In seminary I had the opportunity to read a bunch of books. Some were helpful, others not so much. I came across the work of  folks like Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical NarrativeThe Pentateuch as NarrativeJoseph: A Story of Divine Providence : A Text Theoretical and Textlinguistic Analysis of Genesis 37 and 39-48article by Stephen Levinsohn. It was a text-linguistic study of referring expressions in Genesis 22. I contacted him, and he began to guide my research by suggesting readings. When I would hit a wall, he would help me figure our which part of my theoretical framework needed attention. It was about this time that I began interacting with Christo Van der Merwe, who later became my doctoral advisor. He guided my reading in the area of Hebrew grammar and cognitive linguistics. All of this reading culminated in flying to the UK for a six-week workshop on Analyzing Discourse: A Manual of Basic ConceptsLexham Discourse Greek New Testament, part of a new series of original language resources that I am working on. There is also an English version of the same data called the High Definition New Testament. Both catalog and graphically identify all occurrences of a specific set of devices that the biblical writers used, but which are usually overlooked, even by those with a knowledge of Greek.

This blog is devoted to exegesis of NT passages, highlighting the exegetical contribution of various discourse devices to the composition of the passage. A particular focus will be the exegetical significance of different readings in the Synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.