Rhetorical strategies in the Fourth Gospel

The author of the Fourth Gospel (FG) has put forth a Gospel that attempts to demonstrate that Jesus is the Christ to fulfill the explicit programmatic “purpose statement” in John 20:30–31. The central question that this thesis attempts to answer is, what are the persuasive rhetorical strategies that the FG employs to accomplish this goal? The scope of this study is limited to identifying two specific strategies and investigating how these strategies function to create a persuasive discourse. The principal methodology consists in using aspects of classical rhetoric as a heuristic lens to examine the rhetorical strategies and features in the FG. The thesis examines, for example, the various rhetorical genres that function in the FG, demonstrating that all three classical rhetorical genres are present in the public ministry, and that deliberative rhetoric is present in the Farewell Discourse(s). The thesis also develops the beginnings of a theory of “narrative rhetoric” in which a rhetorical discourse can propose theses and subsequently demonstrate them through narrated actions. It applies this theory to the FG to show that the Gospel uses narrated actions to demonstrate various theses contained in the FG’s Prologue and the narrative itself. It seeks to demonstrate that the FG is rhetorically very similar to the Plutarchan Life of Pericles. Both contain a structure consisting of (1) a prologue with propositions, (2) a narrative designed to demonstrate these propositions, and (3) a conclusion. This structure corresponds to Aristotle’s rhetorical arrangement better than the arrangement of the Latin handbooks. It explores how this narrative rhetoric functions in the FG to demonstrate the related propositions. This investigation is unique in that it explores rhetorical strategies that for the most part have either not been observed or not examined with the necessary precision to explain adequately the rhetorical purpose of the Gospel.