Linguistic Patterns as Literary Devices in the Gospel of John. The Importance of Individual Manuscripts

 = Paper = 

Linguistic patterns can be useful tools for examining the internal coherence of a text. This study identifies a pattern involving the use of the Greek middle voice in the Gospel of John. In one of its manuscripts, Codex Bezae, this voice functions as a literary device which relates to the speaker’s perspective and the context of the speeches. This pattern only emerges from an analysis of an individual manuscript as a whole. The use of texts like NA28 or UBS5 proves unhelpful for such an investigation, not only due to their eclecticism, but also because their respective apparatuses fail to record all the variant readings, omitting even some of the most significant alternative forms.