A textlinguistic analysis of selected Old Testament texts in Matthew 1--4

Inadequacies of theory and method may cause or even exacerbate certain problems within biblical scholarship. Consequently, this dissertation focuses on the lingering problem pertaining to Matthew's usage of the Old Testament. Since no work found addressed the problem from a purely linguistic perspective, this dissertation argues the merits of a "top-down" textlinguistic approach to the problem.Without claims of exhaustiveness, the dissertation offers a viable theoretical and methodological framework for linguistically investigating Matthew's use of the OT. Having only a foundational knowledge of linguistics, the researcher adopts the central presuppositions from the tagmemic linguistic philosophy of Kenneth Lee Pike and Robert E. Longacre. Moreover, the work relies heavily upon the discourse grammar theory and methods of Longacre and others associated with the SIL school.After stating the problem and reviewing selected literature on the OT-NT nexus, both the actual investigation and presentation of the work adopt a "top-down" methodology. Thus, the textual part of the work begins with Matthew's communication situation and filters down hierarchically through the discourse, episode, and paragraph levels respectively. Accordingly, Longacre's narrative template was applied to the entire Gospel in order to identify the narrative discourse zones such as: APERTURE, STAGE, INCITING MOMENT, RISING ACTION, CLIMAX, DENOUEMENT, AND CLOSURE.That initial step identified Matthew 1:18--4:11 as a separate discourse unit involving the book's STAGE and INCITING MOMENT. Also, identifying that unit as a separately embedded discourse provided warrant for studying the selected OT citations in their narrative context.Next, Longacre's narrative template was recursively applied to the same section of the Gospel in order to locate the OT texts within their immediate linguistic context. Consequently, it was discovered that Matthew 1:18--4:11 contained at least four other embedded discourses.Also, the dissertation presents a constituent analysis of the four discourses along with stepped tree diagrams. That presentation highlights the distribution of the selected OT texts throughout each embedded unit.The study identifies some of the selected OT texts as separately embedded paragraph units. The study concludes that these OT citations are Matthew's specially marked form of speech attribution, and they serve a variety of discourse functions.Finally, as narrative constituents, the OT citations fill both episode and paragraph slots. As such, the texts highlight certain episodes, themes, and participants in Matthew 1--4. While these OT citations are embedded within Matthew's narrative framework, they do not appear to interrupt the Gospel's cohesion. On the contrary, Matthew's OT citations, consequently, complement the book's functional coherence.