Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 83:1 (Spring 2021)
Article: Reviews Of Books
Author: Anonymous

WTJ 83:1 (Spring 2021) p. 175

Reviews Of Books

Matthew H. Patton and Frederic Clarke Putnam, Basics of Hebrew Discourse: A Guide to Working with Biblical Hebrew Prose and Poetry. Edited by Miles V. Van Pelt. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2019. Pp. 288. $29.99, paper.

Basics of Hebrew Discourse (BHD) offers students and instructors a practical guide for discourse analysis. Matthew Patton contributes the guide to Hebrew prose in Part 1, followed by Frederic Putnam’s guide to Hebrew poetry in Part 2, with valuable contributions from Miles Van Pelt throughout. By limiting secondary discussions on the history of discourse analysis and its shifting terminologies, BHD focuses directly on the method of this approach. Since Hebrew exegesis has traditionally been constrained to phonology, morphology, and sentence-level syntax, discourse analysis supplies the next logical step by examining discourse relationships that link together clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and beyond (pp. 11–12). This expansion from micro-syntax to macro-syntax promises new insights into the structure and meaning of the OT. “Discourse analysis fruitfully disciplines us to move beyond the sentence to the text as a whole in our search for meaning” (p. 138).

The prose section contains the following nine chapter topics: (1) an introduction to discourse analysis; (2) common and fundamental discourse relationships; (3) discourse markers and literary signals; (4) verbal sequencing in narrative texts; (5) verbal sequencing in non-narrative texts; (6) preposed (fronted) constituents and verbless clauses; (7) a step-by-step process for prose discourse analysis; (8) examples of discourse analysis for Hebrew prose; and (9) a summary chart for prose discourse analysis. Since each chapter introduces thick concepts, the authors recommend that students begin with “only one or two discourse features at a time” (p. 13). After considering each discourse feature in turn, the reader is prepared for holistic examples of discourse analysis. The formal process has three main steps. Step one: delineate individual clauses. Step two: analyze each clausal relationship. Step three: reassess each clausal relationship in light of the total discourse.

This method of analysis allows readers to track the author’s flow of thought more precisely. Those who have experience with methods like arcing or bracketing will recognize certain similarities with Hebrew discourse analysis. Understanding the Hebrew verbal system as a discourse matrix allows readers to distinguish between foreground and background content embedded in a text. Discourse markers may offer concrete literary signals to clarify the logic of the passage. For example, markers such as לְמַעַן or לָכֵן