John Witherington's Scripture

Witherington presents a vast amount of knowledge and a more in depth perspective towards Scripture. In particular, with the New Testaments as he explains how Rhetoric Redux plays a key factor in how the NT authors wrote Scripture. Witherington begins to set up the context for us in the very beginning as he establishes a more in depth understanding of rhetoric redux as it transpires throughout the Ages.
According to Witherington “good evangelism and good preaching involved persuasion, not manipulation and strong-arm tactics.” To be quiet honest I’ve never looked nor thought about preaching as an “art of persuasion” let alone have a multitude of rules and forms involved in its praxis. There are three different known species of ancient rhetoric
that fall under the art of persuasion and they are as follow; forensic, deliberative, and epideictic. From my understanding these three species play pivotal parts in the revealing of scripture as it pertains to particular social settings. To much of my surprise rhetoric flows through many aspects scripture. Two of the major styles of rhetoric are Atticizing style, and Asiatic style. Gaining the understanding and insight of these two major styles as one is a bit more formal than the other providing some what of an easy way to Identify each throughout scripture. Though. I realize that is not always the case. Gaining the understanding on how deeply cultural patterns (rhetoric) affect biblical inspiration has definitely impacted the way I now view, read and perceive scripture as I continue to study Romans and other books of the Bible as well.