Ekphrasis, Fear, and Motivation in the Apocalypse of John

Author:

Stewart Alexander E.1

Affiliation:

1. Tyndale Theological Seminary

Abstract

Abstract Recent research on ekphrasis sheds light on how John utilized vivid description to guide the imagination and stir the emotions of his hearers. This is particularly evident in John's visions of judgment and salvation. The primary grounds for John's exhortation to overcome include exclusion from or participation in final salvation. John's frequent use of ekphrasis, particularly within his visionary narratives, enables his hearers to vividly visualize and imagine the presently invisible grounds offered for John's rational argumentation, thus producing an emotional response in support of obedience and action. This article explores the use of ekphrasis in the fifth and sixth trumpets (Rev 9:1-19) to direct the hearer's imagination and create the emotion of fear in support of John's rhetorical agenda.

Publisher

The Pennsylvania State University Press

Subject

General Medicine

Reference63 articles.

1. John Corrigan, ed., Religion and Emotion: Approaches and Interpretations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); John Corrigan, Eric Crump, and John Kloos, Emotion and Religion: A Critical Assessment and Annotated Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000).

2. This is especially true in the “bridging of discourses operative in neuroscience and biological research to the research models of scholars working primarily in the humanities and social sciences” (Corrigan, Religion and Emotion, 13).

3. Eugene H. Peterson was an early advocate of this perspective (“Apocalypse: The Medium Is the Message,” TT 26 [1969] 133–41). He argued, “Men have not gotten new ideas out of the Apocalypse—they have found new feelings” (p. 140). See also Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 187; Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World, Proclamation Commentaries (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 31, 129; Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984) 151–53; Robert Royalty, The Streets of Heaven: The Ideology of Wealth in the Apocalypse of John (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998) 138; Robert Royalty, “The Rhetoric of Revelation,” in SBL Seminar Papers 1997, SBLSP 36 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997) 596–617, 609; Loren L. Johns, “The Lamb in the Rhetorical Program of the Apocalypse of John,” in SBL Seminar Papers 1998, SBLSP 37 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998) 2:762–84, 763; Loren L. Johns, The Lamb Christology of the Apocalypse of John: An Investigation into Its Origins and Rhetorical Force, WUNT 2/167 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) 157–58, 162–63; Ben Witherington III, Revelation, NCBC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 90. David deSilva has provided the most rigorous analysis of pathos in the Apocalypse. See idem, Seeing Things John's Way: The Rhetoric of the Book of Revelation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009) 175–228; idem, “The Strategic Arousal of Emotions in the Apocalypse of John: A Rhetorical-Critical Investigation of the Oracles to the Seven Churches,” NTS 54 (2008) 90–114. There has been much more scholarly attention to the role of pathos in Pauline argumentation. See Thomas H. Olbricht and Jerry L. Sumney, eds., Paul and Pathos, SBLSymS 16 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001); cf. Stephen C. Barton, “Eschatology and Emotions in Early Christianity,” JBL 130 (2011) 571–91. Important classical texts related to pathos include Aristotle, Rhet. 2.2–11; Cicero, De or. 2.185-211a; Cicero, Inv. 1.53.101-1.56.109; Rhet. Her. 2.30.48-2.31.50; 4.55.68; Quintilian, Inst. or., 6.2. On these texts, see Jakob Wisse, Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1989); Alan Brinton, “Pathos and the ‘Appeal to Emotion’: An Aristotelian Analysis,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 5 (1988) 207–19; and the various essays in A. O. Rorty, ed., Essays on Aristotle's Rhetoric (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).

4. For more detailed discussion of explicit and implicit motivational argumentation in the Apocalypse of John see Alexander E. Stewart, Soteriology as Motivation in the Apocalypse of John, Gorgias Biblical Studies 61 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2015). “Explicit argumentation” indicates the occurrence of a clear command linked to a motivating reason or cause in a grounds-conclusion or means-purpose logical relation.

5. Rita C. Manning argues “Mere arguments to the conclusion that I ought to do something, to avert such tragedies, to alleviate such suffering, do not, and cannot provide this motivational force. Kant and others are simply wrong to say that the recognition that I have a duty provides a sufficient motivation for doing it. It simply fails to work this way for many, and perhaps most, people…. What this suggests is that moral reasoning is more than principle applied to situation yielding conclusion. A persuasive moral case must be made personal” (“Beyond Argumentation: The Role of Narrative in Moral Reasoning,” in Argumentation: Analysis and Practices, ed. F. H. van Eemeren et al., PDA 3B [Dordrecht: Foris, 1987] 170–77, 172).

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