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[German Version] I. Antiquity 1. Greek. The expression ῥητορικὴ τέχνη/ rhētorikḗ téchnē was coined by the Sophistic school, which created the theoretical foundation for a form of communication thought of – especially in the Greek world – as an agon: the appearance of one or more communicators before the public, engaging in a linguistic contest. The cultural background of such performance events ¶ (Speech act) was the literary agon and the forensic contest, already mentioned by Homer ( Il. 18.497–508). It was the particular achievement of the Greek Enlightenment of the 5th…

1. History of the Rhetoric and the Bible 1.1. History of Rhetoric Corax of Sicily is credited with having conceptualized and systematized rhetoric in 476 b.c. Its introduction to Greece is attributed to Tisias, a student of Corax. Gorgias, an ambassador from Sicily, is thought to have presented rhetoric to Athens in 427 b.c. and to have stayed and founded a school of rhetoric. Rhetoric was further systematized quickly in response to the judicial and political needs of democratic society in Greece. At this t…

1. Basis We humans would not be what we are without language (Anthropology). Our experience of ourselves and the world takes linguistic shape (H.-G. Gadamer). Here then is a necessary starting point for the discussion of preaching. We must relate theological reflection on preaching and its problems to this starting point. From the days of antiquity rhetoric has been the discipline that treats of our human faculty of language in relation to experience, and especially to public speaking (P. L. Oesterreich). We thus must relate preaching and the hi…