This Theme-Rheme edition of the Bible represents a new way to read and study the King James Version, leading to a more careful reading, as well as a better and fuller understanding, of God's Word. Theme and Rheme are just a small part of a language theory called Functional Grammar. Their practical application to Biblical texts provides an opportunity for everyone to read the Bible from the inspired perspectives of each book’s author.
Nearly everyone reads a Bible that is organized into verses, sentences, paragraphs, sections, and chapters, none of which are part of the original Greek and Hebrew texts. Without these classical grammatical structures, however, an easy reading of the Bible would remain inaccessible to the general public. But these structures are not the only way to organize the Bible. Some publishers offer a verse-by-verse format without paragraphs, others use paragraphs with or without section headings, and still others use no verses or a range of verses. As one can see, while the Bible itself is inspired by God, its format is determined by each publisher. Presenting the Bible as a Theme-and-Rheme format is merely another way to organize Biblical texts without changing their meaning.
Functional Grammar
Most readers are familiar with traditional grammatical terms—nouns, verbs, adjectives, subjects, predicates, clauses, and others—all of which focus on the structure of a language, how various elements are organized to make meaning apart from their contextual use.
Functional Grammar, however, focuses on how the elements of language, such as Theme and Rheme, function in order to communicate meaning within the context of language use. In more general terms, traditional grammar focuses on form without context, while Functional Grammar focuses on function within context.1
Neither one of these linguistic approaches to language is more important or better than the other. Most if not all publications of the Bible, however, are presented exclusively using traditional grammatical structures. But other ways can exist as well.
A Theme-and-Rheme presentation of the Bible changes nothing about a translation’s wording, verse numbers, chapters, and books. It differs by presenting Biblical texts one clause at a time. The result is a reader-friendly Bible—based on principles of Functional Grammar—that enables everyone to focus more easily on the meaning of a text, based on the inspired writer’s intent.
What is a Theme?
In Functional Grammar, a Theme "is the element that serves as the point of departure of the message; it is that which locates and orients the clause within its context"2 and thus identifies what a clause is concerned about. People who are familiar with traditional grammar’s Subject and Predicate might assume that Theme is equivalent to Subject, and Rheme is equivalent to Predicate. Let's investigate this assumption further.
Theme = Subject
Some sentences are constructed in a way that makes their Themes the same as their Subjects, such as the following one-clause sentence:
The Bible is God’s inspired Word.
In this example, The Bible is both Subject and Theme:
Subject = The Bible
Theme = The Bible
Here's why. In traditional grammar, the Subject of a sentence is the person, place, or thing that is (a) doing the action, or (b) what the sentence is about. In the sentence above, The Bible is what the sentence is about.
In Functional Grammar, the Theme places the clause within a particular context, and it must meet the following three criteria: (a) it is always located at the beginning of the clause, and (b) it extends from the beginning up to and including the first experiential element of the clause, which is (c) in the form of a participant (noun, pronoun, or noun phrase), process (verb or verb phrase), or circumstance (adverb, adverb phrase, or prepositional phrase). In the sentence above, The Bible is the first experiential element of the clause, in this case, in the form of a participant (i.e., a noun).
Theme ≠ Subject
Not every clause has a Theme and Subject that are the same, such as the following one-clause sentence:
And immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness. (Mark 1:12)
This example has a Theme that is different from the Subject:
Subject = the spirit
Theme = And immediately
Using the same definitions as before, we can explore why they are different. In the verse above, the spirit is the Person doing the action, hence the spirit is the Subject. The Theme, on the other hand, provides the context through which everything else in the clause is filtered. The Theme extends from the beginning of the clause up to and including the first experiential element. In this case, immediately is the first experiential element, a circumstance in the form of an adverb, hence And immediately is the Theme.3
The author (traditionally considered to be John Mark) chose to construct the sentence in this manner, and it reveals his underlying concern to place the entire clause within the context of when the spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. Otherwise, if his underlying concern was a focus on the spirit, the sentence would have been written as follows:
The spirit driveth him immediately into the wilderness.
Writers make choices when putting their thoughts into a written text. Identifying the Theme of each clause helps readers to better understand the writer's inspired intent.
What is a Rheme?
In Functional Grammar, the Rheme develops the Theme by providing information about it. All information in a Rheme must relate to or be connected to the Theme. Every major clause (both independent and dependent) contains a Theme + Rheme construction.
In the Mark 1:12 example, the Theme (already identified as And immediately) is followed by the Rheme:
Theme = And immediately
Rheme = the spirit driveth him into the wilderness
The Bible as a Theme + Rheme Structure
As Michael Alexander Kirkwood (M.A.K.) Halliday stated in his seminal book on Functional Grammar, "[By] analysing the thematic structure of a text clause by clause, we can gain an insight into its texture and understand how the writer made clear to us the nature of his underlying concerns."4 In this case, readers can gain insight into the underlying concerns of all God-inspired passages in the Bible.
In both of the previously-mentioned examples, the Theme and Rheme were identified on two lines. All 66 books of the Bible could be organized in this way, but doing so would lead to a visually-busy format that is difficult and ponderous to read.
Instead, all 66 books can be organized in a way that highlights both the Theme and the Rheme of each clause in a way that makes reading more enjoyable and productive. For example, John 3:16 is a well-known verse made up of four clauses:
#1 = For God so loved the world
#2 = that he gave his only begotten Son,
#3 = that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
#4 = but have everlasting life.
Note how the following format identifies both the Theme and Rheme in each clause:
For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
In this Theme-and-Rheme edition of the Bible, every sentence will be organized as a list of one or more clauses with each Theme highlighted in bold type and each Rheme in regular type. The only variation on this format would involve the embedding of one clause within another clause. For example, Matthew 6:6 has a clause (highlighted in italics) embedded in another clause:
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,
and when thou has shut thy door,
pray to thy Father which is in secret;
and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
In such passages, an embedded clause will be surrounded by curly brackets, and the Theme will be underlined, as shown below:
But thou, {when thou prayest}, enter into thy closet,
and when thou has shut thy door,
pray to thy Father which is in secret;
and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
Some passages in the Bible show an embedded clause surrounded by traditional parentheses. In such cases, the Theme will be underlined. Other passages in the Bible show a clause between two traditional parentheses but without any embedded clauses; in such cases, the Theme will be highlighted in bold type. In summary, Themes in embedded clauses will be underlined, and Themes in non-embedded clauses will be highlighted in bold type.
All verse numbers and chapter numbers of the King James Version will remain the same since they are the means by which readers navigate the Bible. Paragraphs and section headings, however, will not be used since (a) paragraphs would organize sentences into meaning-making units, and (b) headings would summarize or interpret those units, neither one of which are part of the original Greek and Hebrew texts.
Using a Theme-Rheme Bible
While this Theme-Rheme format of the Bible can be useful for scholarly work, it is intended to be used by the general public to better understand God’s Word—one clause at a time. Therefore, the best way to get started is to read it as you would any other Bible.
The semantic organization of each sentence as a list of one or more clauses essentially involves dividing larger units of information into smaller chunks of information that are easier to comprehend. The result is a more productive and more enjoyable reading process—all without altering the beauty and divine message of the King James Version.5
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Footnotes
1 Theme and Rheme are a small part of Functional Grammar, and the general discussion about Functional Grammar in this Introduction is not meant to be all-inclusive. A more comprehensive analysis of the Bible using all the tools presented in Functional Grammar is possible, but it would (a) be a lifetime of work in progress, and (b) result in an incredibly complex document, rendering it inaccessible to the general public and thus useful only as a scholarly study. For our purposes, a Theme-and-Rheme organization of the Bible provides the general public with a practical application for reading Biblical texts in a new, simple, and easily-accessible way, one that highlights the inspired writer's underlying concerns about each passage.
2 This passage can be found on p. 89 of Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar, 4th Edition (2014) by M.A.K. Halliday, revised by Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen, and published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York.
3 Some translated sentences in the Bible are expressed as imperative clauses, which have an inferred You at the beginning. For example, Psalm 6:8 states the following: Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. This verse has two Theme-Rheme structures: (a) Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; and (b) for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. The first clause has an inferred You as traditional grammar’s Subject: [You] Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. In Functional Grammar, the Theme of an imperative clause can be either (a) the inferred You or (b) the verb. Both are correct. However, to avoid adding any words to this King James Bible translation, the verb will be considered the Theme.
4 This passage can be found on p. 133 of Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar, 4th Edition (2014) by M.A.K. Halliday, revised by Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen, and published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York.
5 Please note the following guideline for the Theme-Rheme Bible: Each numbered verse will be placed on a new line for enhanced readability.