A style study of the Apostle Paul's communication with Festus and Agrippa: The use of literary Koine Greek in Acts 25:14-22; 26:1-29

In die Skriflig / In Luce Verbi ISSN: (Online) 2305-0853, (Print) 1018-6441 Page 1 of 7 Original Research A style study of the Apostle Paul’s communication with Festus and Agrippa: The use of literary Koine Greek in Acts 25:14–22; 26:1–29 Authors: Aida B. Spencer1,2 Affiliations: 1 Faculty of New Testament Studies, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, United States Faculty of Theology, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, South Africa 2 Corresponding author: Aida Spencer, aspencer@gordonconwell. edu Dates: Received: 23 July 2015 Accepted: 13 Jan. 2016 Published: 10 June 2016 How to cite this article: Spencer, A.B., 2016, ‘A style study of the Apostle Paul’s communication with Festus and Agrippa: The use of literary Koine Greek in Acts 25:14–22; 26:1–29’, In die Skriflig 50(4), a2017. http:// dx.doi.org/10.4102/ids. v50i4.2017 Copyright: © 2016. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Read online: Scan this QR code with your smart phone or mobile device to read online. This article defines style, stylistics and literary koine Greek and analyses the literary koine Greek employed in Luke’s recording of the Apostle Paul’s court case at Caesarea in Acts 25:14– 22; 26:1–29. The principles and methodology in stylistics are explained and an overview of some of the style studies in the last 30 years is made. Paul demonstrates a literary style of Greek when speaking with Festus and Agrippa. Stylistics defines ‘style’ as the choices an author makes (whether conscious or subconscious) amongst linguistic possibilities (usually but not always a choice amongst grammatical possibilities). In grammatical studies, rhetoric is the manner of writing. Style study helps to observe the author’s emphasis, analogies and message, and helps with the appreciation of communication. Introduction In this article, an in-depth stylistic study of Acts 25:14–22; 26:1–29, the court case of the Apostle Paul at Caesarea with Procurator Porcius Festus and King Marcus Iulius Agrippa II, will be done by employing some techniques used in stylistics. Stylistics is interdisciplinary and comparative. As part of my doctoral studies, I employed stylistics to do a comparative study of three New Testament passages (Spencer 1984). The principles and methodology of stylistics will be explained, stylistics to New Testament rhetorical criticism will be compared, an overview of some of the style studies will be provided since the publication of my dissertation, literary koine Greek will be defined, and a close reading of the lexical substitutions and progression of thought in the speeches in Acts 25:14–22; 26:1–29 will be done. Paul’s demonstration of a literary style of Greek when speaking with Festus and Agrippa will be observed. What is stylistics and style? In this article, stylistics denotes the use of linguistics as a tool of literary criticism by which to investigate the aesthetic effects of language. Stylistic analysis matches one text against another text as a contextually related norm. The secondary text(s) can serve as a control to hold constant whatever are to be the critical variables. For an extensive study, each example should have at least 500 English or at least 300 Greek words. In stylistics, ‘style’ denotes the choices an author makes (whether conscious or subconscious) amongst linguistic possibilities (usually but not always a choice amongst grammatical possibilities). If language is a set of conventions for the expression of thought by the members of a given speech community, the individual has a choice of means for expressing his or her thoughts. As linguistics is a descriptive rather than a prescriptive science, stylists can be simply descriptive. Style is largely subconscious, unique, felt, but not always readily observable. In contrast, rhetoric is a conscious mode of persuasion (Spencer 1984:14–17). In my earlier stylistic study of 2 Corinthians 11:16–12:13, Philippians 3:2–4:13 was chosen as a comparable passage to 2 Corinthians 11. In both passages, Paul responds to his Judaizing opposition. The contrast I discovered between 2 Corinthians and Philippians has to do with the receptiveness of the readers to Paul: the Corinthians not being especially receptive whilst the Philippians are more receptive. The third passage, Romans 8:9–39, was helpful as a control passage. It does not discuss the Judaizing opponents and its Roman audience has little or no relationship to Paul, yet this letter was written approximately at the same time as 2 Corinthians (Spencer 1984:4). The general theme of suffering is similar in all three passages: highlighting both external difficulties as a part of the Christian life and the manner in which God can empower people during such times. In addition, all three congregations experienced a problem of disunity, albeit from different causes. The goal was to see if Paul varies the style of his writing to assist communication to different communities. The answer was positive. In conclusion the observation http://www.indieskriflig.org.za Open Access Page 2 of 7 has been made that, to the Corinthians, Paul came as a warrior to conquer. As a warrior, he seeks to pierce his opponents’ armour. To the Romans, Paul came as a diplomat to persuade. As an ambassador, he seeks to gain the confidence of his hearers. To the Philippians, Paul came as a father to exhort. As a father, he assumes he is already respected and is given authority to urge directly (Spencer 1984:4, 93–94, 146). Aspects of stylistics can also be used in exegetical studies of single passages. For instance, sentence changes, logical diagrams and imagery may be studied. Basic data may be gathered from ancient Greek stylists such as Demetrius, Longinus and Aristotle, augmented by advanced grammar books that discuss style such as those by Robertson (1934), Blass, DeBrunner and Funk (1961), Turner (1976) and Dover (1960), supplemented by my own style studies. Of the 10 stylistic operations, some have been helpful even when no comparative passage is employed, for example the study of: 1. Sentence changes, which include figures of speech and unusual word order classified as addition, subtraction, substitution and transposition of the common sentence. For example, when words like ‘and’ are repeated as in polysyndeton, that would be an addition change. If no conjunctions connect words as in asyndeton, an omission is occurring. Substitution changes include figures of speech such as metaphor; syntactical changes such as by an active or passive verb; and lexical changes such as with a popular or learned word. Changing the usual word order is an example of a transpositional change. 2. Logical diagrams, which is the classification of the manner in which the thoughts of each sentence precede one another. This manner of diagnosis has been developed in recent years in discourse analysis. In stylistics, however, logical diagrams analyse sentences. A paragra (...truncated)