Title:
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A rhetorical analysis of the book of Amos
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The purpose of the present thesis is to investigate rhetorical features of
the Book of Amos with a view to identifying the message and meaning
intended by the prophet Amos in his authentic passages. The purpose is
not only to identify the prophet's rhetorical goal in his ' rhetorical
situation', but also ultimately to explicate the meaning of his message in
his historical situation. In examining its rhetorical features, the
rhetorical analysis of the present thesis attempts to clarify how the
prophet Amos fabricated the text in rhetorical structures and how he
built up his rhetoric to convey his message in the book.
In the introduction, the thesis investigates the types of rhetorical-critical
discipline which also illustrate the history of rhetorical criticism. It also
raises problems in the rhetorical-critical disciplines of Old Testament
studies and the Book of Amos. It suggests the four steps of rhetorical
analysis as its method of approach. Those consist of the investigations
of: 1) the rhetorical structures(syntactic and syntagmatic, and mimetic
dimension), 2) literary functions (semantic dimension), 3) rhetorical
functions ( ':Message-Analysis'; pragmatic dimension), and 4) rhetorical
natures(syntactic and syntagmatic, linear compositional macro-structural
dimension), in the rhetorical units of the book of Amos. It also
suggests that the book is divided into the four literary/rhetorical units;
chs.1-2, 3-4, 5-6, and 7-9. In order to identify the message and
meaning of the Book of Amos in his rhetorical and historical situation,
the third and fourth steps investigate the prophet's rhetorical strategies
through which he intended to pursue an effective conveying of his
message in the Book of Amos. Of the two, the fourth step, in
particular, attempts to identify how Amos designed the sections and
subsections to perform rhetorical functions in the macro-structure of
the book, and how he fabricated the text with the elements, according
to their 'rhetorical natures' in the text, i.e., 'rhetorical sections' and
'message-sections.' For this purpose, chapter 2 of the thesis establishes
the criteria through verifying their validity in the Minor Prophets. The
thesis demonstrates, through the four-step rhetorical analysis, that
chs.5-6 are designed to function as the 'message-section' of the book
on which Amos intended to lay more emphasis than on other sections in
formulating his message. The three other sections, chs. 1-2, 3-4, 7-9,
are designed to function as the ' rhetorical sections', which are used for
forming the framework of his rhetoric in the pursuit of the effective
conveying of his message. The thesis suggests that the prophet pursued
his rhetorical goal in resolving or modifying the historical exigence of
social disorder caused by the perversion of justice in which his
prophetic task emerged. Hence, it proposes as its conclusion that, in
performing his prophetic task to deliver the message through drawing a
rhetorical impact upon the audience in the pragmatic dimension. he
encouraged the audience to take action for the resolution or modification of
the historical exigence in his historical rhetorical situation, particularly by
giving the exhortations to justice as 'the primary Message' (5:4-6, 14-15,
and 24) in 'the message-section' (chs.5-6).
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