RELIGION AND AUTHORITY: THE ROLE OF RHETORIC AS THE VOICE OF MORALITY – A PROLEGOMENON

  • Yehoshua Gitay Department Afro-Asiatic Studies University of the Free State

Abstract

This paper focuses on speech as an instrument of the human organs. We don’t see speech but we hear it and the words create pictures in our minds that stir our imagination. This paper deals with the effect of speech upon the hearers and discusses the role of the verbal effect known as Rhetoric, on Biblical Religion. Furthermore, the paper claims that Biblical Rhetoric, as an argumentative discourse is, at the end of the day, a manifestation of democracy in terms of the struggle between the proclamation of authority and the voice of human criticism that challenges the ultimate. Hence, speech is instrumental in forcing authority to explain or justify its deeds, therefore, substituting the power of authority with a matter of rational human persuasion.
Published
2013-06-12
Section
Articles