Abstract
This book, a revised version of the author’s dissertation, is a valuable contribution to the many studies that use ancient rhetoric to illuminate the New Testament text. Calhoun argues that Romans 1:2-4 and 16-17 constitute two rhetorical definitions of the gospel which are then re-appropriated and expanded at various points in Paul’s letter.
He begins by examining Greco-Roman theories of definition in both philosophical and rhetorical traditions (ch. 2), concluding that a definition should state what something is and what it does as briefly as possible (p. 38). Chapter 3 then shows how ancient authors exploited lexical and syntactic ambiguity to make a definition as useful as possible for their subsequent argument.
Calhoun identifies the elements of a basic definition in Rom 1:2-3a and its extension in vv. 3b-4 before embarking on an extended criticism of the view that vv. 3b-4 is a pre-Pauline formula and an exposition of his own explanation: the ‘mythological expanded epithet’ (ch. 4). He coins this phrase ‘to refer to a class of relative clause or attributive participial phrase, which has the same general function of simple epithet, but which has greater descriptive flexibility than simple epithet by virtue of its increased length’ (p. 107). Chapter 4 concludes that Rom 1:2-4 is a carefully formulated definition that explains what the gospel is, preparing for a definition of what the gospel does.
In chapter 5 he argues that Rom 1:16 provides the basic definition of what the gospel does and that v. 17 is an abbreviated proof. It is here that Calhoun makes the most of the techniques for exploiting ambiguity identified in chapter 3. He argues that Paul’s language is deliberately polyvalent and allusive so that one cannot isolate a single specific meaning for, e.g., πίστις or δικαιοσÚνη since their different possibilities are picked up and elucidated elsewhere in the letter. Chapter 6 attempts to show how the ambiguities in Paul’s definitions are re-worked in 3:1-8, 21-31 and 9:1-10:21.
The book is tightly argued at the textual level, though Calhoun avoided discussion of a number of historical questions (e.g., the educational level of the Roman audience, Paul’s contact with rhetoric) that this reviewer, for one, would have appreciated. Calhoun provides a wealth of primary source evidence in the footnotes, especially weighted towards Greek and Roman rhetoric. He brings valuable historical evidence to the table for the argument that Paul deliberately used ambiguity. Further, his critiques of form-critical explanations of Rom 1:3b-4 are very welcome and his introduction of the ‘mythological expanded epithet’ ought to be seriously considered in future discussions.