kata ta biblia

a blog exploring Christian origins, biblical studies, social/cultural history, method, education and the journey through academia

Category: grammar

Wow. That’s a long sentence.

This from a scholar I admire and respect. Normally an extraordinary communicator, this particular New Testament scholar writes the following single sentence:

Within the terms of the perspective on communication I will adopt, therefore, the twenty-seven New Testament documents are the evidence for a process whereby, at a particular time and place, certain persons (the authors of the texts) reduced meanings into messages of a particular symbolic form, in this case the written word, for transmission to other persons (the express or implied recipients) and those written messages were in fact transmitted to them by delivery, as with actual letters like Galatians, or by publication, as with the gospels or other documents like the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse, whereupon the recipients perceived and interpreted them, and possibly even acted on the basis of their interpretations.

Oh my. If a student of mine wrote a sentence like this, it could possibly drop his/her grade from A to A-. Several sentences like this: B+. Of course, this particular sentence was authored by a UK author and I understand we have a different appreciation for the efficiency of words across the pond.

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Laborious Sentences

Scholars need to get a hold of themselves with long sentences. This is one sentence, taken from a book on the historical study of Jesus:

The component features that have been chosen for inclusion in the historical reconstruction and the overall framework in which the details are examined involve awareness of the literary and rhetorical forms in which the ancient evidence has been transmitted, the social patterns of life of the people involved, and the unspoken but powerful assumptions that are operative in the thinking of the ancient speakers or writers, as well as of the ancient reporters who have preserved the records.

What? By the time I reach the end of the sentence, I have forgotten what it set out to do in the first place. The author also has a significant problem with long paragraphs.

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