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The Gods Themselves: Rhetoric and Myth in Sumer, Egypt, and Greece Before 355 BCE: Foreword

The Gods Themselves: Rhetoric and Myth in Sumer, Egypt, and Greece Before 355 BCE
Foreword

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table of contents
  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Contents
  5. List of Illustrations
  6. Foreword
  7. Introduction
    1. The Recorded Emergence of Rhetoric in Antiquity
    2. The History of Rhetoric and Onomastic Fallacy
    3. How Myths Made Meaning
    4. The Ontology of Mythic Rhetoric
    5. The Ontological Nature of Rhetorical Myth
    6. Relational Ontology
    7. The Shape of Things to Come
  8. Chapter 1: Nisaba and the Identification of Sumerian Rhetoric
    1. The Nature of Divine Agency in Sumer
    2. Nisaba, Signs, and Divination in Mesopotamia
    3. Sumerian Metaphor and Anthropomorphism
    4. Signs, Nisaba, and Her Ontology in the Sumerian Corpus
    5. Nisaba as a Contrastive Identification of Rhetoric
  9. Chapter 2: Sumerian Narrative Myth and the Relational Nature of Rhetoric in the Aratta Epics
    1. The Contextual Background for Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta
    2. Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana as Illustration of Inim, Rhetoric, and Relational Ontology
    3. The Rhetorical Nature of Human–Divine Communication
    4. Sign, Word, and Writing
    5. The Rhetorical Function of the Enmerkar Cycle
    6. The Analogical Function of Myth in Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird
  10. Chapter 3: Egyptian Rhetoric, Seshat, and Rhetoric-as-Being
    1. The “Problem” of Egyptian Myth
    2. Archival Knowledge and the Primordial Rhetorical Goddess
    3. Preceptive and Generative Design
    4. Seshat as Mediating Rhetorical Agent
  11. Chapter 4: Thoth and the Relational Nature of Egyptian Rhetoric
    1. Thoth in Egypt as the Messenger and Expression of Relational Rhetoric
    2. Prayers and Hymns to Thoth and the Haremhab Scroll
    3. Thoth’s Egyptian Identity as Narrative Exemplar
    4. Magic and Thoth’s Rhetorical Role
    5. The Long Afterlife of Thoth
  12. Chapter 5: The Beginnings of Rhetorical Myth in Ancient Greece
    1. The Derveni Papyrus, Prodicus of Ceos, and Anthropogenic Theogony
    2. Isocrates, Rhetorical Myth, and the Busiris
    3. Plato’s Protagoras and Theuth
  13. Chapter 6: Plato, Atlantean Rhetoric, Mythic σχῆμα (Schema), and the Speeches of Critias
    1. Plato’s Myths and the Timaeus-Critias in Rhetorical Theory
    2. Timaeus, the Priest of Sais, and skema muthos
    3. Atlantis as a Skema for a Scriptocentric and Rhetorical Social Order
    4. Atlantis as a Relational Rhetorical Myth
  14. Conclusion
  15. Acknowledgments
  16. Notes
    1. Introduction: Rhetoric, Myth, and Rhetorical Myth
    2. Chapter 1: Nisaba and the Identification of Sumerian Rhetoric
    3. Chapter 2: Sumerian Narrative Myth and the Relational Nature of Rhetoric in the Aratta Epics
    4. Chapter 5: The Beginnings of Rhetorical Myth in Ancient Greece
    5. Chapter 6: Plato, Atlantean Rhetoric, Mythic σχῆμα (Schema), and the Speeches of Critias
    6. Conclusion: An Apologia for the Persistently Magical
  17. Bibliography
  18. Index

Foreword

Page xi →In his volume The Muse Learns to Write, Eric A. Havelock (1986) expressed his concern over presumptions that historians of rhetoric hold as the starting point of research in classical rhetoric. Specifically, Havelock cautioned rhetoric scholars not to hold the view of what he termed “Athenocentricism” (p. 125)—that is, viewing classical rhetoric as a hierarchy with Athenian rhetoric at the pinnacle and other forms of ancient rhetoric as inferior derivatives. What concerned Havelock so many decades ago was shared by many of his contemporaries, and what evolved out of that concern was a demonstrable need to judge each manifestation of rhetoric as a téchne that grew out of a felt need within its own context. The recognized importance of situational context was dilated to also recognize the cultural, mental, and environmental kairos or climate within which rhetoric was both performed and studied. From this perspective of pluralism, we began to realize that a much more sensitive starting point for the study of rhetoric was not only to recognize the pluralization of rhetoric(s) but also to see these rhetorics as a spectrum (rather than a hierarchy) where each manifestation of rhetoric can be studied and adjudicated within its own contextual parameters.

Given Havelock’s astute warning of the limitations of “Athenocentrism,” it is significant that another historian of rhetoric, George A. Kennedy, who also held great ethos in the discipline, offered a confirming response with his 1998 volume, Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction. Kennedy’s work listed nine chapters, each presenting a “culture” that had its own rhetoric, most of which were totally independent from the Graeco-Roman tradition. The consequences of Havelock’s contextual perspective, and the instantiation of this perspective in Kennedy’s nascent work, were followed by several valuable, nontraditional contributions to the history of rhetoric (Kennedy, 2003). Two notable collections challenged the hegemony of the “Athenocentricism” perspective, both of which were edited by Carol S. Lipson and Roberta A. Binkley: Rhetoric Before and Beyond the Greeks (2004) and Ancient Non-Greek Rhetorics (2009). Both collections not only challenged the traditional historical paradigm but also revealed through the wide-ranging diversity of topics that rhetoric needed to be reconsidered from a non-European perspective. These and Page xii →other such contributions opened the way for cultural rhetorics that expanded not only historical but also global parameters. Such well-received collections included The Routledge Handbook of Comparative World Rhetorics (edited by Keith Lloyd, 2023), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric (edited by Sophia Papaioannou, Andreas Serafim, & Michael Edwards, 2022), and Global Rhetorical Traditions (Hui Wu & Tarez Samra Graban, 2023). These and other collections established the need for, and value of, seeing rhetoric not only within its context but being recognized as covering a wide spectrum. What also became apparent was the need for in-depth studies, works of scholarship that provided detailed analysis. We are now beginning to see in-depth detailed studies, such as Robert L. Lively’s groundbreaking work, Vikings Behaving Reasonably (2024). It is within this stage of in-depth, detailed research that we can best understand and appreciate Shawn D. Ramsey’s The Gods Themselves.

Ramsey’s in-depth, meticulously detailed study merits our acclaim for several reasons. Some of these include a thorough prehistory of rhetoric that lays a social and epistemological foundation for extending the conventional boundaries of our discipline. These extended treatments include an examination of rhetoric and mythology, rhetoric and religion, and ways that cultures express their views of reality, as well as how they structure meaning itself. The central and organizing principle of this work is the study of how myth functions in culturally specific ways. To understand the powerful and pervasive impact of myth, Ramsey makes clear, requires that we recognize the inextricable relationship between myth and rhetoric. Myth is not only expressed through the rhetorical acts of speaking and writing: rhetoric itself is the epistemological foundation for the thought and creation of myth. That is, the act of creating myth as a way of establishing a view of reality is rhetorical, as is the way that such a view of reality is used as a basis of sharing that view of reality with others. From this perspective, Ramsey makes it clear that rhetoric is inherent in the epistemological creation of myth, as well as the activity of sharing mythic views with others. Through Ramsey’s treatment of a range of Semitic myths, we will not only understand this rhetoric that predates the formal téchnai of Hellenic rhetoric, but also how such nascent mythic rhetorics eventually impacted classical rhetoric.

One of the most fundamental contributions of The Gods Themselves is that Ramsey re-examines the “Athenocentric” ontological presumptions of rhetoric by examining mythic rhetoric. That is, at its highest level of symbolic expression, myth functions for purposeful ends, an activity that is done through the creation and expression of formative exempla. The process of explaining and Page xiii →structuring reality through mythic abstraction is one that appears to be distinct from the Hellenic téchne of rhetoric but as revealed in this work, it has many shared features, even when mythic rhetoric is expressed across a range of cultures. For example, Ramsey’s analyses of myth in Sumerian and Egyptian cultures reveal the complex relationship of thought and speech where speech acts are meaningful through the intricate interplay of word, sign, speech, and writing. Often, as Ramsey reveals, heroic deeds are accomplished not through agonistic physical battles but rather through persuasion, which makes evident how powerful language was both recognized and valued in Sumerian and Egyptian cultures and the central role that rhetoric played.

We can appreciate better Ramsey’s contribution of The Gods Themselves by realizing that this work is an act of rhetorical criticism and not only an act of historiography. Ramsey reveals the respective liminal connections that Nisaba and Seshat make between deities and humans through their rhetorical power by complementing his historical research with the interpretation of texts and prayers. By revealing the meaning and intent of such narratives, Ramsey not only accounts for the epistemology of thought and expression in Sumer and Egypt but also identifies their relevant features and influence. Ramsey’s rhetorical criticism not only complements his historical accounting; it lays a foundation to explain the impact of the Egyptian god Thoth and how he was received not only by Greek thinkers such as Plato (1914) in his Phaedrus and Isocrates (1929) in his Busiris, but also why Thoth would be viewed as “the Egyptian Hermes.”

Understanding the topic of myth in rhetorical tradition deepens our understanding of sophistic rhetoric as well as the use of mythologizing in Plato’s dialogues. Ramsey’s analysis of Plato’s views on myth and rhetoric through his Hellenization of Thoth sheds light on the view that Plato considered myths as a quest for truth propositions and therefore that myth is not incompatible with Plato’s quest for truth. Ramsey enables the reader to reexamine Plato’s Atlantis myth as a rhetorical schema providing a narrative that, in this instance, establishes Atlantis as the metaphorical phoros for Plato to convey his views on an idealized Republic. In this respect, Ramsey argues, Plato’s mythmaking echoes back to the nascent rhetoric of Sumerian discourse that employs myth as an instrumental process of protreptic discourse for the purposes of education, explanation, and (ultimately) persuasion.

As discussed in the opening paragraphs of this Preface, current efforts are being made to extend the boundaries of rhetoric by not only introducing “new” cultural rhetorics, but also—when occurring—cross-cultural relationships. In Page xiv →The Gods Themselves, we see cross-cultural rhetorical relationships revealed and examined from a historical perspective.

As Ramsey states in the Conclusion, “Rhetorical myths shaped rhetorical history, or perhaps reflected the rhetorical theory already present in their culture in memorable forms” (173). It would be tempting to describe what The Gods Themselves contributes to our discipline by simply saying that Ramsey has provided us with a prehistory to our discipline. This work, however, offers much more than a prologue to the history of rhetoric: it extends the history of rhetoric. Eric A. Havelock’s (1963) Preface to Plato opened our eyes to the contributions of Sophists by revealing the epistemic impact of orality on the development of abstract thought. Jeffrey Walker’s (2000) Rhetoric and Poetics in Antiquity revealed the seminal relationship of rhetorical and poetical discourse. In their own respective treatments, Havelock and Walker did much more than provide us with “prehistories”—they extended the boundaries of rhetoric both diachronically and synchronically. That is, each extended the boundaries of Athenocentric rhetoric in historical time and extended (and melded) disciplinary boundaries. Ramsey’s The Gods Themselves does the same with his own topic; he both extends the temporal boundaries of rhetoric and broadens its ontological boundaries by showing the relationship between myth and rhetoric across cultures. In sum, Ramsey reveals the impact of early Eastern thought on Western intellectual history through rhetoric.

In the beginning of this preface several works were referenced that illustrate a spectrum of rhetoric(s) when judged within their own cultural and cognitive contexts. When we apply that same perspective to Ramsey’s The Gods Themselves, it becomes apparent that a new world dawns before us, a world that extends the spectrum of rhetoric not only historically but also conceptually. For that contribution, we owe Shawn D. Ramsey’s The Gods Themselves a debt of gratitude.

Richard Lo Enos

Texas Christian University

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