The Sword of His Mouth

Book excerpt: 'The Sword of His Mouth' is a study of the rhetorical and poetic form of synoptic sayings which argues that many of these sayings use a Òdepth rhetoricÓ which seeks to challenge the hearer's fixed structures of meaning and value, moving one to new action by awakening new insight. This study brings to light important but neglected features of the texts and demonstrates the value of this new approach for gaining fresh insight into their significance. Special attention is given to pattern and tension. An attempt is made to show how form and content merge in producing utterances with provocative verbal power. Jesus emerges from this study as one whose language must be distinguished from casual speech.