Catalyzing Reader-Response to the Oral Gospel: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Markan Text’s Convincing and Convicting Devices

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the gift of my family who have been a fountain of love, strength and comfort. Likewise, I extend my sincere gratitude to Gospel Outreach – Thika, for their financial support, time, and prayer over the years.

The faculty of Biblical Studies Department of Africa International University deserves mention, especially my lead supervisor, Professor Samuel M. Ngewa and the second reader Dr. Nathan N. Joshua for their guidance and encouragement. Special thanks too to Professor Peter Nyende, for his valuable challenge in my choice of topic during the seminar on Hebrews Exegesis. Thanks are also due to Dr. John F. Evans for introducing me to philosophical hermeneutics and biblical criticism without which I would have been incapacitated in handling the topic of this work. Dr. Joshua L. Harper also deserves mention for introducing me to Septuagint studies and Greek readings on the church fathers. My outstanding Greek lecturer Dr. Stephanie Black also deserves thanks. Thanks also to Professor Mark Shaw and Professor James Nkansah Ombrempong for their contributions in expanding my historical and theological horizons. Lastly but certainly not the least, I appreciate my internal examiner Professor Mumo P. Kisau and external examiner Professor Elizabeth W. Mburu for their input in enriching this little contribution to biblical studies.

To God be the glory.

Abstract

This study argues that the Markan text is a paraenesis[1] whose primary purpose was to catalyze reader-response to an oral gospel that was outside and independent of the text using Old Testament quotations, miracle stories, and the passion narrative as rhetorical devices. In 2006, Holly Heston identified a research gap in the study of the relationship between the written and oral forms. She identified the reciprocal impact oral and written forms may have on one another and the implication of this for the development of biblical traditions, as an area that has not been researched and that should not be overlooked.[2] Notwithstanding her observations, there has not been any research on this important area in the Markan study. None of the research done this far, has analyzed the parable of the sower (4:1–12) from the point of view that it was retold to mirror the rhetorical situation of Mark’s audience. The study has been conceptualized based on the supposition that Mark retold the parable of the sower and the parable of the wicked tenants (12:1–12) as portraits to mirror his audience’s rhetorical situation and its exigence of obduracy and lukewarm response towards the oral gospel. A further supposition is that Mark’s aim was to arouse abhorrence for his audience’s obduracy and lukewarm response to the oral gospel. Paradoxically, he also aimed at arousing aspiration in his audience for optimal responsiveness in faith and obedience to the demands of the gospel. However, from as early as the second century CE, when the Markan text was labelled the Gospel according to Mark, it has been understood to be the written version of the oral gospel that was being proclaimed in Mark’s milieu. This axiomatic stance has become a subjective presupposition that limits and bridles the questions that can be asked during the hermeneutical process. This presupposition has the potential to unduly skew the interpretive process. After delineating the labyrinth of the interlocutors that directly and indirectly interact within the matrix of the Markan discourse and, in particular, after analyzing the interaction between the text, audience, and oral gospel, it becomes clear that the rhetorical devices of Old Testament quotations, miracle stories, and the passion narrative were employed to catalyze audience response to the oral gospel.

Abbreviations

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Background

The literary genre, gospelness, and purpose of the Markan text have been disputed topics in Markan studies since antiquity.[1] In an excerpt quoted by Eusebius Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis (circa 110 CE), notes,

Mark, having become Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately everything he remembered, though not in order, of the things either said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, followed Peter, who adapted his teachings as needed but had no intention of giving an ordered account of the Lord’s sayings. Consequently, Mark did nothing wrong in writing down some things as he remembered them, for he made it his one concern not to omit anything that he heard or to make any false statement in them.[2]

Papias’s note, and especially his stress on Mark’s relationship with Peter, suggests that he was writing a polemical treatise in support of the Markan text whose anecdotes, he notes, are not in order. This quote also suggests that, during Papias’s time, there were concerns regarding both the reliability and chronological order (τάξις) of the episodes narrated in the text. He mitigates the text’s seeming disorder by attributing it to the apostle Peter who, he says, had narrated the episodes not according to order (οὐ μέντοι τάξει)[3] but according to need (πρός τάς χρείας).[4] This need-based purpose of the Markan text is an area that needs to be researched in an effort to reconcile the different views on the genre, gospelness, and purpose of the text.

Current research which includes analysis of the text’s purpose, genre, and disputed endings has raised more questions than answers.[5] Indeed, research on the Markan text has not yet come to a consensus on some important hermeneutical questions that have been raised.[6] As such, most of the answers to these questions are tentatively held. They await further research so that the text can speak convincingly and order the lives of its readers.

1.2 Problem Statement

The second-century designation of the texts which narrate the life and times of Jesus as the gospel by Marcion[7] and the later identification of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as the bona fide Gospels by "(Irenaeus, AH 3.1.1),[8] a position that has since been held as axiomatic, arguably presents a subjective presupposition to interpretation of these texts. It unduly limits and bridles the questions that can be asked during textual interpretation. Pre-understanding predetermines both the mode and outcome of textual analysis. It is necessary to free studies of the Markan text from the subjectivity consequent of this pre-understanding. Hermeneutists should allow pre-understanding to be reshaped by texts. Anthony Thiselton asserts, The goal of biblical hermeneutics is to bring about an active and meaningful engagement between the interpreter and the text in such a way that the interpreter’s own horizon is reshaped and enlarged."[9]

According to William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard, "Preunderstanding[10] may distort the reader’s perception of reality and function like an unconscious prejudice adversely affecting the interpreter’s ability to perceive accurately. It certainly determines how the reader will understand the task of reading the Bible.[11] Similarly, J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays argue that pre-understanding is a major influence that can skew our interpretive process and lead us away from the real meaning in the text.[12] Moreover, introducing presuppositions[13] that are strange to the author’s context distorts understanding of a text. This is highlighted by Peter Cotterell and Max Turner who note, the significance an utterance has for any hearer depends not only on the sense of what is spoken, and on the shared presupposition pool, but also on the presupposition held by the hearer that he does not share with the speaker."[14] Effectively, an interpreter’s presupposition that is outside of the shared presupposition pool becomes a blind and bridle to the interpretative process.

Current trends on Markan research are, in a fundamental way, limited and bridled by the pre-understanding that the Markan text is a gospel. This has the following implications:

1. The text is a priori construed as the content of the gospel referenced in Mark 1:1. As such, proclamation of the gospel is understood as performing the text in either reading the text to a listening audience or in enacting its episodes.

2. The text is seen to be speaking to the reader in a linear communication.

3. The Old Testament quotations, miracle stories, and the passion narratives are identified as a repository of the life and times of Jesus Christ.

On the other hand, the implications of the supposition that the gospel referenced in Mark 1:1 is outside and independent of the Markan text are these:

1. The text is seen as a rhetorical communication aimed at catalyzing reader-response to the oral gospel[15] that was outside and independent of the text.[16]

2. The supposition illuminates the presence of four important interlocutors within the matrix of the participants in the Markan discourse: the text, the audience,[17] the mimetic world of the text, and the oral gospel.

3. The Old Testament quotations, miracle stories, and the passion narratives are identified as rhetorical devices that were employed to catalyze reader-response[18] to the oral gospel.

1.3 Thesis of the Study

Generally, this study offers an analysis of the Markan text that is freed from the limitation and bridle that is occasioned by the pre-understanding that the Markan text is the gospel that is referenced in Mark 1:1. Particularly, it argues that the Markan text is a paraenesis whose purpose was to catalyze its reader’s response to an oral gospel that was outside and independent of the text using Old Testament quotations, miracle stories, parables, and the passion story as rhetorical devices.

1.4 Why Undertake the Study?

Since the development of rhetoric as a systematized handbook discipline and with its recent development into a tool for biblical interpretation (by recent rhetoricians such as James Muilenburg, George Kennedy, Wilhelm Wuellner,[19] and others), rhetoric has been largely seen as an exclusively Greco-Roman literary embellishment. As such, New Testament scholarship has not made sufficient inroads in employing insights from Hebrew rhetoric in the study of the Markan text. No wonder Kota Yamada has downplayed the existence of any rhetorical order in the Markan text. He observes that Mark’s gospel is a series of notes without rhetorical order and embellishments.[20]

Second, there has been a gap in research on the effect of the Markan text on its reader’s response to the oral gospel. This gap has been occasioned by the supposition, which is held as axiomatic, that the Markan text is actually the gospel that is referenced in Mark 1:1. This results in limiting instead of enlarging the scope of the Markan research. Similarly, no research on the Markan text has, to date, analyzed the controversy stories (particularly the parable of the sower) from the supposition that retelling them was indeed a Markan invention to mirror his audience’s rhetorical situation and that this portrait was a distinct interlocutor within the matrix of the Markan textual discourse.

The difficulty in establishing the nexus between the oral kerygma and the written text has been highlighted by I. Howard Marshall when he says, in exasperation, It is, however, notoriously difficult to proceed further than this and to find actual examples of the connection between the kerygma and the gospel tradition.[21] Commenting on the same issue, Heston identifies the reciprocal impact oral and written forms may have on one another and the implication of this for the development of biblical traditions,[22] as an area that has not been researched and that should not be overlooked. This gap in research, and specifically in the Markan text, is a call and motivation to undertake research in this fundamental area of biblical studies.

1.4.1 Contribution of the Research to Markan Studies

This work contributes and integrates insights from Hebrew rhetoric to illumine use of rhetorical devices in the Markan text. It also shows that rhetoric is not a preserve of the Greco-Roman world but a universal language embellishment. Moreover, a rhetorical investigation of the Markan text that employs rhetorical precedents from the Old Testament is more rewarding because Mark narrated episodes that had their setting within the Hebrew religious and cultural context. Furthermore, the Hebrew use of storytelling in Genesis is comparable to the storytelling in the synoptic texts.[23]

Other major contributions of this study to scholarship are a fresh identification of a contextual structuring of the Markan text, identification of the interlocutors that participate within the matrix of the Markan discourse,[24] and a relook at the function of Old Testament quotations, miracle stories, Jesus’s controversy with Jewish religious leaders, retold parables, and the passion stories. It has also contributed in (1) identifying the profile of the Markan audience and their religious context; (2) a new exegetical analysis of Mark 1:1–3 and Mark 4:12; (3) a suggested fresh designation of the book of Mark; and (4), in line with the thesis statement, a new perspective of the nature and function of the Markan text.

1.5 Hypothesis

The existence of an oral gospel prior to the written gospel texts has been noted by a host of scholars. Robert Gundry notes,

τοῦ εὐαγγελίου carries the connotation of good news as preached, not just good news as such, much less good news as written in a book . . . The non-bookish meaning of εὐαγγέλιον elsewhere in Mark and the NT further rules out a bookish connotation here (again cf. Hos. 1:2 LXX, where [the] beginning of [the] word of [the] Lord to Hosea consists in an oral word spoken long before the written report of it). The later bookish meaning (first in Marcion – see Helmut Koester in NTS 35 [1989] 361–81) will grow out of an association of the oral proclamation with the books where the proclamation was recorded.[25]

Thus, Gundry suggests that before the texts were written, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον referenced an oral gospel. However, he holds the view that the written texts are a transcription of the oral gospel. This study’s point of departure is the supposition that the gospel referenced in Mark 1:1 was an oral and ritual gospel that was outside and independent of the text and that it was circulating concurrently with the text.[26]

Gundry asks, Does τοῦ εὐαγγελίου mean ‘the good news’ as such, as preached, or written up in Mark’s gospel?[27] This work answers Gundry’s question arguing that τοῦ εὐαγγελίου references the good news as preached. As such, the Markan audience were simultaneously dialoguing with the text and the oral gospel. This supposition is programmatic for reading and interpreting the Markan text in that it suggests and directs the questions that an interpreter can ask during the interpretation process. It also has the potential to redirect the present trends of the Markan research and to redefine the editorial title of the Markan text.

The introductory phrase, Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ [υἱοῦ θεοῦ],[28] and the parable of the sower in Mark 4:1–12 are programmatic to the study of the entire Markan text. Whereas, by use of the noun Ἀρχὴ, Mark 1:1 introduces the subject of the text as the base on which the gospel about Jesus was premised, arguably the parable of the sower (4:1–12) was retold to paint a portrait of the rhetorical situation[29] of Jesus’s audience and its exigence of obduracy and lukewarm response towards the word of God. It is also arguable that Mark employed this portrait to mirror his primary audience’s rhetorical situation.

This method of painting a mirror image of the audience’s rhetorical situation, which portrays both the exigence and the expected norm, is rhetorically rewarding in that it evokes both a dislike for the audience’s exigence and at the same time an aspiration for the desired norm. In other words, the emotional energy generated by the audience’s view of their obduracy provokes them to respond positively towards the oral gospel. Mark Wegener has aptly captured the evocative power of the Markan text and notes that the evocative power of Mark’s gospel resides in the force of the metaphorical and symbolic world it creates.[30]

In her introduction to Chaim Perelman’s book, The Realm of Rhetoric, Carroll Arnold notes, "arguments are always addressed to audiences (possibly to the arguer’s self) for the purpose of inducing or increasing those audiences’ adherence to the theses presented."[31] The purpose of the Markan text was to increase Mark’s audience’s adherence to the oral gospel. James Hansen supports these sentiments in his postulation that, that is precisely what Mark’s narrative strategy attempts to do; make resistance to the ‘gospel of Jesus Christ’ difficult if not impossible.[32] Mark was also fortifying the oral gospel by showing that it was approved by God through the numerous miraculous signs that were performed by Jesus, and that it was the same gospel that Jesus had inaugurated (1:14–15) and commissioned the disciples to preach to the whole world (16:14–18).

The issue of authenticity is a question of reconciling values and opinions. Notably, the question before Mark is whether the oral gospel conformed to shared religious values and opinions. In this regard, Arnold asks, By what process do we reason about values?[33] Mark shows that the oral gospel was premised on fulfilled prophecies and promises that were part of his audience’s generally accepted opinions.[34] Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca refer to this kind of argument as argument from authority.[35] The authority being invoked in the Markan text is the voice of the Old Testament and the exalted persona of Jesus whose profile and ethos are highly pronounced by stories of his miraculous and grace deeds. This perspective informs Mark’s choice of genre, structure, rhetorical devices of Old Testament Scripture citations, and the narrated anecdotes.

The rhetorical devices embedded in the text are aimed at catalyzing reader-response to the oral gospel. The obtaining scenario is similar to what John R. Searle has described as the relationship between rules of etiquette and inter-personal relationships in his observation that many rules of etiquette regulate inter-personal relationships which exist independently of the rules.[36] Audience response towards the oral gospel[37] is catalyzed by the audience’s observation and reflection on their undesirable rhetorical situation that is portrayed through retelling the parable of the sower (4:1–9) and the parable of the wicked tenants (12:1–12).

The literary method of narrating episodes from the audience’s immediate and ancient history, to catalyze audience response to an interlocutor that is outside and independent of the text, is not original to Mark. The author of the book of Genesis narrated the episodes from his community’s immediate and ancient history to the Exodus pilgrims, to catalyze a reflection on their obduracy, which is normally referred to as being stiff necked, to the covenantal stipulations. Particularly, the purpose of the episodic narratives in the Genesis text was to urge the Israelites to keep their newly established covenant, which they had already breached in making and worshipping the golden calf (Exod 32:1–6).[38] This supposition agrees with the assertion by Gordon Fees and Douglas Stuart that, Narratives are stories – purposeful stories retelling the historical events of the past that are intended to give meaning and direction for a given people in the present.[39]

Narrating stories from Israel’s pre-history, especially on the consequences of their forbearers’ responses to the respective covenants that they had entered with God, acted as echoes that mirrored the exigencies in the rhetorical situation of Moses’s audience. According to Lloyd F. Bitzer, some rhetorical situations persist over time and have resulted in a body of truly rhetorical literature.[40] As such, the Genesis stories acted as mimetic portraits of the reward of obedience and the wages of disobedience in which Moses’s audience could mirror their own response to their newly established covenant and consequently abhor and turn away from their extant disobedience. The affective value of these echoes and portraits was in their efficacy to catalyze audience adherence to the stipulations of the covenant.

A study of the obedience and disobedience cycles in the wilderness wanderings, the book of Judges, historical books from 1 Samuel to 2 Chronicles, the Prophets, and the reformation cycles in church history shows that the rhetorical situations that are defined by a people’s response to the word of God are a cyclical phenomenon. As such, a rhetorical communication that is aimed at eliminating an exigence in one epoch can be applied directly to future epochs. In line with Mark’s literary and social background, he formulated a text that conformed with his Hebraic scriptural heritage. As such, the Markan text is Scripture per excellence. It addresses its primary audience albeit with an eye on the future generation of believers in similar rhetorical situations. In such circumstances, future readers of the text can apply the text as a mimetic exemplifier[41] and as a direct rhetorical communication that is aimed at eliminating the exigence in their specific and sometimes similar rhetorical situation.

1.6 Outline of the Study

Chapter 1 establishes the background and identifies the problem statement, the thesis of the study and the main hypothesis. Further, it presents an eclectic hermeneutical method comprising of rhetorical criticism as the major and most value laden hermeneutical method for interpreting a text with rhetorical features such as are in the Markan text. Complimentarily, speech act theory, discourse analysis and historical grammatical criticism have also been incorporated to deal with specific topics. Specifically, the text has been identified as having been written in conformity with Hebrew rhetorical convention as opposed to Greco-Roman rhetoric.

Chapter 2 has investigated the gospelness of the Markan text. Primarily the study has used the diachronic approach. However, a synchronic approach has also been used. Particularly, the diachronic approach has been employed to examine the transmission history of the term εὐαγγέλιον. According to Gerd Theissen, diachronic approach analyzes texts as the product of developments in the process of tradition.[42] Particularly, this study illuminates the changes of the referent of the word εὐαγγέλιον from Jesus’s milieu to the patristic milieu. The aim is to ascertain the most probable referent of the word εὐαγγέλιον in Mark 1:1 and to ward off any possibility of anachronistic reading of later-day referents of the term εὐαγγέλιον into Mark’s milieu. Grant R. Osborne advises, We must interpret a theological term not on the basis of what it came to mean later but rather on the basis of what it meant in the past.[43]

Chapter 3 surveys the context in which the Markan text was written. Of particular note is the consideration that the Christ event was an important context in which the Markan stories are set. The overarching religious worldview in which the text was written is that the prophetically anticipated καιρὸς (time) when the kingdom of God would be ushered into the world had already been fulfilled (1:15). As such, the Christ event was understood as a fulfilment of God’s promises in Scripture which had become the eschatological hope of Israel. Consequently, stories on episodes within the Christ event are endowed with rhetorical value to authenticate and enhance the belief value of the oral gospel which is premised on the salvific episodes within the Christ event.

Chapter 4 discusses the nature and function of the interlocutors in the matrix of the discourse that is mediated by the Markan text. This discussion is the bedrock on which the work rests. It defines the Markan text and disentangles the labyrinth of the interlocutors therein. It also identifies stories of Jesus’s controversy with the Jewish religious leaders and the retold parables as important rhetorical devices in the Markan discourse. The crux of this study is in identifying the interlocutors that dialogue within the matrix of the discourse. It goes further to identify the nature and function of the interlocutor relationships in the discourse. The aim is to establish the connection between the text’s rhetorical devices and reader-response to the oral gospel.

Chapter 5 argues out the supposition that the Old Testament citations in Mark 1:2–3 were used to show that Jesus was indeed the Christ. They are rhetorical devices that Mark used to convince his audience that the oral gospel was founded on the community’s inherited faith and as such, it was worthy to be believed. Second, the analysis shows that the parable of the sower was a portrait of the rhetorical situation of Jesus’s audience that Mark retold to mirror the rhetorical situation of his own audience and its exigence of obduracy and lukewarm response towards the oral gospel. Third, it unearths the underlying thought, ideology, and theology that influenced and directed the author in writing the text. In effect, it narrows the interpretative range to the most probable meaning and purpose of the stories, themes, and motifs that emerge in the text.

Chapter 6 argues the supposition that miracle stories are rhetorical devices which Mark used to convince his audience that the oral gospel was approved by God through performance of miracles that he, as the only source of numinous power, did through Jesus. It also argues that clustering the miracle anecdotes in one section of the text was deliberate and was aimed at intensifying the awe in the person of Jesus in order to evoke faith in the oral gospel that was premised on his work on the cross. It further argues that just as parallelism works to emphasize the issue under discussion, so also does clustering similar episodes in one section of the text. Overall, it is proposes that miracle stories are rhetorical devices that were used to awe the audience to the point of asking what manner of man is this? (4:41 KJV). This rhetorical question, in an indirect but powerful way, calls upon the audience to recognize both Jesus’s divinity and divine commission. Consequently, this recognition evokes faith and an aspiration to respond towards the oral gospel.

Chapter 7 analyzes the passion narrative to show that the story and the subsequent resurrection were narrated for the purpose of connecting Jesus Christ and his death to the Old Testament promises. It also shows that Mark connected the passion story to Jesus’s interpretation of his death by foreboding it in the inaugural words of the Lord’s Supper. In effect, this connection was effective in changing the audience’s view of Jesus’s death from a mere human death to a sacrificial, propitiatory, and vicarious death. As such, the passion story functioned as a rhetorical device to convince the readers that the gospel was functionally salvific.

Finally, an apt conclusion has been appended to wrap up the entire work and to show that indeed the Markan text is a paraenesis and that it was meant to catalyze reader-response to the oral gospel that he and his contemporaries, who may have included the apostle Peter, were proclaiming.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

The work has deliberately avoided labelling the Markan text a gospel because of the hermeneutical presupposition consequent of such labelling. Other scholars have also noted the existence of an oral gospel before, during and after the writing of the New Testament texts and that it existed and functioned parallel to the written texts.[44] Though its ontology has been acknowledged, its relationship with the written text and the audience has not been adequately studied. As such, this study is not a novelty but builds upon what other scholars have affirmed.

Finally, the conflation of Mark the book, Mark the author, and Mark as the gospel can cause confusion. As such, the study has limited the use of Mark and its respective pronouns to Mark the author while the book has been designated the Markan text. This delineation brings more clarity in describing the different aspects of the text.

1.8 Delimitations

Whereas the Markan text contains more quotations and allusions of the Old Testament, this study has limited itself to explicit Old Testament quotations in Mark 1:2–3 and 4:12, which have a bearing in lighting up the thesis. Similarly, it has limited its discussion on miracle stories in the first half of the book, that is, up to Mark 8:26. It is expected that an analysis of this section will give a complete view of the nature and function of Old Testament quotations, miracle stories, and Jesus’s controversies with the Jewish leaders. The passion narrative, which is in the second half of the text, has been analyzed to show that it has been employed as a rhetorical device to catalyze reader-response to the oral gospel that was majorly premised on an interpretation of the passion episode. As such, the study has captured an overall view of the entire text.

1.9 Methodology

This section fronts and discusses rhetorical criticism as the major method of choice in explicating the Markan text. It has however been complimented with insights from other criticism methods especially speech act theory in chapter 6, discourse analysis in chapter 4 and historical grammatical criticism in chapter 5. In particular, the section has surveyed the nature and use of rhetoric and rhetorical criticism in explicating literary works. This method is not an innovation of this researcher but a biblical criticism method that has since been developed and adopted in biblical studies.

The aim of biblical texts is not just to inform, it is also to convince, convict and transform the readers. Thus, Scripture’s aim is both informative and transformative. Scripture interpretation is often biased towards analyzing the informative aspect of communication. In other words, it answers the question; what are the referents of the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations that constitute the text? Grant R. Osborne posits that The former is linear and defines a word’s relationship with the other terms that surround it in the speech act . . . A paradigmatic relation is vertical or associative, noting other terms that could replace it, such as words that are synonymous.[45] However, language is not just descriptive of the world in which it functions; it is also a medium of expressing and sharing the inner longings, attitudes, pains, and joys that are part of being human.

Language is therefore a medium of describing and communicating both the cognitive and affective aspects of the world and the inner human motions. Thus, it is both ideological and pathological. Socially and religiously, language also describes and communicates the desirable and undesirable states of affairs and urges abhorrence of the undesirable and aspiration to achieve the desirable. Perelman has described this state of affairs in his supposition that, When we are dealing with theses presented in an argumentative discourse, these theses aim at times at bringing about a purely intellectual result – a disposition to admit their truth – and at other times at provoking an immediate or eventual action.[46] These provocative effects of speech are referred to by Kevin Vanhoozer as the ulterior effects[47] of speech, and are grounded in the purview of the speech’s illocutionary acts.

The current hermeneutical trends in biblical research have not adequately explored these ulterior effects of speech. Such an understanding would benefit readers by illuminating the informative and transformative aspects of biblical communication. It is often thought that exploring questions that probe the effect of the text upon the readers may be overly subjective. This assumption overlooks the fact that