Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Publication Source

Biblical Research

Abstract

Much of the history of scholarship on “hell” has been devoted to tracing genetic relationships between older texts and more recent ones, typically based upon generic elements or the specific features of hell’s landscape. This paper suggests a new direction for classics and New Testament study, focusing instead on the rhetorical function of hell in antiquity. This paper argues that the ancient conventions of descriptive rhetoric were at work in the depictions of Hell that we find in the Jewish and early Christian apocalypses. It begins with a definition of these rhetorical devices by examining the Progymnasmata as well as Quintillian’s work on rhetoric and discusses the role of the rhetoric of description in the overall Greek and Roman programs of paideia. Next, this paper demonstrates that these rhetorical devices were at work in various ancient depictions of Hades (with examples chosen from Greek and Latin authors such as Homer, Plato, Virgil, Lucian and Plutarch). Finally, this paper shows that this rhetorical technique was also at work in the early Christian apocalypses and concludes that apocalyptic authors, like the Greeks and Romans before them, used these rhetorical techniques to “emotionally move” their audiences toward “right behavior.”

ISBN/ISSN

0067-6535

Document Version

Postprint

Comments

The item available for download is the author's accepted manuscript. The version of record may contain minor differences that have come about in the copy editing and layout processes. For the version of record, visit an academic library or go online.

Permission documentation is on file.

Publisher

American Theological Library Association

Volume

58

Peer Reviewed

yes

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