List members interested in the application of RT to literary interpretation
may like to note the following publication:
S. Pattemore, The People of God in the Apocalypse: Discourse, Structure,
and Exegesis (SNTSMS, 128; Cambridge: CUP, 2004)
256pp. UK retail £45
Publication date: UK – 17 June; USA – shortly after 26 June.
I include below the publisher’s “blurb”, and, slightly more informatively,
the relevant part of the abstract
Publisher’s blurb:
This book examines how the original audience of the Apocalypse would have
heard themselves portrayed in the visions of chs 4-22, and in what
directions it would have motivated them. The challenge is found to be that
of following Christ's example of faithful witness, even to the point of
death, and of resisting rival claimants to the allegience of the faithful.
Stephen Pattemore uses Relevance Theory, a development in the linguistic
field of pragmatics, to help understand Revelation against the background of
allusion to other, biblical and non-biblical texts.
ABSTRACT
This study uses Relevance Theory (RT) to investigate how John’s late first
century audience would have identified with the depictions of the people of
God in the visions narrated in Revelation 4:1-22:9, and the directions in
which this would have motivated them.
RT, a cognitive pragmatic approach, provides a framework for understanding
human communication which accounts for the importance of inference. It
asserts that the recipient of a communication assumes it to be relevant, and
interprets the text of the communication in the cognitive environment which
provides optimal relevance, that is, good cognitive effects for acceptable
processing effort. Chapter 2 explores implications of this theory for
literary interpretation in general, and for biblical interpretation in
particular. As well as its applicability to interpretation in general, RT
is found to be of particular help in understanding the structure of a text,
in investigating intertextual relationships and in understanding
inferentially-based imagery.
Chapter 3 locates the book of Revelation in its external context and
discusses briefly how the discourse structure creates a text-internal
context within which to locate any particular passage. It also locates the
passages of greatest interest to our understanding of the role of the people
of God in the visions.
Chapters 4-6 form the exegetical heart of the study. They focus on the
passages of interest identified in Chapter 3, and, using optimal relevance
as an important criterion within more conventional exegetical strategies,
trace two significant images of the people of God through the vision
narratives, understanding them against the background of intertextual
allusion….
____________________
Stephen Pattemore
UBS Translation Consultant (NZ & PNG)
12 Colin Wild Place, Glenfield, Auckland 1310, NZ
Phone and fax: (+64 9) 441 9298
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