field research revealed historical church planting factors of government-registered, Kyrgyz churches in Bishkek, some significant characteristics of Kyrgyz church leaders/pastors, and fruitful church planting practices among Muslims in Kyrgyzstan. In addition, findings from the literature review and the field research were integrated to classify the church planting process and identify fruitful practices of church planting among Muslims in Kyrgyzstan. Finally, this dissertation addresses a strategic plan of action for implementing a contextualized church planting model in the Kyrgyz context and church planting team setting. Additionally, application and recommendation are presented for local church planters, expat church planters and organizational agents. The central claim of this dissertation addresses the relationship of church planting models and fruitful practices of indigenous churches for developing a church planting model among Muslims in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
To whom is Moses speaking in Deuteronomy? This question is controversial in OT scholarship. Some passages in Deuteronomy indicate that Moses is addressing the first exodus generation that witnessed Horeb (Deut 5:3–4), while other passages point to the second exodus generation that survived the wilderness (Deut 1:35; 2:14–16). Redaction critics such as Thomas Römer and John Van Seters view the chronological problems in Deuteronomy as evidence of multiple tradition layers. Although other scholars have suggested that Deuteronomy’s conflation of chronology is a rhetorical move to unify Israel’s generations, no analysis has thus far explored in detail how the blending of “you” and the “fathers” functions as a rhetorical device. However, a rhetorical approach to the “fathers” is especially appropriate in light of three features of Deuteronomy. First, a rhetorical approach recognizes that the repetitiveness of the Deuteronomic style is a homiletical strategy designed to inculcate the audience with memory. The book is shot through with exhortations for Israel to remember the past. Second, a rhetorical approach recognizes that collective memory entails the transformation of the past through actualization for the present. Third, a rhetorical approach to Deuteronomy accords well with the book’s self-presentation as “the words that Moses spoke” (1:1). The book of Deuteronomy assumes a canonical posture by embedding the means of its own oral and written propagation, thereby ensuring that the voice of Moses speaking in the book of Deuteronomy resounds in Israel’s ears as a perpetually authoritative speech-act. The Rhetoric of Remembrance demonstrates that Deuteronomy depicts the corporate solidarity of Israel in the land promised to the “fathers” (part 1), under the sovereignty of the same “God of the fathers” across the nation’s history (part 2), as governed by a timeless covenant of the “fathers” between YHWH and his people (part 3). In the narrative world of Deuteronomy, the “fathers” begin as the patriarchs, while frequently scrolling forward in time to include every generation that has received YHWH’s promises but nonetheless continues to await their fulfillment. Hwang’s study is an insightful, innovative approach that addresses crucial aspects of the Deuteronomic style with a view to the theological effect of that style. Jerry Hwang (Ph.D., Wheaton College) serves as Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Singapore Bible College.
In The Deuteronomist’s History, Hans Ausloos provides for the first time a detailed status quaestionis concerning the relationship between the books Genesis–Numbers and the so-called Deuteronom(ist)ic literature. After a presentation of the origins of the 18th and 19th century hypothesis of a Deuteronom(ist)ic redaction, specific attention is paid to the argumentation used during the last century. Particular interest also is paid to the concept of the proto-Deuteronomist and the mostly tentative approaches of the Deuteronom(ist)ic ‘redaction’ of the Pentateuch during the last decades. The book concludes with a critical review and preview of the Deuteronom(ist)ic problem. Each phase in the Deuteronomist’s history is illustrated on the basis of the epilogue of the Book of the Covenant (Exod. 23:20-33).
Mainly revised papers from sessions of the Pentateuch Section and the Deuteronomistic History Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, held at the Society's 2010 annual meeting in Atlanta.
Watts here argues that conventions of oral rhetoric were adapted to shape the literary form and contents of the Pentateuch. The large-scale structure-stories introducing lists of laws that conclude with divine sanctions-reproduces a common ancient strategy for persuasion. The laws' use of direct address, historical motivations and frequent repetitions serve rhetorical ends, and even the legal contradictions seem designed to appeal to competing constituencies. The instructional speeches of God and Moses reinforce the persuasive appeal by characterizing God as a just ruler and Moses as a faithful scribe. The Pentateuch was designed to persuade Persian-period Judaeans that this Torah should define their identity as Israel.
This volume reexamines and reconstructs the relationship between the Deuteronomistic History and the book of Chronicles, building on recent developments such as the Persian -period dating of the Deuteronomistic History, the contribution of oral traditional studies to understanding the production of biblical texts, and the reassessment of Standard Biblical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew. These new perspectives challenge widely held understandings of the relationship between the two scribal works and strongly suggest that they were competing historiographies during the Persian period that nevertheless descended from a common source. This new reconstruction leads to new readings of the literature.
