Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament Bundle (6 vols.)

Linguists have found that although a tremendous diversity exists between languages, each language must accomplish the same set of basic tasks. For instance, if I want to tell you a story about the first time I went rock climbing, I must:

• introduce the people involved in the story,
• set the time, place and situation in which the story takes place,
• provide background information necessary to understand the story (a fear of heights, perhaps)

Once the scene is set and I begin to tell you the story, I must:

• help you see who is doing what to whom,
• clearly communicate changes in time, place or participants,
• decide what information I want to group together in a single sentence, and what I want to break into separate sentences

Regardless of whether I am speaking or writing, I still need to accomplish all of these tasks, as well as many others. We can use each of these tasks as a descriptive framework for the overall story. The choices we make about whether to follow these sets of tasks or depart from them all contain meaning. For example, if I choose to break the expected pattern in my story—by failing to note my fear of heights—then I must have done so for a reason. Once you determine my reason for breaking the pattern—for example, you are aware of my vertigo and wonder why I didn’t mention it—you will better understand the story, my motives for telling it, and meaning behind it.

The same principle applies when we study the Bible. We can study the linguistic tasks in the Greek text to better understand the story. These linguistic tasks are called discourse markers, and they help us determine the meaning of the Greek text. Normally, this process requires lengthy and tedious textual analysis. But now, the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament helps us identify these discourse markers in the New Testament quickly, easily, and accurately. We can now get behind the words of the New Testament writers and discover the presence or absence of particular linguistic tasks, which makes the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament an indispensible tool for studying the Greek text of the New Testament.

Let’s take a look at four of the discourse devices the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament helps us identify.

Forward-Pointing Devices

Forward-pointing devices slow the flow of the discourse by creating a break. They add the linguistic equivalent of a speed bump. These grammatically-based ‘speed bumps’ typically occur just before something surprising or important. An added speed bump attracts more attention to the break than it otherwise would have received had the device not been used. Some of these devices point forward very generically. Other devices work as part of a paired set, with one part referring ahead and the second part marking the intended referent.

For example, the writers of the New Testament use forward-pointing devices to highlight a contrast, like the μεν/δε set in Matthew 9:17.

Without the use of μεν, the initial statement about the harvest sounds like a complete thought on its own, rather than a discourse device that indicates a great need. Jesus’ call for more laborers conveys greater urgency because μεν is found at the beginning of the statement. Unfortunately, the forward-pointing device is obscured in the English translation.

Other forward-pointing devices indicate the presence of meta-comments, attention-getters, redundancy, quotative frames, and tail-head linkages. Remember, these discourse devices are often obscured by English translations and can take hours to find for the most advanced Biblical scholars. Now, with the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament, these discourse devices are readily apparent, allowing you to work quickly and easily with the text and saving you hours of research and textual analysis. The Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament does it all for you!

Thematic Highlighting

Other discourse devices attract the reader’s attention to added information. For instance, in Matthew 22, the Sadducees ask Jesus a question about resurrection.

This additional participial clause does not distinguish to which Sadducees Jesus is referring. Rather, the overspecified noun phrase is included to provide crucial thematic information about the participants.

The same thing happens in the parable of the prodigal son, when the eldest son uses an overspecified noun phrase to refer to his brother in his speech to his father.

These discourse devices are clearly marked in the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament. When the writer draws your attention to particular participants in a discourse, you’ll be able to spot them more easily with the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament. Remember, these discourse devices are obscured by English translation and require extensive research and textual analysis to find in Greek.

Emphasis

Working with the Greek text requires the ability to identify main clauses and subordinate clauses, and determine the relationships between these and other clauses. The task of identifying the writer’s emphasis in the text can become lost in clausal outlines. Fortunately, the clause outline in the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament breaks the sentences of the Greek text into more manageable portions for consideration of the annotated discourse features. In fact, the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament places each individual clause on its own level in the outline, so that subordinate clauses are indented to represent their subordination. The Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament provides you with the powerful tools to identify and understand clausal relationships, so you can understand the text more accurately.

For example, James 1:23 contains a conditional clause placed before the main clause, thereby establishing a new frame of reference for what follows. The frame of reference is in brackets, and emphasized elements are bolded.

James wants to talk about a specific kind of person. The conditional frame of reference introduces this person, reiterating him using the redundant thematic demonstrative ουτος that could be rendered something like, ‘If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, this guy…’ The most important quality of ‘this guy’ is that he hears without doing. The words ακροατης λογου are fronted for emphasis and function as the point of a point-counterpoint set, while ου ποιητης functions as the counterpoint in the set and is also emphasized. As important as ‘a hearer of the word’ and ‘not a doer’ are, what James says about this kind of person is more important in the larger context of the verse. The scope of the emphasis regarding the qualities of hearing and doing is limited to the fronted conditional clause. This textual analysis can be accomplished quickly and accurately with the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament.

Frames of Reference

A frame of reference sets the scene for the clause that follows by providing a starting point. It also provides relates what follows the frame to what precedes the frame. A frame of reference accomplishes two primary tasks, according to Levinsohn (2000: 8):

• "it provides a starting point for the communication"
• it "cohesively anchors the subsequent clause(s) to something which is already in the context."

The most frequently utilized frame of reference is the ‘topical frame’, which typically involves fronting the grammatical subject of the clause. Fronting the topical element draws attention to it, but since it is not the most important element in the clause the fronting does not result in emphasis. Here is an example from 1 Peter.

The first clause uses the normal order, placing the subject after the main verb. The second and third clauses front the subject to create topical frames of reference, which have the effect of sharpening the contrast by attracting extra attention to the switches of subject.

Other frames of reference are easily discernable with the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament as well, such as temporal frames, spatial frames, conditional frames, comparative frames, and reason/result frames.

What’s more, with the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament, you will be able to easily distinguish circumstantial participles by using discourse markers to identify circumstantial frames of reference. For example, nominative circumstantial frames have the same grammatical subject as the main verb of the clause. The use of the participle backgrounds the action in order to ensure that primary attention remains focused on the main action. Several actions are backgrounded in Acts 9:1-2 to provide introduction to the main action of 'asking.'

All of the major translations render προσελθων as though it were a main verb, whereas in Greek ητησατο is the only main verb of the complex clause that spreads over the two verses.

Using the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament, you can accomplish the same analysis for circumstantial frames in other cases. Here are examples in the dative case:

Since the subject of the participle is different from the subject of the main clause, nominative participles are not an option. Since the same person participates in both the main clause and the participle, the participle takes the case that is used to refer to the person in the main clause. However, the backgrounding effect of the participle remains the same, regardless of the case that it occurs in.

Remember, with the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament, you can accomplish complex discourse analysis of the entire Greek New Testament with the click of a mouse. The Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament enhances your exegesis, interpretation, sermon preparation, and research pursuits.