Biblical commentators through history have employed various methods to facilitate interpretation, including rhetorical criticism, with emphasis on classical rhetoric. Despite a resurgence of interest in rhetoric in the past two decades, only a few commentators in the New Interpreter's Bible and the Hermeneia series have undertaken in-depth rhetorical analysis. Most observations of these commentators are derived from the rhetorics of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian and the Rhetorica ad Herennium. This essay sets forth and evaluates the various methods of rhetorical analysis and their employment in the two above-mentioned commentary series.
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