In the ancient world, writings were read aloud, heard, and remembered.
In contrast, modern exegesis assumes a silent text. For Margaret Lee and
Brandon Scott, the disjuncture between ancient and modern approaches to
literature obscures the beauty and meaning in writings such as the New
Testament. As the structure of an ancient Greek composition derives first from
its sounds, and not from the meaning of its words, sound analysis, analysis of
the signifier and its audible dimension, are crucial to interpretation.
Sound Mapping the New Testament explores
writing technology in the Greco-Roman world, and uses ancient Greek literary
criticism for descriptions of grammar as a science of sound and literary
composition as a woven fabric of speech. Based on these perspectives and a
close analysis of writings from the four
Gospels, Paul, and Q, Lee and Scott advance a theory of sound analysis that
enables modern readers to hear the New Testament afresh. This second edition
includes a new introduction which reviews a decade of sound mapping
scholarship.