Richard K. Min © 2010–2016 http://www.utdallas.edu/~rkm010300/papers CIRCULAR RHETORIC AND LOGIC OF PARADOX Richard K. Min Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas 75080, USA Professor, Instituto Teologico Bautista Pablo, Chiapas, Mexico Email:
[email protected] 1. Introduction In the early twentieth century, Russell pioneered the formal study of paradox in logic.1 He discovered that any type of vicious circle possessed the potential to cause a paradox to occur. His solution to avoiding the occurrence of a paradox was simply to eliminate any vicious circle or to render it invalid.2 The goal was to keep the emerging system of Formal Logic sound and valid by eliminating or denying the very presence of these potentially damaging paradoxes. Thereafter, the scholarly consensus and trend were established to follow Russell's solution, and many scholarly disciplines still adhere to it even today. Biblical scholarship is no exception, which has caused a devastating impact and has set up confusion by ignoring any literary circular constructs frequently found in the Bible, thereby rendering them invalid. As a result, the study of biblical paradoxes and circular-constructs has been one of the most ignored, confused, and controversial areas for the latter half of the twentieth century.3 However, a renewed interest has occurred due to the innovative pioneering approach in the study of paradox by Kripke (1975).4 The primary critical method in this paper to analyze various literary constructs in circular rhetoric and logic of paradox in the Bible is based on Russell (1910), Kripke (1975), and Min and Gupta (2010).