Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 49:1 (Spring 1987)
Article: Hebrews 1:1-4: A Study in Discourse Analysis
Author: David Alan Black

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WTJ 49:1 (Spring 1987) p. 175

Hebrews 1:1-4: A Study in Discourse Analysis

David Alan Black

I. Introduction

The current adaptation to biblical studies of what is being learned about language generally within the dual disciplines of linguistics and semantics is a positive sign of the vitality of biblical scholarship today. The modern debt to James Barr, whose monumental study The Semantics of Biblical Language “demythologized Kittel” (as one writer has put it),1 simply cannot be tallied. The veritable flood of recent publications which employ the theories and techniques of modern linguistics in biblical studies is clear indication of the success of Barr’s pace-setting efforts.2

One aspect of the contribution which modern linguistics is making to the discipline of biblical study is a renewed appreciation of the importance of context and situation for meaning. Semantics is concerned not only with words but also with the relations that exist between words and that permeate an entire argument. The analysis of these relations is at present called “discourse analysis” or “text analysis,” though the latter term is usually avoided because of its connotations with the science of textual criticism in Greek studies. This essay is offered as a contribution to discourse analysis based on the text of Heb 1:1–4, which is possibly the most refined and

WTJ 49:1 (Spring 1987) p. 176

literary piece of theological argument in the whole of the NT. Special attention will be focused on stylistic formulations and their function in terms of the theology and purpose of Hebrews.

The type of discourse analysis presented in this study is based upon so-called colon structure.3 A colon is a unit of grammatical structure with clearly marked external dependencies. It always has either overtly or covertly a central matrix consisting of a nominal element (subject) and a verbal element (predicate), each having the possibility of extended features. Those features which are added to either the nominal or verbal element restrict the range of reference even as they supply further information.

Colon analysis is primarily a procedure dealing with continuous discourse, taking into account all possible formal features, not only those involving syntax, but all stylistic features which may be regarded as being on the rhetorical level. One must always begin with syntactic features, which have priority since they constitute ways in which basic relationships between fundamental units are most clearly marked. But stylistics and rhetorical f...

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