Includes index.

The speech communities, languages, and people of the New Testament -- The Greek language of the New Testament -- The social identity of the Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews -- Jesus' bilingual proficiency -- Orality, literacy, multilingualism, and the oral tradition of the Gospels -- Discussing oral traditions via ethnography of communication : the temple-clearing incident as a test case -- Social memory and the oral tradition of the Gospels -- Language selection in Jesus' four "I have come" sayings -- Evaluating the Aramaic-Greek linguistic authentication criteria via Mark 14:32-65 -- Three sociolinguistic approaches to discourse analysis using Acts 21:27-22:5 as a test case -- A conversation-analysis linguistic model using Roman 3:1-8 as a test case -- Analyzing the social context of 1 Peter 2:18-d:7 via ethnography of communication -- Sociolinguistics and systemic functional linguistics (SFL).

"This book introduces sociolinguistic criticism to New Testament studies. The individual essays cover a wide range of sociolinguistic theories (multilingualism, speech communities and individuals, language and social domains, diglossia, digraphia, codeswitching, language maintenance and shift, communication accommodation theory, social identity theory, linguistic politeness theory, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, register analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, etc.) that treat topics and issues pertaining to the language and sociolinguistic contexts of the New Testament, social memory, orality and literacy, and the oral traditions of the Gospels, and various texts and genres in the New Testament"--