J. Kenneth Kuntz

Genesis and power: An analysis of the biblical story of creation

This essay suggests that power be conceived as a dialectic of “authorship” and “authority.” Interest in understanding the rhetorical power of sacred texts is blended with interest in explaining the cultural origins of Anglo‐American social order. Because it is inherently persuasive, and because it became the first principle of arguments for justifying hierarchy, the Biblical story of creation should be read as an archetype that circumscribes all possible power relationships in Judeo‐Christian cultures.

Psalm 18: a Rhetorical-Critical Analysis

This essay seeks to demonstrate that a rhetorical-critical analysis of Psalm 18 is of significant help in our attempt to understand the message of its author and to appreciate his talents as a Hebrew poet of high rank. In what follows no diligent comparison between Psalm 18 and its parallel recension in 2 Samuel 22 will be attempted since that has been definitively accomplished by Cross and Freedman.1 Of course, those textual variants which relate most directly to the literary craft of the poet will require some attention. In my own translation I have often benefited from Cross and Freedman’s

Affirming Less as More: Scholarly Engagements with Aphoristic Rhetoric

Focused on perceptible gains and trends in biblical scholarship during the past two decades as it engages the self-contained aphorisms that abound in Proverbs 10–29, this essay offers a critical discussion of diverse insights advanced by three categories of scholars: those whose comprehensive studies in Biblical Hebrew poetry target the free-standing proverb (Kugel, Berlin, Alter, Watson, Alonso Schökel, Gillingham, and Fokkelman); those whose monographs and articles center in more specific ways on the literary dimensions of the sapiential couplet (Williams, Murphy,McCreesh, Perry, Storøy, Wehrle, Salisbury, Martin, Forti, and Nel); and those who address issues that bear upon traditional sayings and proverb performance (Fontaine, Westermann, and Golka).

Continuing the Engagement: Psalms Research Since the Early 1990s

Updating the writer’s previous essay in Currents, ‘Engaging the Psalms: Gains and Trends in Recent Research’ (1994), this extensive essay targets the many diverse books and articles reflecting the multi-faceted research on the Psalms published during the past two decades. While necessarily selective, this survey opens with article and book-length studies focused on the Psalter in its entirety. These studies range from those primarily intended for novice readers, to intricate, in-depth scholarly commentaries. Subsequently, many publications invested in more specific topics are discussed. These address the Psalms in their ancient Near Eastern milieu, probe crucial form-critical and rhetorical-critical issues, and focus on the shaping of the Psalter, its potential as a book of theology, and its reception across the centuries.