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Ausgabe:

1981

Spalte:

175-176

Kategorie:

Altes Testament

Autor/Hrsg.:

Braulik, Georg

Titel/Untertitel:

Die Mittel deuteronomischer Rhetorik 1981

Rezensent:

McEvenue, Sean E.

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Theologische Literaturzeitung 106. Jahrgang 1981 Nr. 3

176

anders akzentuiert sein. Es wird für jeden Leser viel davon abhängen,
was von dem reichen Lebenswerk Tillichs ihn ergriffen und angestoßen
hat, was ihm dann aus den Dokumenten hilft, seine Kenntnis des
Systems zu vertiefen. Mir waren die würdigenden Briefe Emil Brunners
äußerst aufschlußreich in dieser Hinsicht, aber auch die interessanten
Äußerungen Adolph Lowes und Tillichs Antwortbriefe an A.
Wolfers. Wie gesagt, es dürfte individuell sehr verschieden sein, was
hier dem klärenden Nachdenken über Tillichs Werk hilft. Daß aber
für jeden um Tillichs Werk bemühten Leser auch in dieser Hinsicht
reichlich Anregungen empfangen werden können, ist offensichtlich.

In 22 Kapiteln kann der Leser von „Kindheit und Jugend" über
Studentenzeit in Berlin, Tübingen und Halle, Weltkrieg und dann
Wirksamkeit in der Weimarer Republik hin zu den Problemen und
Erfolgen in den USA nach der Emigration 1933 dem Lebensweg Paul
Tillichs folgen. Man erfährt neben vielem sehr Persönlichem (z. B.
ein Kapitel „Ehe mit Greti Wever") vor allem viel vom akademischen
Werdegang und Erfolg in seinen einzelnen Etappen: Privatdozent
in Berlin, Extraordinarius in Marburg, Ordinarius für Religionswissenschaft
in Dresden, Ordinarius Tür Philosophie und Soziologie
in Frankfurt bis hin zu dem schwierigen Weg in den USA.
Immer werden für die einzelnen Etappen hochinteressante Belege aus
Tillichs eigenen Mitteilungen oder in Erinnerungen von Freunden,
Verwandten und Hörern bzw. Lesern vorgestellt.

Nur aus einer sehr genauen Kenntnis der Lebensumstände Paul
Tillichs und aus einer tiefen Vertrautheit mit den Motiven seines
Wirkens und Schaffens konnte eine so konzentrierte und prägnante
Auswahl aus den Tillich charakterisierenden Quellen und Belegen
gelingen. Die Grundlage für Tillichs Wirken im akademischen
Raum, im wissenschaftlich-publizistischen Wirken dabei festzuhalten
, ist zweifellos richtig. Tillich war zunächst und vor allem ein
Mann der theoretisch-wissenschaftlichen Arbeit. Dem steht seine
politische und gesellschaftliche Aktivität in verschiedenen Perioden
seines Lebens nicht entgegen. Die Herausgeberinnen haben diese biographisch
-fundamentale Grundlage zu Recht betont, Persönliches
und Persönlichstes fehlt daneben keineswegs.

Man liest dieses Lebensbild mit Freude und Gewinn und hat nach
der Lektüre den dominierenden Eindruck, daß ein problemreiches
und weltoffenes Leben sachgerecht und mit viel Verständnis gewürdigt
wurde.

Leipzig Hans Moritz

Altes Testament

Braulik, Georg, OSB: Die Mittel deuteronomischer Rhetorik, erhoben
aus Deuteronomium 4, 1-40. Rom: Biblical Institute Press
1978. XI, 172 S., 1 Beilage.gr. 8' = Analecta Biblica, 68. Lire 9500.

Theologians will welcome a painstaking study of Dt 4, because this
is one of the most reflective biblical expressions of post-exilic
Judaism. As a text it is at once charming and bewildering: charming
because artful, and bewildering because, although one senses care-
fully crafted literary struetures and divisions, still hitherto one could
not confidently discern their forms.

The book represents a reworking of.part of the author's doctoral
dissertation, begun 10 years ago at the Biblical Institute in Rome
under the direction of Norbert Lohfink. Two further influences clear-
ly mark the approach: descriptive grammatical analyses following
W. Richter and W. Gross, and structuralist literary theory following
J. M. Lotman.

An introduetory chapter Sketches the history of research into the
style of Dt and shows the need for a systematic study of a short unified
text as a fixed point among varied Dt materials. The first chapter then
(pp. 7-76) goes through the Dt 4, segment by segment, considering
aspects of grammar and figures of speech as they occur. The main

concern is to study the oral phrasing of the text revealed in the original
syntax, rhythm, and rhyme, in so far as these can confidently be
recovered through the massoretic screen. Oral phrasing determines a
great deal about correspondence in ideas and about contexts and
emphases, and therefore can reveal a great deal about the intended
meaning of a text. There results from this study a printed Hebrew text
in transliteration, presented in sense lines (i. e. sense aecording to oral
phrasing), with a division of the chapter into the following smaller
oral units: verses 1-4; 5-8; 9-14; 15-22; 23-31; 32-39. This is con-
veniently reproduced on a fold-out page at the back of the book.

A second chapter (pp. 77-100) examines struetures within the divisions
established in chapter one, and overriding patterns which unite
these divisions to each other either in struetured or unstruetured
ways. The author shows, for example, that each unit begins with an
imperative or injunetive introducing an exhortation to observe the
Law, and continues with motives for doing so based on an historical
consideration. (The last division reverses this order.) As one reads
through the text, historical considerations occur in a bewildering
sequence, but Braulik shows a rational pattern in which from the pre-
sent of Moses one regards the past, then the future, then the past, etc.
in a nine-phased alternation. This analysis leaves much uncxplained
(v. g. v 21 is not mentioned; vv 36-38 are not explained; and vv
16-19a can hardly be intended to carry a strict temporal restriction);
still one's bewilderment disappears. He shows the framing of the
whole and of the parts and an astonishing use of phrases.and for-
mulae, struetured frequently in systematic parallelism or chiasm,
some of it meaningful, and some of it apparently intended only to
unify the text and create an almost subliminal background music for
the themes to play against. There emerges an overall strueture: verses
1-8 deal with the Law promulgated by Moses; 9-31 deal with the Basic
Stipulation revealed at Horeb; 32^t0 deal with the exclusive
claim of Yahweh. (He considers this as Prologue, Body of Text, and
Epilogue, though the words „prologue" and „epilogue" are not well
chosen: they suggest units which are not so directly connected with
the body of the text as is here the case.)

A short third chapter, based principally on the work of Dennis
McCarthy, shows a remote dependence of Dt 4 on the thought and
form of ancient international vassal treaties, a dependence whose
exaet definition would need to be approached with the methods of
tradition history.

Finally a fourth chapter (pp. 105-155) provides a catalogue of all
the stylistic phenomena observed in the foregoing sections. The mate-
rial is presented in a long series of simple categories. In each case the
technique or trope is defined, its general effect described, and its
occurrence in Dt 4 discussed.

The study offers two quite different produets: first a catalogue of
stylistic phenomena to serve as a basis for comparison in future stu-
dies of Dt style; and secondly a reading of the text in which its intended
strueture and phrasing are examined in the most complete and
objective basis. The first of these is there to be used; but unfortunately
the intended strueture, which was so laboriously demonstrated, and
cautiously presented as the data became firm, is not gathered in any
one place, nor is its significance identified. A German translation,
with appropriate subtitles, would be very useful.

Moreover, something further about the meaning of the text is
demanded. For example, the Introduction aroused expectancies: we
learn that N. Lohfink,, Das Hauptgebot, 1963, concluded that all
levels of language in Dt aim at deep religious conversion; whereas W.
E. Claburn, Deuieronomy and Collective Behaviour, 1968, had
argued that the text was typical Propaganda material appealing to
religious values for political or social aims. Braulik believes that his
analysis refutes Claburn (p. 3, note 12), but he does not offer us a
concluding chapter in which this refutation is shown or Braulik's own
understanding in any way proposed.

Montreal Sean McEvenuc