`Poetry', `Hymns' and `Traditional Material' in New Testament Epistles or How to Do Things with Indentations*

Abstract

This article explores ancient rhetorical conceptions of poetry, prose and hymn in order to better understand what should perhaps be called the epideictic or encomiastic elements of some New Testament epistles. It surveys and criticizes previous methods for isolating the supposedly poetic or hymnic portions of these texts. Furthermore, the article analyzes the hermeneutical effects of a seemingly unremarkable editorial decision, the act of indenting such texts in the New Testament. This editorial action normally signifies 'poetry', 'hymns', or 'traditional material' to a particular community of readers, namely the guild of New Testament scholarship. The article argues that the act of indenting bears more rhetorical force than has been previously acknowledged. It concludes with an ideological analysis of that editorial decision.

The Songs we Used to Sing? Hymn ‘Traditions’ and Reception in Pauline Letters

“…Michael Peppard claims in passing that ‘not one source from early Christianity regards any of the passages identified as poems or hymns’ (Peppard 2008: 324). Since this observation is not justified or developed, the question remains: How were these texts received and used in early Christian writings?…”

“… 12. Michael Peppard has recently critiqued the NA 27 for formatting Phil. 2.6-11 and Col. 1.15-20 as hymns (i.e., indented and divided into strophes), arguing that it involves a ‘furtive perlocutionary act’ in which theological interests in early high Christology are served (Peppard 2008: 338-39). Peppard’s critique is illuminating, if scathing at times, and reinforces the need to reset the default position of scholarship on the identification of these passages. …”

“… 13. Generally, see Peppard 2008; Vollenweider 2010: 210-11; and now Löhr 2014: 157-61. Aside from Peppard’s work, other critiques of ‘hymnic’ identification in Anglophone literature are typically oblique or form a small part of another larger project.…”

“…Further, texts are not ‘melodic’, which is the quality of a thing heard rather than read, and the question of ‘poetic format’ is precisely what is at stake in identifying hymns and so cannot be used as a criterion for the task at hand. For a critique of Gloer, see Peppard 2008.…”

“… 20. Quintilian, Inst. 9.3.75-78; Peppard 2008: 324. See the account of compositio in Lausberg 1998 [1960]: 411ff.…”