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ANDERS ERIKSSON, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof.- Pauline Argumentation in ] Corinthians (ConBNT 29; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1998). Pp. xiii + 353. Paper N.R
This doctoral dissertation, written under the direction of Birger Gerhardsson and Birger Olsson at Lund, is a worthwhile contribution to the increasing number of rhetorical-critical studies on I Corinthians. Eriksson agrees with the contention of Margaret Mitchell (Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigalion of the Language and Composition of I Corinthians [Louisville: Westminster/ John Knox, 1992]) that the letter is best viewed as a single composition whose thesis is expressed in 1:10. After an extensive second chapter in which he examines the function of invention in rhetoric, E. names five criteria that enable the reader to identify the use of traditions in a text, and he identifies eight such traditions in I Corinthians. The five criteria are the presence of an introductory formula, the self-contained nature of the passage, its style, the presence of similar pieces in other sources, and the theological content of the tradition. The isolable pieces in I Corinthi ans identified as traditions are the summary of the gospel in 15:3-5, the formula of...