Aune on enthymemes in New Testament scholarship

In a helpful 2003 essay, David Aune discusses “the use and abuse of the enthymeme in New Testament scholarship” (New Testament Studies 49, no. 3, 299–320). According to the article’s abstract,

Though the enthymeme is usually defined as a truncated syllogism, that definition does not go back to Aristotle. By the first century CE there were four ways of understanding the enthymeme in both Greek and Latin rhetorical theory, of which the truncated syllogism was just one. Aristotle’s theory of the enthymeme had little effect on the subsequent history of the enthymeme, just as his Rhetorica had only a restricted circulation and impact from the first century BCE on. In light of these considerations, the work of seven scholars who have used the enthymeme to understand argumentation in the NT is reviewed and critiqued.

Materially, the essays biggest contribution is Aune’s analysis of the formalist perspective on “enthymemes” that he found in the literature he surveyed. Another area of repeated concern is how easily it is for New Testament scholars to fall into incompletely outlining arguments.

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