Marking Thought and Talk in New Testament Greek: New Light from Linguistics on the Particles 'hina' and 'hoti'

Aimed at both biblical scholars and those interested in linguistic theory, this book makes use of insights from a modern theory of communication, Relevance Theory in examining the function of the particle. Margaret Sim sheds a new light onto the interpretation of certain key texts in the Gospels. In so doing, she shows how the ideas of theoretical pragmatics can be brought to bear on the study of other fields to enable new and exciting perspectives to be opened up on difficult problems of translation and interpretation. Marking Thought and Talk in New Testament Greek claims that the particle does not have a lexical meaning of "in order that", contrary to accepted wisdom, but that it alerts the reader to expect an interpretation of the thought or attitude of the implied speaker or author. Evidence is adduced from pagan Greek and in particular the writings of Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Epictetus, as well as the New Testament. The implications of this claim give an opportunity for a fresh interpretation of many problematic texts.