Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Demosthenes a prophet?

Christopher Heard was at WECSOR and chairing a session, which he comments on here. One of the papers sounds intriguing to me—"Is Demosthenes Also among the Prophets? Ancient Greek Orators as a Potential New Analogy for the Israelite Prophets". As a Classicist, the title and description intrigue me. Take a look at this excerpt:

"He argues that the Greek political orators of the fourth century BCE—Brad drew most of his examples from Demosthenes—function in ways analogous to the socio-rhetorical functions of the "classical" Israelite prophets. Brad emphasized three comparisons:

1. The Israelite prophets and the Attic orators spoke in long public addresses characterizable as argumentative oratory.
2. The Israelite prophets and the Attic orators used a large variety of genres and styles, with stylistic variation determined by the pragmatic needs of the immediate communicative context rather than by convention.
3. The Israelite prophets and the Attic orators responded to specific social conditions and circumstances—without always rehearsing the context explicitly, verbally—and tried to move their audience to action."

Intriguing, I hope a version of it is available on-line soon.

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