Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMANS: A SOCIO-RHETORICAL COMMENTARY. By Ben Witherington, III, with Darlene Hyatt, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004. Pp. xxxviii + 421. Paper, $36.00.

This commentary purports to present a "socio-rhetorical" interpretation of Romans. Readers are challenged at the outset by the fact that the author presumes them to have some familiarity with socio-rhetorical interpretation. Witherington offers no such definition and makes no reference to existing scholarly works on socio-rhetorical interpretation. The bibliography at the beginning lists several works which deal with rhetoric and argumentation in Romans and other Pauline letters, some of which receive comment in the text and footnotes of the commentary. However, Witherington does not explain what distinguishes socio-rhetorical interpretation from other forms of rhetorical interpretation. It may not be possible to offer a well-established definition of socio-rhetorical interpretation, but a "working" definition would be helpful to prepare readers for the scope of the commentary presented.

When Witherington addresses the rhetoric of Romans, he focuses primarily on the development of lines of argument in the letter. He proposes that if Romans is read as a speech and basic components of speeches are recognized (propositios and peroratios, for example), the flow of the overall argument can be grasped. In the Introduction, he proposes an outline for the rhetorical structure of the letter, drawing on insights from ancient rhetoric handbooks and rhetorically-minded biblical interpreters. On this basis, he defines the basic rhetorical units to be interpreted in the commentary that follows.

In the Introduction Witherington also discusses intertextuality in relation to Paul's development of an authoritative ethos in the letter. The discussion of intertextuality focuses primarily on the sources from which Paul draws his language and thought: early Christian traditions, the Septuagint, teachings of Jesus, and Paul's own earlier discourses. There is little attention in the commentary to how Paul's manner of speaking puts him in conversation with Hellenistic moral philosophers of the Mediterranean world. In the analysis of Rom. 2:1-16, where Paul speaks of Gentiles who have the law "inscribed on their heart," there is no consideration of why Paul might deliberately evoke ideas popularized by Greek philosophers in the course of developing an authoritative ethos.

Witherington says that this section of the letter might be addressed to "Romans who had absorbed the philosophy of self-mastery reflected in the letters of Seneca and the writings of Epictetus." Unfortunately, he does not cite passages from philosophical writing which would allow readers to judge for themselves how Paul's language echoes that of the philosophers. Witherington does occasionally note echoes of non-Jewish and non-Christian tradition in Romans; for example, he observes that Paul may borrow language from mystery religions when he speaks of "dying and rising with Christ" (6:3-4). On the whole, however, Witherington's analysis of intertextuality focuses primarily on Paul's use of language from Jewish and Christian sources. He presents Paul as a writer whose rhetoric was significantly influenced by his Hellenistic environment, but he gives little attention to how Hellenistic philosophy might have influenced Paul's thought.

Witherington discusses the social structure of Roman Christianity at relevant points in the commentary. A short section in the Introduction prepares readers for social topics that come up in the letter. However, social realities that inform the understanding of unstated premises of arguments (enthymemes) are ignored. For example, when Paul instructs the Romans to submit to political authority because it is instituted by God, noting that only evil people have to fear government, the unstated premise is that God has instituted political authority for the purpose of instilling fear in evil people (13:1-4). When we consider the ways that the Roman Empire aroused fear in the population, we must consider whether Paul subtly acknowledges the rightness of some forms of imperial terror as ways to discipline the ungodly. Because this idea is not explicitly articulated in the text, one might easily read over it and ignore how the unstated premise functions in the construction of an argument.

The last point illustrates how Witherington employs a rather constrained form of socio-rhetorical interpretation. His method of rhetorical analysis employs classical categories to describe formal and literary features of the text. To this end, his analysis of the argumentative structure of the letter is generally cogent, if not convincing. However, Romans, like Paul's letters in general, employs rhetorical discourse that is multi-textural, thus calling for a method of interpretation that integrates multiple methods of rhetorical analysis. The commentary is insightful and constructively engages other scholarly interpretation of Romans. However, it is hardly the "full scale socio-rhetorical commentary" which Witherington set out to write.