A Relevant Way to Read: A New Approach to Exegesis and Communication [Paperback]

An erudite introduction to relevance theory and its application to biblical criticism, illustrated through an examination of various New Testament texts.

In A Relevant Way to Read, Margaret G. Sim draws on her in-depth knowledge of New Testament Greek to forge a new exegesis of the Gospels and Paul's letters. Locating her studies in the linguistic concept of relevance theory, which contends that all our utterances are laden with crucial yet invisible context, Sim embarks on a journey through some of the New Testament's most troubling verses. Here she recovers some of that lost information with a meticulous analysis that should enlighten both the experienced biblical scholar and the novice.

Whether discussing Paul's masterful use of irony to shame the Corinthians, or introducing the ground-breaking ideas behind relevance theory into a whole new field of study, Sim demonstrates her vast learning and experience while putting her complex subject into plain words for the developing student.GBArguably, contemporary linguistics has more to offer New Testament interpretation than any other 'new' methodology.? In this excellently written and accessible book, Margaret Sim, shows how insights from relevance theory, a fresh and fast-growing area of linguistics, can illuminate New Testament texts and enhance our understanding of them.? I highly recommend it to serious students of the New Testament.Margaret Sim shows how one of the leading theories of pragmatics - Relevance Theory - provides a comprehensive and enlightening account of how we communicate, and applies this rigorously to the New Testament. Her exposition shows how focusing on the communicative functions of words sheds light on many exegetical controversies involving issues such as how to identify irony, the flexibility of connectives, and the various uses of conditional sentences. The book is written in a clear and jargon-free manner that will make it accessible to advanced students of biblical ló)