Tomorrow is the illustrious anniversary of when formerly loyal British subjects declared their intention to form a sovereign nation in 1776. The Revolutionary War ensued, and eventually we Americans defeated the British. About 100 years later, Canada and Australia both moved toward independence, yet in a friendlier sort of way. As a result, the latter two are still considered part of the British Commonwealth, and can qualify quite easily for resident status at British institutions. The Americans? We fought and won, so we get to pay full price for tuition. Like I tell my kids, there are natural consequences for your decisions.
This July 4th marks a new chapter for me, working diligently to slow down the pace of my life, and to strike a better balance between work and leisure. I have moved from no leisure to some modicum, which my analyst assures me represents real progress. One aspect of the leisure will be a return to blogging grammar. It has been a “happy place” in times past, as long as the commenters behave themselves. As I mentioned in my last post, I am about ready to close the book on Greek research projects at work for a while, and will begin an analysis of discourse features in the Hebrew Bible.
October 3, 2006, I began work on what became the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament. I had attempted to teach discourse studies enough to realize that few people had either the time or aptitude to competently master various aspects of discourse grammar, especially information structure or “word order”. The LDGNT provides an annotated database of the most useful and easily understood discourse devices that I had come across in my research, as well as some new ones derived from my dissertation work. The database allows people to familiar with the discourse devices to interact with the database as they would with any specialized commentary. The database provides much wider access to insights from discourse, especially for those that will not specialize in this area of study. Instead of doing an analysis from scratch “without a net”, they can interact with my analysis. If they disagree with my analysis, they will likely end up interacting with exegetical questions might otherwise have been overlooked. There is a brief introduction that comes with the LDGNT, but something more was needed.
For several months in 2008 I argued for the need for a discourse grammar that provided a more complete introduction to the LDGNT, something suitable for use in a Greek tools class or alongside Wallace’s GGBtB in second year Greek. I was granted my wish, but with a caveat. I could write as much as I wanted, as long as the draft book was completed in 90 calendar days (not working days). After working on a table of contents, I counter-offered with 100 days, from Memorial Day in May to Labor Day in September. Thus on Labor Day 2008, I had completed a draft of Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical Introduction for Teaching and Exegesis. My SBL paper from the fall also was incorporated into the text, bringing me to about 120 days. I do not want to repeat that gauntlet, but it was quite a ride while it lasted.
Discourse Grammar in print
The Discourse Grammar will be published, both electronically and in print by Logos (for now), and should be shipping by mid-August. Logos will produce short runs of a paperback version of the text until someone comes along and makes us a better offer. Dead-tree publishers are not as nimble as the e-folk.
The Discourse Grammar and LDGNT are designed to function as a suite of materials. Once people have read the grammar, they will be able to interact with the analyzed text very productively. I had the opportunity to teach through the material at Knox Theological Seminary in January, and the students found the material very helpful in tackling exegesis for preaching and teaching.
New discourse analysis of the Hebrew Bible
On Tuesday I will begin working on an analysis of the Hebrew Bible comparable to that found in the LDGNT, beginning with the Torah. I also plan on writing a comparable discourse grammar at some point along the way. It would focus on narrative, leaving the volume on poetry for John Hobbins. The start of this Hebrew project means that I will also be posting interesting examples that I find from the application of the discourse principles to Hebrew, not just Greek. And because I have had so much fun comparing synoptic versions for the discourse implications of their differences, I will likely do a little LXX comparison from time to time. For a nice example of what I am talking about regarding the synoptic parallels, check out my interaction with Rod Decker regarding Mark 7:11-12 over at NT Resources.
Upcoming posts
My focus for blogging will be multi-faceted heading into the fall. First and foremost, I will be tackling my paper on the historical present in Greek, focusing as much or more on methodology and theoretical framework as on the actual description. IMHO, the confusion can all be traced back to early aspect-only folks “taking a left turn at Albuquerque.” My other focus will be Hebrew. I am also presenting a paper for the SBL Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew section on “emphasis.” Again, this one will focus nearly as much on method and presuppositions as on the actual description.
Linguistic descriptions stand or fall on their presuppositions, boys and girls, yet few scholars devote much attention to them let alone disclosing them in one’s research. The linguistic framework that I use is “cross-linguistic”, allowing me to talk about the discourse function across various languages based on its function, not the grammatical form used to accomplish the function. I have blogged on a whole host of devices in the GNT. The Hebrew posts will demonstrate the utility of adopting a cross-linguistic method, connecting back to examples from Greek and English.
Here endeth the preamble. There should be about two posts per week, beginning with issues regarding theoretical frameworks. The next post will look at the downside of treating everything as a binary opposition, whether it fits or not.
