Tag Archives: speeches

Every Speech in the Bible

I have worked through the Old and New Testament, trying to identify every speech in the Bible by reference, speaker, audience, and brief description. By my criteria, I found 235 speeches in the Old Testament and 278 in the New Testament, for a total of 513 speeches. This will be a useful tool as I work on writing a Rhetoric text. Some interesting notes:

  1. The gospel of Luke had the most speeches of any book (81)
  2. Moses delivers the longest single speech (Deuteronomy 5:1 through 26:19)
  3. The longest New Testament speech is, of course, the Sermon on the Mount.
  4. Jesus delivers the most speeches (214), followed by Moses (24), then David (13)
  5. Job, Peter and Paul all deliver the same number of speeches (11)

I am now working on the best way to make it available for others to use.

There are a lot!

I am currently working on identifying every speech in the Bible.

“And how do you define a speech, exactly?” Good question. Here is my criteria:

  • It must be spoken before an audience (or written with that intention); e.g. not a song without an identified audience
  • Spoken from man to man; not a prayer, nor from God, nor a prophet saying “Thus says the Lord”
  • Formal, self-contained, structured (not merely a conversation)
  • Not an epistle
  • Three or more sentences in length.

I will let you know when I am done.