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Style in the New Testament: the Need for Serious Reconsideration

It is argued that the emergence and development of modem stylistics and linguistics have so far not influenced or stimulated perceptions of New Testament stylistics to any significant extent. Perceptions regarding style as such have remained static for many decades and style is usually depicted only in terms of a listing of peculiarities of grammar, syntax, vocabulary and so on. A more comprehensive approach to the description of style is still, to a great extent, absent. This paper is an argument for a much more comprehensive description of style where recent developments in general stylistics, literary analyses, reception theory and so on are also accommodated. The problematic current situation regarding the study of the style and language of the New Testament is elucidated with a few short examples, and in addition to a brief definition of style in the light of modem developments, the suggestion is made that a paradigm in which an adequate description of style (in terms of modem stylistics) could be possible is perhaps speech act theory.