Asking For Rhetoric ― The Hebrew Bible's Protean Interrogative

Craig (biblical studies, Lees-McRae College) presupposes that the Bible's interrogatives have many and various rhetorical implications, and that the traditional division of questions into two basic types information-seeking and rhetorical does not do justice to their protean forms. All questions, he agues, even those that appear to be merely repeated, have much to do with both the representational and the persuasive functions of language: they may involve addressees, call attention to discrepancies in power, allow the speaker to be ironic or satiric, promulgate ambiguity and vagueness, or serve other functions. He considers examples from throughout the Hebrew bible. Some of the chapters are revised from earlier publication. Annotation c2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Kenneth M. Craig, Jr., Ph.D. (1989) in Hebrew Bible, Southern Seminary, is Professor of Biblical Studies at Lees-McRae College. He has published A Poetics of Jonah: Art in the Service of Ideology, Reading Esther: A Case for the Literary Carnivalesque, and numerous articles on the literary aspects of biblical narrative.