The Form of the Sermon in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity

Form criticism has enjoyed great success in providing tangible insights into the social life and liturgical practices of Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity, but until now there has not been forthcoming a clear idea of what Jewish and Christian preaching was like before the middle of the second century CE Scholars are generally agreed that we have little, if any, direct evidence of sermons from this period. The sermons in Acts would seem to be excellent sources, but as Alexander Mac-Donald has pointed out, these are almost all missionary sermons or speeches to outsiders, and are therefore of little use in determining the nature of sermons addressed to coreligionists in the synagogue or church. Morton Smith attempted to isolate sermons in the synoptic gospels, but there he admits that the passages adduced—largely collections of sayings—may not constitute the actual form of oral preaching, but instead reflect a consistent pattern of literary sermon reports. As for Jewish sermons, the midrashic collections were edited later than the period in question, and it is generally unwise to extrapolate backward from these texts. Recent attempts to compare rabbinic homiletical forms with NT texts have been strongly criticized.