Intertextual and Interdiscourse Analysis for the expression : 'Ye have heard that it was said' in the Matthew 5:21-47

Abstract

This research is based on the theological conviction that the Bible is the word of God, confirming that it is relevant in all times and places. However, God chose His word to be written by human hands in specific times, with people conflicts, truths and social situation. It is no different with Matthew 5:21-47. This passage from the Sermon on the Mount shows the Old Testament teachings and their application by Jesus, differently from the Pharisee masters. For this reason, this thesis intends to understand the process of appropriation of the Old Testament discourse and its re-signification inside the pages of Matthew, developed in three chapters. The first chapter will be about the conditions of production (CPs), due to the theoretical affiliation to the French Discourse Analysis (AD), it is necessary to understand the conditions of production (CPs) of Matthew's text (Orlandi, 2007: 30), that is, to analyze the socio-historical-ideological conditions of his gospel writing, starting from the hypothesis of some authors, among them Viviano (2011: 133), stating Matthew would have been written in Antioch of Syria, around year 90 AD. However, only to know about the historical analysis of the gospel’s writing context is not sufficient for its analysis. Therefore, in the second chapter, the inter-text and interdiscourse of the passage from Matthew 5: 21-47 will be analyzed, since (for AD) every discourse is crossed by other discourses, and hence are constitutive issues for the discourse interpretation. In the meantime, intertextual analysis is of the utmost importance, because it reveals the relationships between the text of the Gospel and the Old Testament, and allows the interdiscourse to be observed. In the third chapter a re-lecture of the section in focus will be presented taking into account the previous discursive analysis and put into contact with the approaches present in texts of Reformed theology. It will become transparent, especially, that because of Matthew’s text being rooted firmly in its first century Jewish context that the common distinction between moral, ceremonial and social cultures is not present. To the contrary, the Gospel intertwines all aspects of moral life with the general conception of the world. The final aim of this research is not to exhaust the text by means of classical exegeisis but to analyze the text through the prism of the AD in order to present an alternative reading and interpretation of a well known and central biblical passage.