Literary Studies in Luke-Acts: Essays in Honor of Joseph B. Tyson, pp. 191-214
Luke 11:1-13 presents an abbreviated version of the Lord's prayer followed by nine verses that elaborate parts of the prayer.1 Among the notable rhetorical features in this text is a series of rationales (beginning with "for," "because," or "since"), including one in the Lord's Prayer itself. This invites a special way to analyze this passage.2 Rationales in discourse create enthymemes. An enthymeme is an assertion that is expressible as a syllogism.3 A special characteristic of an enthymeme is to leave a premise or conclusion unexpressed, with a pre-[]sumption that the premise or conclusion is obvious from the overall context. Enthymemic discourse, then, is discourse that presumes a context to fill out its meanings. The question then becomes the context a particular enthymeme evokes. Every text somehow enacts the social, cultural, and ideological context in which it was written. A reader who stands outside that context uses that enacted context as a medium for another context. Readers, from their own context, may be preoccupied with looking back on the context in which the work was written, may intentionally intertwine looking back with looking forward to another context, or may simply use the context embedded in the discourse as a medium for a new context.
Literary works vary in the manner in which they present enthymemes in their discourse. A literary work may articulate premises somewhere in the work that are exactly or approximately equivalent to the unexpressed premises evoked by enthymemes in another location. This kind of work creates an enthymemic network in the text that may invite readers to turn most of their attention toward negotiating the reasoning in the works' inner content rather than negotiating the reasoning in relation to social, cultural, and ideological contexts outside the work. In contrast, a literary work may not articulate unexpressed premises or conclusions for its enthymemes. This kind of text invites the reader into a process of evoking contexts of various kinds outside the work to understand these enthymemes.
A major thesis in this essay is that the Gospel of Luke interweaves enthymemic networks in the text with social, cultural, ideological, and theological enthymemes that evoke contexts outside the work. In some instances, unexpressed premises or conclusions for enthymemes are expressed elsewhere in the work and create an explicit enthymemic network in the text. In the same portion of text, however, the premises or conclusions missing from the enthymemes may reside in social, cultural, ideological, and theological environments outside the text. These enthymemes create a conventional context that provides a matrix for depicting conventional, ideological, and/or idiosyncratic thought and behavior. Conventional behavior enacts the inductive and deductive logic of generally accepted social, cultural, ideological, and theological reasoning. Ideological behavior participates in presuppositions, dispositions, and values that reflect "the needs and interests of a group or class [] at a particular time in history."4 Idiosyncratic behavior counters conventional actions and thought, creating an especially dynamic context for new meanings and meaning effects.
In the context of social, cultural, ideological, and theological enthymemes, abductive reasoning may redirect and reconfigure inductive and deductive reasoning. Abductive reasoning is a procedure of discovery that works off of suggestion rather than formal logic.5 Early Christians used generally presupposed premises as a fertile environment for flashes of insight � "suggestions" or "hypotheses" for life � that introduce new social, cultural, ideological, and theological reasoning. Commitment to this reasoning provided a distinctive identity for early Christians. Sometimes they intertwined conventional premises and conclusions in an unconventional manner to explain their way of life; they placed special value on this reasoning which they shared in common with one another. At other times they intertwined new insights with conventional premises or conclusions. Both procedures were a matter of bottling and aging new wine while still enjoying the old, as well as creating a new wardrobe without destroying all of the old garments. The Gospel of Luke exhibits both kinds of interweaving in the "kingdom wisdom" it presented in 11:1-13. Unusual interweaving of conventional premises and conclusions as well as new insights in the presence of conventional insights create new social, cultural, ideological, and theological patterns. This essay describes both processes at work in the discursive progression in Luke 11:1-13.
I. Chreia and Enthymeme in Luke 11:1-4
Luke 11:1 presents a span of time in which Jesus prays, then a disciple, speaking for all the disciples, asks Jesus to teach them how to pray. When Jesus responds by speaking to all the disciples (11:2-4), the beginning of this unit exhibits conventional features of a "responsive" (apo-[]kritikon) chreia.6 An intriguing part of the disciple's statement is his comparison of Jesus with John the Baptist who, according to this disciple, taught his disciples to pray (11:1; cf. 5:33). However, no extant text reveals any prayer attributed to John the Baptist.7 Comparison is a standard rhetorical feature of biographical literature in antiquity,8 and one feature of Lukan discourse is to highlight the character of Jesus through comparison with John the Baptist.9 An additional feature in the opening sentence is the unnamed disciple's address of Jesus as kyrie (lord or master). This mode of address is an implicit act of praising Jesus, which also is present in the preceding episode, both in the narration (10:39, 41) and in the speech of Martha (10:40) as she provides hospitality for him in her home. Thus, Luke 11:1 communicates a high esteem for Jesus that it exhibits an intriguing relation to the first step in the elaboration of a chreia. Hermogenes asserts that an elaboration should begin with "encomium in a few words for the one who spoke or acted."10 Luke 11:1-13 begins with honorific address to Jesus and comparison that evokes a tone of authority for Jesus' speech.
Jesus responds to the disciple by reciting the Lord's Prayer in abbreviated form. An ability to expand and abbreviate traditional stories and sayings with respectable grammatical and syntactical skill is fundamental to progymnastic rhetorical composition, which is the mode of writing the Gospel of Luke exhibits.11 Luke may have found this abbreviated version in "Q,"12 but, if he did not, he has abbreviated the prayer for this con-[]text.13 In its abbreviated form, the Lord's Prayer contains an address ("Father"), two petitions of praise, and three petitions for communal benefaction:14
The opening address introduces the image of God as Father, the two petitions of praise request that God manifest his holiness and enact his power with his rule, and the three petitions for communal benefaction ask that God provide daily bread and forgiveness, and not lead people into testing.
The second petition for communal benefaction in Lord's Prayer differs from the other two petitions by containing a rationale. In its current discursive context in Luke, this is a cultural enthymeme. This means that the enthymeme expresses a point of view held by people who were born or educated into this particular tradition, rather than by people who accepted the belief and practice that shaped society generally. The enthymeme is a petition by a specific community of people for a benefit from God. Only in this instance does a petition in the prayer give a [] reason why God should grant the request,16 and the reason is because the people who pray the prayer also forgive everyone indebted to them. This petition participates in an enthymemic network of reasoning related to "Forgive, and you will be forgiven" in Luke 6:37-38:
One result in the enthymemic reasoning in 6:37-38 is that forgiving is an action related to judging, condemning, and giving. In the context of early Christian discourse, the passive voice in the second part presupposes that God is the one who forgives the person who has forgiven someone else.17 The manner in which a person judges, condemns, forgives, and gives relates directly to the manner in which God judges, condemns, forgives, and gives to this person. In other words, these actions are part of the "sacred texture"18 in which human actions are intricately interconnected with divine actions. There is not space here to pursue all the topics in this network. Let us notice, however, that the statement about giving bridges back to the statement in the Lord's Prayer where petitioners pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." As the statement bridges back, it would be natural for an implication to be evoked con-[]cerning giving that would replicate the reasoning concerning forgiving.19 In other words, it would be natural to reason: "Give us this day our daily bread, because we give bread to others who need it." We will see some of the implications of this in the section below.
When Luke 11:4 is placed in the enthymemic network that includes Luke 6:37-38 there is a problem in the syllogistic logic. If the reasoning in relation to the rule "Forgive, and you will be forgiven" were strictly inductive-deductive, it would be as follows.20
The statement in the Lord's Prayer is "Forgive us our sins," not "God will forgive us." Therefore, something has changed. According to modern analysis, this change is a result of abduction. Despite the rule, "Forgive, and you will be forgiven," the formulator of the enthymeme in Luke 11:4 experienced God as a being who does not grant forgiveness simply on the basis of forgiving the indebtedness of another person. The experience of the speaker overrides the inductive-deductive reasoning and produces an alternative result. Richard L. Lanigan describes reasoning like this as rhetorical rather than descriptive or dialectic.21 Its logic concerns particular individuals and groups of people and is characteristic of the "cultural psychology of a rhetor."22 Rather than staying within an inductive-deduc-[]tive cycle, "particular" reasoning uses abductive reasoning as an assistant to imagine transcendent realities that can never be seen or deduced. The reasoning in the petition in 11:4 reaches beyond the inductive-deductive reasoning to grasp the transcendent reality of God and God's forgiveness. When this happens, the reasoning adds the necessity to "ask" God and it inverts the "case" and the "result" in the deductive reasoning:23
The statement "Forgive, and you will be forgiven" could function as a statement about human relationships, where one person forgives another, if there were no language about God in the context. The presence of language about God, however, creates a consciousness of the nature of God and God's forgiveness. In turn, this creates an awareness that our ability to forgive is in fact defective in relation to God's ability. This "discovery" produces an inversion of the deductive reasoning so that our asking of God to forgive us creates the "case" whereby we "forgive others." In technical terms, in abductive reasoning the result of the deductive reasoning (a petition to God to forgive us our sins) becomes the because-motive (abductive "result") that produces the case (we forgive every one indebted to us).24
An underlying reason why people must ask God for forgiveness probably is that Father God (11:2) is a patron whom one must approach in "lowliness" if one is to receive from him. Thus, the abductive [] reasoning is related to well-known cultural reasoning. Bruce J. Malina, John H. Elliott, and others propose that the meanings of God the Father emerge primarily from the social system of patronage and clientage in Mediterranean society.25 It is God's natural role to enter into patron-client contracts whereby he provides benefactions for various kinds of services his clients render to him. But a client must approach this patron in "lowliness" in order to receive the benefactions. A major stimulus for reconfiguring "God will forgive us our sins" into the petition "Forgive us our sins," then, appears to be the presence of the principle, "those who lower themselves will be exalted." This reasoning occurs inductively in Luke 18:13-14.
Inductive reasoning that the tax collector's action brings forgiveness (justification) evokes the principle that God exalts those who lower themselves. The principle that "those who lower themselves are exalted" has widespread currency in Mediterranean culture.26 Thus, deductive application of this principle is readily available for use by any group within its environs. In Lukan reasoning, the principle by which the tax collector received the benefit of forgiveness can be expressed in these terms: Do not expect forgiveness on the basis of anything good you might have done, but "lower yourself," asking God for forgiveness simply on the basis of his mercy.
Once we have seen the enthymemic network concerning forgiveness that interconnects Luke 11:4, 6:37-38, and 18:13-14, we are in a position to go to another location in the Lukan text. Luke 23:24 depicts Jesus saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing."27 []
This statement itself is enthymemic, evoking a premise about God forgiving people who do not know what they are doing.
For our purposes here, it is instructive to observe that Jesus' statement has a relation to the "case" in the cycle of enthymemic reasoning established by 11:4 ("We forgive every one indebted to us..."). Since Jesus' action in 23:34 exhibits an enactment (an example or paradigm) of a generalized form of the principle, it can be helpful to display the reasoning in an inductive (case + result = rule) rather than deductive syllogism.28
Jesus' statement in 23:24 appears to be an act of forgiving those who have beaten, humiliated, and crucified him.29 What Jesus actually does, however, is petition God to forgive them. Adopting the mode he instructs his followers to adopt in 11:2-4, he addresses God as Father and petitions God to forgive those who have wronged him. In other words, Jesus does not personally forgive them and then petition God to forgive him because he has forgiven them. The presupposition is that those who have abused and crucified Jesus need God's forgiveness, not simply Jesus' forgiveness.30 Indeed, the formulators of this discourse may presuppose that Jesus does not need forgiveness, either because he never committed a sin or because, if he did, he petitioned God for forgiveness and God granted it. Jesus' petition to God to forgive those who have wronged him moves beyond the principle he articulates in the Lord's Prayer to the principle of "praying for those who abuse you" (6:28), which in turn is an enactment of "loving your enemies" (6:35). Both praying for those who abuse you and loving your enemies occur in an enthymemic context that grounds the actions in belief that God "is kind to the ungrateful and to the selfish" (6:35).
The enthymeme about forgiveness in the Lord's Prayer, then, is part of an enthymemic network of reasoning in Luke about forgiving others and about petitioning God to forgive oneself and others. These topics are important enough in the social, cultural, and ideological environment of the Gospel of Luke to be expressed in enthymemic form. Assertions about these topics rarely stand unsupported. Rather, rationales accompany the assertions. The rationales create enthymemic reasoning, and this reasoning both interconnects statements in different locations in the work and introduces new topics that branch out to other related topics of importance.
II. Ideological Subversion of a Social Enthymeme in Luke 11:5-8
After Jesus recites the Lord's Prayer to his disciples, he asks the disciples a lengthy and complex rhetorical question beginning with "which one of you...?" and anticipating the answer "no one" (Luke 11:5-7).31 A [] rhetorical question makes an assertion, and this question asserts that no one has a friend who will refuse to get up and give three loaves to him when he needs bread for another friend who has come on a journey-- even if the request for bread is made at midnight when the person being requested is sleeping comfortably in bed with his family.
These assertions evoke two syllogisms, one in which conventions of hospitality and friendship intertwine, and another that focuses more directly on friendship.
These syllogisms exhibit social reasoning: principles that all people in the Mediterranean world, whatever their specific cultural tradition, know. The reasoning concerns both hospitality and friendship. On the one hand, the arrival of the traveling friend enacts conventions of hospitality that overlap with friendship. There are many nuances to hospitality conventions,32 including the nuance that a host invites a guest into his home and attends to the needs of that guest for food and rest, even if the guest arrives at an inconvenient time. In addition, friends offer hospitality to one another. These conventions explain why, according to Plutarch, having too many friends can be a problem (Plutarch, On Having Many Friends 95C).33 Both as a friend and as one who knows the conventions of hospitality, the host-friend welcomes the traveling-friend into his home and does what is necessary to meet his needs. On the other hand, the host-friend's need to give bread to his guest-friend enacts additional [] conventions of friendship. It was a cultural assumption in Mediterranean antiquity that "friends own everything in common."34 When the host-friend goes to his sleeping-friend, the sleeping-friend is obligated to give the host-friend the bread he needs for his guest-friend. At this point, the result of the reasoning about hospitality becomes the case in the reasoning about friendship. The intersection of the reasoning creates a double-column of reasoning in the story that intersects where the host-friend asks his sleeping-friend for bread.
The argument in Luke 11:5-7 introduces an analogy between the acts of hospitality within friendship and the acts of Father God to humans. The argument is similar to Hermogenes' introduction of farmers' toil over the land and the crops as an analogy for teachers' education of their students. These verses, then, have an intriguing relation to the fifth step in Hermogenean elaboration: argument from analogy.35 Their basic function is the assertion that just as no one has a friend who will refuse to give something needed, even under extreme circumstances, so no one has a heavenly Father who will refuse one's requests, even under extreme circumstances. Thus, verses 5-7 present what host-friends do as an analogy to what God the Father does.36
Luke 11:8 appends a rationale in the form of an objection37 to the argument from analogy in Luke 11:5-7. Since verse 7 uses the verb didomi (give) once, verse 8 uses it twice, and the subject is asking, giving, and receiving bread, the argument from analogy and the objection clearly elaborate the first petition for communal benefaction in the Lordis Prayer (11:3: "Give us this day our daily bread."). The analogy intertwines hospitality with friendship, but the objection delimits the focus to an issue of friendship: "Why does one friend, when asked, give bread to another friend, even when it is a severe imposition?" Social convention would suggest the rationale: "Because the one asked is a friend of the one who asks." Jesus' statement subverts customary social reasoning by emphatically replacing this rationale with: "Because of his shamelessness" (anaideia). Thus Jesus' statement presents an ideological recon-[]figuration of conventional social reasoning. The emphatic manner in which the objection is introduced ("I tell you") evokes an authority for the saying that approximates the phenomenon Hermogenes describes as an authoritative judgment (krisis).38 In addition, the strong objection in the saying produces an argument from the contrary, the fourth step in Hermogenean elaboration:39 One friend gives bread to another friend when it is a severe imposition not because he is a friend but because of his shamelessness (anaideia).
A problem arises, however, because one can dispute whether the shamelessness is an attribute of the sleeping-friend or the host-friend. The "his" (autou) may refer to either person.40 One aspect of the problem has been the mistranslation of anaideia as "importunity" or "persistence." This mistranslation results from imposing the persistence of the widow in Luke 18:1-8 onto the analogy and objection in 11:5-8. Recent investigations have shown that the meaning of anaideia is "shamelessness,"41 but whether the autou in verse 8 refers to the sleeping friend's or the host-friend's shamelessness is still disputed. Bernard Brandon Scott, in a context of interpretation well-informed about the meaning of shamelessness, concludes that the shamelessness is an attribute of the sleeping-friend. This conclusion is the result of a misconstrual of verses 5-7 as a "how much more" argument,42 a rhetorical misunderstanding of these verses that is widespread among interpreters. While the common topic of "the more and the less" (Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.23.4) emerges in the conclusion in (v. 13), this common topic is not present in the earlier stages of the elaboration in (vv. 5-8). Rather, as stated above, verses 5-7 present an argument from analogy and verse 8 replaces [] the conventional social rationale for the action with an ideological rationale by using the common topic of the contrary or opposite (Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.23.1). The sleeping-friend gives bread "not" because of friendship but because of the petitioner's shamelessness. The rhetorical question asserts that a person should address God with a feeling of assurance that Father God, like a friend, will respond to a person's petitions. The objection replaces the conventional social rationale for the action with an ideological rationale based on the shamelessness of the one who asks.
Social conventions are known by all, but idiosyncratic ways of understanding may generate a particular ideology. When looked at from a social perspective, the important thing is that one friend be willing to for another friend's need. If one does not, the person is not a friend. But one's understanding of the reasons why one person gives to another can be ideological-- grounded in a point of view held only by a particular group of people. The understanding in this objection does not appear to be basic social or cultural knowledge in the Mediterranean world. In other words, no clear statement in Jewish or Greco-Roman literature declares that friends give to other friends because they shamelessly ask each other for things. Friends unhesitatingly ask each other for things, but people do not perceive this request as a shameless activity. Since friends return favors, their requests are not shameless; beggars, in contrast, are shameless because they look on another's table and beg with no plan or ability to return the favor (Sir 40:28-30). Thus, verse 8 articulates a particular deductive ideology about petitioning.
The key to the ideological reasoning appears to be the willingness of the host-friend to adopt a social role of being shameless on behalf of another person's need. As we have seen above, the petition in the Lord's Prayer for one's own forgiveness raises the issue of the petitioner's relation to other people who need forgiveness. The enthymemic network about forgiveness not only includes directives to forgive others and to pray for those who abuse you, but it also includes a portrayal of Jesus' petitioning of God to forgive people who are abusing him. One sees, then, an ideo-[]logical texture in the discourse whereby one's relation to God is implicated in one's relation to the needs of other people. The objection in verse 8 extends this ideological texture through an interruption of conventional social reasoning. The host-friend receives the bread from his sleeping-friend because he has been willing to be shameless by request on behalf of his guest-friend's needs. On the one hand, this shamelessness is akin to the boldness (parresia) of a Cynic. On the other hand, there is an ideological shift of conventional cynic reasoning as well as conventional social reasoning when the person acts boldly on behalf of another person rather than simply for oneself. The host-friend is, indeed, maintaining his honor as he petitions his friend for the bread. But the ideological twist is that he maintains his honor in the context of an unconventional understanding of why the bread was given.
It will be important in future studies to pursue the ideological texture of shamelessness throughout Luke. While the word itself occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, the social mode of shamelessness certainly appears in the parable of the dishonest steward and its subsequent commentary (Luke 16:1-9) and may be an aspect of the woman's action in Luke 7:36-50. Several other sayings and episodes appear to participate in an ideology of shamelessness in this Gospel.
Thus, Luke 11:5-8 embodies a combination of argument from analogy and from the contrary (objection). The argument from analogy (vv. 5-7) plus the objection (v. 8) address the topic of petitioning bread for others who need it, elaborating the first petition for communal benefaction, which on its own simply asks for daily bread for oneself. The first step in the elaboration introduces conventional social reasoning about hospitality and friendship as an analogy for the relation of petitioners to God the Father. The second step introduces ideological social reasoning that emphasizes the need for petitioners to petition shamelessly on behalf of the needs of others.
III. A Cultural Enthymeme as a Rationale for the Lord's Prayer in Luke 11:9-10
The argument from analogy and the objection in Luke 11:5-8 set up the enthymemic sentence43 in verses 9-10. These verses provide a rationale (Hermogenean step 3) for all the petitions in the Lordss Prayer. It is [] notable that Lukan discourse sets forth both the objection (v. 8) and the rationale (vv. 9-10) as authoritative judgments. There is no appeal to Scripture for authoritative judgment, precedent, or example throughout this elaboration. Rather, this portion of Luke, like a number of other portions of kingdom wisdom in the New Testament, uses only other sayings of Jesus as authoritative judgments to elaborate the pronouncement that stands at the beginning of the elaboration. Verses 9-10 expand the vocabulary of giving with the topics of asking and giving and receiving of seeking and finding, and of knocking and opening as they provide a rationale for praying in the manner that Jesus instructs in the opening verses. One of the most noticeable results of this configuration of topics is the association of asking, giving, and receiving with seeking. The presence of the seeking reveals an enthymemic network of reasoning that interrelates Luke 11:1-13 with Luke 12:30-32.
The enthymemic sentence in Luke 11:9-10 contains the rule and result of its reasoning. The unexpressed case of the reasoning is located in Luke 12:32. That which a person asks for, seeks, and knocks upon to have opened is "the Father's kingdom." Thus, the unexpressed phrase throughout 11:9 is "the Father's kingdom," which people receive, find, and have opened to them. The enthymemic construction in Luke 12:31-32 contains the case, rather than the rule, and the result of its reasoning. The result clarifies that one aspect of the benefactions of the kingdom is the needs of the body-- food, drink, and clothes. The case expressed in 12:32 clarifies why simply asking, seeking, and knocking will be successful: "It is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" [if one only asks for it, seeks it, and knocks for it to be opened].
The case (minor premise) of the reasoning in these enthymemes is a Christian reconfiguration of widespread wisdom in Hellenistic culture. It is widely recognized that gods like to give benefits to humans. Thus it not only exists as an assertion but as a premise for enthymemic [] reasoning. The following enthymeme appears in Plutarch, How to Tell a Flatterer (63F).
In this instance, the topic is the secrecy of the work of the gods. Christian discourse configures the rule in terms of God as Father giving his kingdom to people. Luke 11:9-10 reasons from this rule to a conclusion that people must engage in earnest and extended action to receive the Father's kingdom. Luke 12:31-32, in contrast, clarifies that one aspect of the benefits of God's gracious activity is the needs of the body-- food, drink, and clothing.
The reasoning in Luke 11:9-10 presents a rationale for the entire act of praying the Lord's Prayer. One is to address God as Father, because one hopes to receive the Father's kingdom. One addresses the Father's name as holy, because as a divine he is able to confer extraordinary benefits on humans. One petitions God's kingdom to come, because asking God for his kingdom is one of the conditions for receiving it. One petitions for daily bread, because one benefit God's kingdom brings is food, drink, and clothing for the body. One petitions for forgiveness, because the benefits of God's kingdom reach beyond bodily needs to the removal of one's sins. One petitions not to be led into testing where one may seek the kingdom and authority of the devil rather than the kingdom and authority of God (cf. 4:1-13). The rationale in Luke 11:9-10 explains that a condition for receiving these benefits is to ask, seek, and knock for God's kingdom and its benefits. These two verses, then, present the rationale for a Lord's Prayer dominated by petitions.
The enthymemic rationale in Luke 11:9-10, then, is built on deductive reasoning related to widespread cultural reasoning about gods in Mediterranean culture. The gods take pleasure in being gracious and giving benefits. The gods have the power to do beneficial things, and they delight in using this power. Lukan discourse configures this Mediterranean reasoning in terms of God as king whose kingdom brings basic benefits of bodily needs as well as forgiveness and protection from testing. Lukan discourse asserts that people must actively seek and petition God for the benefits of his kingdom. The implication is that God's [] people cannot be inactive and receive all the benefits. Rather, they must ask, seek, and knock to have the benefits come to them. When a person undertakes these actions, however, it is God's pleasure to give the benefits of God's kingdom.
While the passage of Luke 11:5-8 elaborates the petition for the Father to give daily bread (v. 3) through an argument from analogy, verses 9-10 provide the rationale for praying the entire prayer. The unexpressed premise in the enthymemic sentence in 11:9-10 exists in 12:32, clarifying that the petitioner is asking, seeking, and knocking for the Father's kingdom. The enthymemic network of reasoning that links 12:31-32 with 11:9-10 confirms that one benefit of the Father's kingdom is basic provisions for the body. There are, however, other benefits as well; an explanation of this leads us into the next steps in the elaboration.
IV. A Social-Cultural Enthymeme as a Theological Conclusion in Luke 11:13
After the rationale, two arguments from comparison emerge in the form of rhetorical questions in Luke 11-12. The verses begin like verses 5-7 and, like them, expect the answer "no one." The difference is that the subject of the questions in verses 11-12 is "fathers" rather than "friends." Verse 8 suggests that friends sometimes do not act out of friendship but out of shamelessness. Therefore, relationships between friends function as an analogy but not a direct comparison to the relationship between God and humans. Verses 11-12 appeal to earthly fathers in comparison with a heavenly Father.
Luke 11:13 is a conclusion to the unit in the form of an if-(then) statement that uses the common topic of "the more and the less" (Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.23.4). Perpetuating the address to "you," which plays a prominent role throughout the elaboration, this verse gathers together the topics of asking and giving in a context where it refers to God as "heavenly Father" and compares God's giving with that of earthly fathers. This comparison produces the following syllogism.
The result in this syllogism leaps beyond the reasoning in the premises. If the reasoning remained within the boundaries of an inductive-deductive [] cycle, the conclusion would be that the heavenly Father gives "better gifts" to those who ask him. Instead, the enthymeme uses abductive reasoning which makes constructions that "sometimes succeed in binding us to the underlying reality they imagine by giving us an intellectual tool-- a metaphor, a premise, an analogy, a category-- with which to live, to arrange our experience, and to interpret our experiences so arranged."44 As humans use abductive reasoning to create intellectual tools, they create openings that reach out beyond inductive-deductive circles of reasoning. In other words, humans remain inventive and creative as they organize and interpret their experiences. Abductive reasoning is
The reasoning in the conclusion in Luke 11:13, then, reveals another use of "abductive" reasoning to assist inductive-deductive reasoning. As the abductive reasoning leaps beyond inductive-deductive reasoning, it invites elaborative reasoning. We can see this reasoning if we display in three columns how the reasoning reaches out into a Lukan enthymemic network about giving.
The result of deductive reasoning simply would be that God gives "better gifts" than earthly fathers, but once again in this rhetorical reasoning the rhetor invites abductive reasoning (the faculty of imagination) as an "assistant" to deductive reasoning. As the rhetor uses abductive reasoning to reflect on the transcendent reality of God's giving, interaction occurs once again between deductive and inductive reasoning that produces an inversion between the minor premise and the result in the deductive reasoning. Through abductive reasoning, "by shock, question, puzzlement, surprise, and the like, the rhetor or inquirer discovers similarity between" the giving of earthly fathers (deductive case) and the giving of God the father (first part of deductive rule) "because of the experience of consciousness constituted in" the greatness of God the Father (last part of deductive rule).48 In other words, the statement "all fathers know how to give good gifts," functions as a statement about human relationships, where fathers give to their children. The presence of language about God evokes a sudden experiencing of the consciousness of God's giving, which leads to an awareness that our ability to give is decisively inferior to God's ability to give. This "discovery" produces an inversion of the [] deductive reasoning so that the premise "All fathers give good gifts" calls forth the insight that "the heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit"! Once this result emerges in the abductive reasoning, an inference is nearby that the presence of the Holy Spirit within earthly fathers will enable them to give greater gifts than they usually do. Similar to the reasoning about forgiving, the result of the deductive reasoning about giving (How much more does God give good gifts) becomes a newly discovered because-motive that extends beyond inductive and deductive reasoning (abductive result: God gives the Holy Spirit!). The emergence of this new insight generates a new result that also extends beyond inductive-deductive reasoning (fathers, if they have the Holy Spirit, will give greater gifts than earthly fathers regularly do).49
In a context where a rhetor has generated the result that extends beyond inductive-deductive reasoning, the new insight reduces the importance of the result of the deductive reasoning and creates a major inference that invites elaboration. One may naturally find other places in the Gospel of Luke that elaborate various results of the abductive reasoning (that is, "greater" behaviors in humans produced by the Holy Spirit in them). Willi Braun's analysis of Luke 14 exhibits people (including Jesus) distributing benefactions in a manner "greater" than conventional human action. This elaboration of the abductive reasoning emphasizes that the presence of the Holy Spirit in humans can produce "greater" giving than most earthly persons enact. Luke 14:11 characterizes this mode of giving beyond conventional social practice as "lowering oneself and being exalted." Thus, one lowers oneself to give, much as one lowers oneself to be forgiven. Once again, giving and forgiving intertwine in the enthymemic texture of Luke. Luke 14:12-24 elaborates the lowering by giving boldly to the poor, maimed, lame, and blind; the story of Zaccheus (19:1-10) shows how "giving" brings "salvation"; and Luke 18:13-14 displays how asking forgiveness in a position of lowering oneself (rather than asking in a position one may consider to bolster one's request, that is, having forgiven the debt of another; 11:4) puts one in a position to receive forgiveness from God. Lowering oneself either to give or to ask for forgiveness brings exaltation in the enthymemic texture of the Gospel of Luke. []
Luke 11:1-13, then, contains both intriguing similarities with and intriguing differences from Hermogenes' elaboration of the chreia. After an introduction that evokes an image of Jesus as an authoritative speaker, Jesus recites an abbreviated form of the Lord's Prayer to his disciples. Immediately after this recitation, Jesus presents an argument from analogy that depicts relationships among friends. Jesus then appends this analogy with an authoritative objection that asserts that a friend gives bread to his friend at midnight not because of friendship but because of the petitioner's willingness to ask shamelessly for another person's needs. After this parable, Jesus presents an enthymemic rationale for praying to God in the petitionary manner manifest in the Lord's Prayer. After the rationale, Jesus presents two arguments from comparison with earthly fathers and a conclusion that summarizes how much more their heavenly Father is able to give than earthly fathers.
There can be no doubt, then, that the units in Luke 11:5-13 elaborate aspects of the Lord's Prayer. But this elaboration differs in significant respects from Hermogenean elaboration. In Hermogenean elaboration, a well-articulated rationale occurs immediately after the chreia or maxim, then the argumentation moves on to the contrary, to analogy, to example, to authoritative judgment, and finally, to an exhortative conclusion. In Luke 11:1-13, the rationale occurs only after an initial argument from analogy with an objection. Then, after two arguments from comparison, the conclusion ends with an if-(then) statement that is enthymemic in nature. In Luke, enthymemic discourse occurs already in the recitation of the Lord's Prayer, and it continues into the conclusion. In the Hermogenean elaboration, in contrast, enthymemic discourse has its primary function immediately after the recitation of the chreia or maxim. In addition, Luke 11:1-13 is part of a longer text, namely the entire Gospel of Luke. The enthymemes throughout the unit create an enthymemic network that extends into various portions of the Gospel. An enthymeme in the prayer itself creates a dynamic interaction between forgiving and giving. Then a surprise emerges in the conclusion of the elaboration when Jesus says the heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit. At this point, the elaboration moves decisively beyond inductive-deductive reasoning characteristic of conventional social, cultural, and ideological reasoning into a mode of abductive reasoning that generates special ways of thinking and acting. []
Does the conclusion to the elaboration in Luke 11:13 imply that people should petition God to send the Holy Spirit upon them? The answer probably is no. The Father gives the Holy Spirit as an addition when people petition for those things itemized in the Lord's Prayer, but with this conclusion the topics for debate become fully theological. The issue is not what ordinary friends or fathers do, but what God does when people petition him in the manner Jesus teaches in the Lord's Prayer. Enthymemic social, cultural, and ideological reasoning moves into theological reasoning as the elaboration reaches its conclusion. The topic is the heavenly Father's giving of the Holy Spirit in contexts where people pray the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. The authoritative placing of the recitation of the prayer on Jesus' lips at the beginning of the elaboration produces a context in which theological discussion will inevitably move into Christological discussion. God not only gives Holy Spirit; God's son (10:21-22) has revealed special wisdom about the Father's kingdom. Through rhetorical elaboration, enthymemic reasoning configures social, cultural, and ideological topics into topics that inhabit the sacred texture of the text.50 These topics interweave theology and Christology in a manner that creates not only a new social, cultural, and ideological world, but also a new theological and christological world for the reader.
* I am grateful to H. J. Bernard Combrink, David Armstrong-Reiner, Lynn R. Lutes, and Thomas D. Stegman for their probing rhetorical exegeses of this sequence in Luke for my Ph.D. seminar on rhetorical criticism in the New Testament at Emory University during spring of 1997. In addition, I am highly indebted to Gordon D. Newby, Laurie L. Patton, R. Alan Culpepper, and Margaret E. Dean for their supportive, critical reviews of this ongoing work. Back
1Matthew 6:9-13 contains an expanded version of the Lord's Prayer. See Vernon K. Robbins, "Divine Dialogue and the Lord's Prayer: Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Sacred Texts," Dialogue 28 (1995): 117-46, for a socio-rhetorical analysis of the abbreviated and expanded versions of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew, Luke, Did., and the Book of Mormon. Back
2Cf. Burton L. Mack and Vernon K. Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge 1989); Richard B. Vinson, "A Comparative Study of the Use of Enthymemes in the Synoptic Gospels," in Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament in Honor of George A. Kennedy, ed. Duane F. Watson, JSNTSup 50 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991) 119-41; Wesley H. Wachob,"The Rich in Faith and the Poor in Spirit: The Socio-Rhetorical Function of a Saying of Jesus in the Epistle of James" (Ph.D. diss., Emory University, 1993); Vernon K. Robbins, The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society and Ideology (London: Routledge, 1996), Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1996), "The Dialectical Nature of Early Christian Discourse," Scriptura 59 (1996) 353-62, and "The Present and Future of Rhetorical Analysis," in The Rhetorical Analysis of Scripture: Essays from the 1995 London Conference, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Thomas H. Olbricht, JSNTSup 146 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 32-41; Anders Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof: Pauline Argumentation in 1 Corinthians, ConBNT 29 (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell International, 1998); and L. Gregory Bloomquist, "The Place of Enthymemes in Argumentative Texture," forthcoming. Back
3George A. Kennedy, Aristotole, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse (New York: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1991) 297-98; and Patrick J. Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic, 2nd ed. (Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 1985) 230-35. Back
4David B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution 1770-1823 (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1975) 14; John H. Elliot, A Home for the Homeless: A Social-Scientific Criticism of 1 Peter, Its Situation and Strategy (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981; repr. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1990) 268; Robbins, The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse, 193; and Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts, 96. Back
5 See Bruce J. Malina, "Interpretation: Reading, Abduction, Metaphor," in The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Norman K. Gottwald on His Sixty-fifth Birthday, ed. David Jobling et al. (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1991) 253-66; and John H. Elliot, What Is Social-Scientific Criticism? (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 48-49; cf. Rebecca S. Chopp, The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, God (New York: Crossroad, 1989). Back
7 See Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, The Gospel according to Luke, 2 vols., Anchor Bible 28, 28A (New York: Doubleday, 1981, 1985) 2:902, for references to Essene forms of prayer some scholars have thought might be relevant to a discussion of prayer-forms John the Baptist might have used. Back
8Comparison (synkrisis) is a primary dynamic underlying Plutarch's Parallel Lives. Most of the fifty lives highlight the characteristics of either a Greek or Roman leader through comparison with one or more other leaders with whom they are compared. Back
9Cf. Luke 3:18-20; 5:33; 7:18-35; 9:7-9, 18-19; 16:16; 20:1-8; see ron Cameron, "'What Have You Come Out To See?' Characterizations of John and Jesus in the Gospels," Semeia 49 (1990): 35-69. See also the essay by Philip L. Schuler in this volume. Back
11For the meaning of "progymnastic" rather that fully developed "oratorical" rhetorical skills, see Vernon K. Robbins, "Progymnastic Rhetorical Composition and Pre-Gospel Traditions: A New Approach," in The Synoptic Gospels: Source Criticism and the New Literary Criticism, ed. Camille Focant, BETL 110 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993) 111-47. Back
12John S. Kloppenborg, Q Paralles: Synopsis, Critical Notes and Concordance (Sonoma CA: Polebridge, 1988) 82-85; and Shawn Carruth and Albrecht Garsky, Documenta Q 11:1b-4 Leuven: Peeters, 1996). Back
13An expanded chreia features amplification within the chreia itself, while a chreia elaboration regularly features recitation of the chreia in an abbreviated form; see Vernon K. Robbins, "Introduction: Using Rhetorical Discussions of the Chreia to Interpret Pronouncement Stories," in The Rhetoric of Pronouncement, ed. Vernon K. Robbins, Semeia 64 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994): xii-xvi. Back
14Cf. Fitzmeyer, The Gospel according to Luke, 2:898; Fred B. Craddock, Luke (Louisville KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1990) 153-54; Luke T. Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina 3 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991) 179; and Sharon H. Ringe, Luke (Louisville KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1995) 162-65. Back
16The version of the Lord's Prayer commonly recited by Protestant Christians concludes with the supporting premise: "For thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever." In other words, the reason it is presupposed that God the Father can grant the petitions in the prayer is the Father's possession of kingdom, power, and glory. Back
20For display of an inductive-deductive cycle of reasoning, see Richard L. Lanigan, "From Enthymeme to Abduction: The Classical Law of Logic and the Postmodern Rule of Rhetoric," in Recovering Pragmatism's Voice: The Classical Tradition, Rorty, and the Philosophy of Communication, ed. Lenore Langsdorf and Andrew R. Smith (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995) 58. Back
22Lanigan, "From Enthymeme to Abduction," 62;. cf. Vernon K. Robbins, "Pragmatic Relations as a Criterion for Authentic Sayings," Forum 1/3 (1985) 35-63; and Shawn Carruth, "Strategies of Authority: A Rhetorical Study of Character of the Speaker in Q 6:20-49," in Conflict and Invention: Literary, Rhetorical, and Social Studies on the Sayings Gospel Q, ed. John S. Kloppenborg (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1995) 107-10. Back
25Bruce J. Malina, "Patron and Client," Forum 4/1 (1988): 2-32; and John H. Elliott, "Patronage and Clientage," in The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation, ed. Richard L. Rohrbaugh (Peabody MA: Hendrickson, 1996) 144-56.Back
27Possibly 23:34 was added by a later scribe. Luke 23:34 is absent from P75, א1, B, D*, W, Θ, etc. but present in א*.2, (A), C, D2, L, y, etc. Whether originally in the text of Luke, or added later, it is fully consonant with the principle that is taught by Luke 11:4; cf. Charles H. Talbert, Reading Luke: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Third Gospel (New York: Crossroad, 1982) 219-20; and Vernon K. Robbins, "The Crucifixion and the Speech of Jesus," Forum 4/1 (1988): 40. Back
33Friends also offer hospitality to the friends of one's friends (Bruce J. Malina Windows on the World of Jesus: Time Travel to Ancient Judea [Louisville KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993] 48-49) but the sleeping-friend is not asked to offer this act of kindness in Luke 11:5-7. Back
39It was conventional practice to include rationales in the argument from the contrary (see Rhetorica ad Herenium 4.43.57). The reason appears to be twofold. First, both the contrary and the rationale serve the function of clarifying the nature and scope of the chreia or theme. Second, articulating a series of rationales in both positive and negative formulations points to wider horizons of the chreia or theme available from the arguments from analogy, example, and authoritative judgment. Back
41Kenneth E. Bailey, Poet and Peasant: A Literary-Cultural Approach to the Parables in Luke (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1976) 125-27; David Catchpole, "Q and 'The Friend at Midnight,'" JTS 34 (1983): 407-24; Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 88-89; and Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992) 350-51. Back
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