studies. Scholars frequently claim that certain language in the New Testament is ‘emphatic’. By this they generally mean some linguistic element (either a word or clause) is being emphasized by the author. This is often discussed in terms of word order. For example, if a prepositional phrase is placed at the front of a clause (a supposedly marked word order), the author is said to be trying to emphasize that item. Although this type of interpretation is not inherently flawed, there are problems with