Troy W Martin

Very little work has been done on the function of example as a rhetorical induction in the New Testament. This lacuna in scholarship is particularly striking given Paul's personal (rhetorical) examples in his Letter to the Galatians. In Induction and Example, C. T. Johnson, therefore, addresses a much needed area of Pauline research. Johnson first constructs a methodology to assist readers in interpreting and identifying Aristotle's induction and the rhetorical example, and then using this methodology, he focuses on Paul's personal (and rhetorical) examples to get at the truth of the gospel in the letter to the Galatians. The monograph defines and describes two aspects of induction (observation and experience) and how they function in the biblical text, especially how individuals arrive at their inductive conclusions. Further still, Johnson describes how the various types of example--historical, recent, personal, and analogical--are used as rhetorical devices to persuade a person, or community to embrace or reject a particular position in the future. Induction and Example is essential reading not only for scholars and students of New Testament rhetoric, but also for anyone interested in the ways in which the apostle Paul communicated personally and persuasively to the early churches under his influence.

Very little work has been done on the function of example as a rhetorical induction in the New Testament. This lacuna in scholarship is particularly striking given Paul's personal (rhetorical) examples in his Letter to the Galatians. In Induction and Example, C. T. Johnson, therefore, addresses a much needed area of Pauline research. Johnson first constructs a methodology to assist readers in interpreting and identifying Aristotle's induction and the rhetorical example, and then using this methodology, he focuses on Paul's personal (and rhetorical) examples to get at the truth of the gospel in the letter to the Galatians. The monograph defines and describes two aspects of induction (observation and experience) and how they function in the biblical text, especially how individuals arrive at their inductive conclusions. Further still, Johnson describes how the various types of example--historical, recent, personal, and analogical--are used as rhetorical devices to persuade a person, or community to embrace or reject a particular position in the future. Induction and Example is essential reading not only for scholars and students of New Testament rhetoric, but also for anyone interested in the ways in which the apostle Paul communicated personally and persuasively to the early churches under his influence.

Early Christianity did not originate in a vacuum but in a world of linguistic, social, religious, and cultural richness and diversity. The twenty-two seminal essays in this volume — some previously published, some newly written — represent almost three decades of research by Troy W. Martin to understand how early Christianity developed in the ancient world. The broad-ranging investigations in these essays give attention not only to the linguistic and rhetorical features of early Christian texts, but also to the social, philosophical, physiological, and medical contexts in which these texts were written. The essays provide new understandings of early Christian conceptions of salvation and of the virtues of faith, hope and love that characterized early Christian communities. They include new medical and physiological explanations of early Christian sacraments, pneumatology, and eschatology and furthermore investigate early Christian communal life and practice, including the veiling of women, male/female relationships, and time-keeping. The essays include reception histories that describe their influence on subsequent research and place them within the context of contemporary research and scholarship. Those familiar with the well-trodden ground of New Testament studies will find in these essays new insights and previously unexplored comparative material for understanding early Christianity and the world in which it originated.

In this book, the authors explore different models of The Forgiveness Exchange. This successful model indicates that human beings can enter the experience of reconciliation that lasts into eternity.