Reconsidering Paurs Use of Creation Language in Romans 8: Employing a Corpus-Driven Model of Systemic Functional Monosemy

Abstract

<p>A majority of modem scholars understand Paul's use of creation language (κτίσιϛ) in Rom 8: 18-23 as part of a commentary on the state of sub-human creation. or nature-an understanding that is still disputed in some quarters. This position serves as a point of departure for an inquiry into the state of lexical study in New Testament scholarship. In light of contemporary approaches. this thesis articulates a theory of monosemy--a minimalistic semantic theory cast in the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. This theory is fundamentally corpus-driven with a special focus upon metaphorical extension. The model is applied to Paul's use of creation-language through a robust corpus analysis and an investigation into κτίσιϛ's role in textual and ideational functions within the paragraph. I argue that κτίσιϛ plays a role in the cohesive structure of Rom 8:18-23 and-contra the majority of interpreters-functions as a nominalized ideational metaphor for the human body.</p>