The Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament revolutionized how we read the New Testament by applying discourse markers to the Greek text. Now, Steve Runge’s Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical Introduction for Teaching and Exegesis offers readers a book-length treatment of discourse linguistics and how it can be applied to New Testament exegesis and interpretation.

In Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament, Steve Runge introduces a function-based approach to language, and seeks to describe grammatical conventions based upon the discourse functions they accomplish. This volume does not reinvent previous grammars or supplant previous work on the New Testament. Instead, Runge reviews, clarifies, and provides a unified description of each of the discourse features. That makes it useful for beginning Greek students, pastors, and teachers, as well as for advanced New Testament scholars looking for a volume which synthesizes the varied sub-disciplines of New Testament discourse analysis.

The approach in Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament is cross-linguistic. Runge looks at how all languages operate before he focuses on Greek. He examines linguistics in general to simplify the analytical process and explain how and why we communicate as we do, leading to a more accurate description of the Greek text. The approach is also function-based—meaning that Runge gives primary attention to describing the tasks accomplished by each discourse feature.