Among many recent methods within New Testament studies, two approaches, rhetorical
criticism and discourse analysis, offer distinct interpretive methods. Both approaches are
predicated on a close analysis of the Greek text, each one claiming to make a significant, even
essential, contribution to elucidating the writer’s intended meaning. However, both approaches
differ in orientation and may be perceived as offering differing interpretive outcomes, thereby
encouraging the notion that they are theoretically and practically incongruent.
Such a posture is assisted by the notion that these two approaches are exclusively
focused upon isolated elements in communicative meaning, with discourse analysis grounded
in text-linguistics, and rhetorical criticism directed toward persuasive intent through shared
literary conventions. Few attempts have been made to appropriate select components of both
methods to combine them for practical exegesis. Therefore, this project seeks to address these
deficiencies by considering the extent to which discourse analysis and rhetorical criticism may
converge in identifying textual meaning of select narratives of the New Testament. To assess
the feasibility of such congruence, this project explores mutual relationships in a portion of
New Testament Greek texts—a continuous passage in Luke’s Gospel.
Chapter I investigates general approaches within each method and presents shared
communicative features that may display congruence. Chapter II expands upon the relevance of
systemic functional linguistics as an approach within discourse analysis while Chapter III
provides specific details related to rhetorical criticism, involving classical rhetoric as found in
Aelius Theon’s Progymnasmata. Chapters IV and V offers practical exegesis of twelve
consecutive scenes within Luke’s Gospel to determine to what extent congruence of discourse
analysis and rhetorical criticism may be possible. Finally, Chapter VI compares the results of
this exegesis alongside three representative commentaries, elucidating potential and practical
outcomes of this project for New Testament Gospel studies
