3
indeed Messiah. Matthew did so by showcasing not only fulfillment formulae but also
Jesus' own use of the Scriptures, frequent employment of enthymemes,
8
and his strategic
use of parables to develop pathos.
Matthew from a Rhetorical Point of View
Upon analysis of a text's exigence and audience rhetorical exegetes seek to
ascertain the author's (rhetor's) intention and goals as well as his possible means of
persuasion.
9
To be sure most New Testament scholars confidently hold that Matthew was
written to or for some sort of Jewish-Christian audience. Many Matthean commentators
are overconfident about the degree of certainty and specificity regarding the socio-
religious location of Matthew's community.
10
Recently Bauckham and others have sternly
critiqued the narrow reconstructions of such a hypothetical community.
11
The Matthean
audience was least likely to be local cultic communities, ideologically pure and distinct,
"scribal schools," or a local, Galilean "Q community." Matthew, like the other apostles, fit
the profile of mobile, urban individuals who were biblically well-read, articulate in public
Greek, and skilled in liberal rhetoric. It follows that the Matthean audience more likely
shared many of these characteristics with Matthew. The rhetorical audience ought not be
8
While the syllogism was the mainstay of dialectic--philosophical discourse--, the enthymeme
(
ejnqumhma
) was the typical deductive proof. A syllogism has several explicit premises and a conclusion, but
an enthymeme has more informal expression of a proposition with supporting proof. A rhetor would craft an
enthymeme like a syllogism with one premise left unstated with the assumption that his audience knew or
would infer it. Enthymemes are recognized by the explanatory use of the word "for" in English and
gavr
or
o{ti
in Greek. See Aristotle Rhetoric, 2.20; Cicero De Inventione 1.51-77.
9
Lloyd F. Bitzer, "The Rhetorical Situation," Rhetoric and Philosophy 1 (1968): 1-14.
10
Epitomizing this move is Krister Stendahl's The School of St. Matthew and Its Use of the Old
Testament (Fortress, 1968) and John S. Kloppenborg, "Literary Convention, Self- and the Social History of the
Q People," in Semeia 55 (1991): 77-102; "The Sayings Gospel Q: Recent Opinion on the People Behind the
Document," Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 1 (1993): 9-34. There are several recent surveys of work
on the Matthean community; see David L. Balch, Social History of the Matthean Community: Cross-
disciplinary Approaches (Fortress Press, 1991); Anthony J. Saldarini, Matthew's Christian-Jewish Community
(University of Chicago Press, 1994); David C. Sim, The Gospel of Matthew and Christian Judaism: The
History and Social Setting of the Matthean Community (T. & T. Clark, 1998).
11
Richard Bauckham ed., The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences
(Eerdmans, 1998), 4. See also Ian H. Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric and Law, in Biblical Interpretation Series,
vol. 20 (Brill, 1996), 13-17.