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Petition as a Literary Form

Petition as a Literary Form PETITION AS A LITERARY FORM BY TERENCE Y MULLINS The study of forms in the New Testament has proceeded in two different directions. On the one hand there has been the work of Form-Criticism, in the Gospels especially, in which the content of the "form" has played a most important part and the structure has often appeared to be subordinated. On the other hand there has been the work of Literary Criticism with its approach to form marked by a tendency to let structure characterize a "form" and to let the content contribute only functional elements. In this paper I shall analyze the petition as a form from the latter point of view. Petitions to government officials constitute a significant propor- tion of the papyri recovered from the centuries immediately before and after the New Testament period. They range from the lengthy Petition of Dionysia to the Prae f ect (P. Oxy. 237) 1) to the simple Petition of Alypius included in a note to his brother (P. Oxy. I49I ) .2) In all of these-and in private petitions as well-there exists a formal pattern built around three basic elements and a few stylized elaborations. The order in http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Novum Testamentum Brill

Petition as a Literary Form

Mullins, Terence Y
Novum Testamentum , Volume 5 (1): 46 – Jan 1, 1962
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1962 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0048-1009
eISSN
1568-5365
DOI
10.1163/156853662X00251
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

PETITION AS A LITERARY FORM BY TERENCE Y MULLINS The study of forms in the New Testament has proceeded in two different directions. On the one hand there has been the work of Form-Criticism, in the Gospels especially, in which the content of the "form" has played a most important part and the structure has often appeared to be subordinated. On the other hand there has been the work of Literary Criticism with its approach to form marked by a tendency to let structure characterize a "form" and to let the content contribute only functional elements. In this paper I shall analyze the petition as a form from the latter point of view. Petitions to government officials constitute a significant propor- tion of the papyri recovered from the centuries immediately before and after the New Testament period. They range from the lengthy Petition of Dionysia to the Prae f ect (P. Oxy. 237) 1) to the simple Petition of Alypius included in a note to his brother (P. Oxy. I49I ) .2) In all of these-and in private petitions as well-there exists a formal pattern built around three basic elements and a few stylized elaborations. The order in

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Novum Testamentum – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1962

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