From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Wed Jun 21 2000 - 17:49:23 EDT
on 06/21/00 12:30 PM, CWestf5155@aol.com wrote:
> I've been out of the loop for months!
Cindy, I have noticed your absence.
> On the other hand, diagramming is probably good for the English-speaking
> soul, since it places everything in a more familiar syntactic arrangement so
> that we can perceive and process the hierarchical arrangements a little
> better through clarifying the associations of independent and dependent
> clauses. But then, we need to put everything back in place to appreciate and
> interpret the writer's approach.
I agree with you prominently :-))). Particularly the last statement:
>But then, we need to put everything back in place to appreciate and
> interpret the writer's approach.
When I was working in Hebrews in the early 90's syntax diagramming seemed to
be an absolute essential for sorting out the clause and paragraph level
relationships. At that time however I knew next to nothing about discourse
analysis and now it seems like I would need to go back and do this all over
again. Or I could just buy your thesis.
Currently working in the Gospels (Mark at present) syntax diagramming seems
to be somewhat of a waste of time. Narrative syntax is rarely complex enough
to cause serious problems, except for a few places in Luke. However, the
analysis of the pragmatic level of the text is very crucial since we are
often mislead by the pericope divisions in the UBSGNT into thinking that
they fall on real discourse boundaries which they often do not.
I am currently looking at the later half of Mark chapter eight and into
chapter nine. This span of text presents some real intriguing questions
about topic continuity, anaphora and so forth. There seems to be more than
one topical thread that weaves the last half of chapter eight part of
chapter nine together. Simond Dik's and also Steven Levinshon's treatment of
Topic and Focus are very useful for sorting out this question ( I am still
working on it).
I am learning to completely disregard the boundaries provided by the
mainstream synoptic gospels school of thought which have been immortalized
by the USBGNT and Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum. These divisions were
conjured up to support a particular thesis about gospel origins* and there
presence in the standard editions of the GNT presents an obstacle to people
who want to analyze and understand the intratextual relationships within a
single Gospel.
A simple means of circumventing this obstacle is to print off a plain
version of the Gospel for use in study. Once you have worked with the plain
version for a month or two and then you go back to the UBSGNT you will be
shocked at how obtrusive the the pericope divisions are and you will
probably start using your NA27 from then on which is the somewhat lesser of
evils only having the paragraph divisions.
Cindy, Thanks for surfacing on b-greek again. Always good to hear from you.
Clay
--
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062
* See: Dungan, David L. A history of the synoptic problem: the canon, the
text, the composition and the interpretation of the Gospels. Doubleday,
1999, Series: The Anchor Bible Reference Library.
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