PAUL AND SOPHISTIC RHETORIC: A PERSPECTIVE ON HIS ARGU- MENTATION IN THE LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

In this article Paul’s argumentation is analysed from the perspective of sophistic rhe-toric. In the first section the question is discussed what it means to label Paul’s rhetoric in his Letter to the Galatians ‘sophistic. ’ To that end, an attempt is made to recon-struct the view of a contemporary critical reader who did not share Paul’s presuppo-sitions and who was well acquainted with the discussions in the philosophical and rhetorical schools about acceptable and non-acceptable rhetorical methods. This ap-proach is compared with other approaches to analysing Paul’s argumentation. The second section investigates more closely what it means when ‘sophistic rhetoric ’ is used as a key to analyse Paul’s theology. To that end, some models which start from a ‘Platonic ’ view of rhetoric are compared with a model which combines a ‘(neo-) sophistic ’ or constructionist view with a ‘rhetoric of power.’ 1