Keeping the Speech: How John's Verbs Prove the Aramaic Connection
The companion article, The Speech in John 1:1, establishes what John's Speech is — the Aramaic Memra, God's active speaking presence deeply embedded in first-century synagogue liturgy. This article asks a different question: what does the Speech do? And can those actions be traced to a specific source?
When a text passes through translation, nouns change but verbs survive. A translator may replace a divine title — rendering מימרא (memra) as λόγος (logos) as milta as 'Word' — but the actions attached to that title tend to come through intact. The name was lost. The behavioral DNA was not. Six verb patterns in John's writings map precisely to established Targum Memra collocations, and a search of approximately 19.4 million words of Greek literature confirms that these patterns exist in exactly two places: the Gospel of John and the Aramaic Targums.
The Six Verb Patterns
The following table presents the six verb+logos constructions that John uses across his writings, alongside their Peshitta Syriac renderings and their Targum Aramaic parallels. Because the Peshitta is a translation from the Greek, it cannot serve as independent proof of John's Aramaic source. But it provides a striking linguistic mirror: when John's Greek is rendered back into a closely related Aramaic dialect, it maps seamlessly onto the very Targumic roots we hypothesize he was drawing from. In every case, the Peshitta verb is a direct cognate of the Targum verb — the same Semitic root surfacing in two Aramaic dialects separated by centuries.
| Pattern | John | Greek | Peshitta Syriac | Targum Aramaic | Cognate? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receive | 1:11-12 | παραλαμβάνω (paralambanō) | ܩܒܠ (qabbel) | קבל (qabbel) + memra | Yes — same root |
| Believe in name | 1:12 | πιστεύω εἰς ὄνομα (pisteuō eis onoma) | ܗܝܡܢ ܒܫܡܗ (haymen b-shmeh) | הימנו בשם מימרא (heymenu b-shem memreh) | Yes — same construction |
| Dwell | 1:14 | σκηνόω (skēnoō) | ܐܓܢ (agen) | שכן (shaken) + Shekinah | Yes — theological equivalent |
| Hear/Obey | 5:24 | ἀκούω (akouō) | ܫܡܥ (shma') | שמע קל מימרא (shma' qal memra) | Yes — same root |
| Keep/Guard | 8:51; 14:23; 17:6 | τηρέω (tēreō) | ܢܛܪ (ntar) | נטר (ntar) מטרת מימרא (matrat memra) | Yes — same root |
| Judge | 12:48 | κρίνω (krinō) | ܕܢ (dan) | דן (dan) קדם מימרא (qodam memra) | Yes — same root |
Six out of six patterns match: five exact cognates sharing the same Semitic root, plus one theological equivalent where the Peshitta's ܐܓܢ (agen, 'to shelter/tabernacle') maps to the Targum's שכן (shaken, 'to dwell') — the root from which 'Shekinah' derives. Both express the same concept: divine presence pitching its tent among people.
The Patterns in Detail
Receive: 'His own did not receive him' (John 1:11-12)
John 1:11 reads: εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθεν, καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον — 'He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.' The Peshitta renders the verb as ܩܒܠ (qabbel), and this is the exact verb used throughout the Targums for receiving or rejecting the Memra:
- Targum Onqelos Exodus 19:5: 'If you indeed receive my Memra (קבל מימרי), you will be to me a holy nation.'
- Targum Jonathan Jeremiah 34:14: 'Their fathers did not receive my Memra.'
- Targum Jonathan Isaiah 1:19-20: 'If you are willing and receive my Memra... if you refuse and do not receive my Memra, by the adversary's sword you shall be killed.'
The pattern of acceptance and rejection that structures John's Prologue — 'he came to his own and his own did not receive him, but to those who did receive him' — is the dominant pattern in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, where Israel repeatedly receives or rejects the Memra of the Lord.[1]
Believe in the Name (John 1:12)
John 1:12 continues: ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτόν... τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ — 'but to those who received him... those who believe in his name.' The Peshitta reads ܕܡܗܝܡܢܝܢ ܒܫܡܗ (d-mhaymneyn b-shmeh), and the identical construction appears in the Targums:
- Targum Neofiti Exodus 14:31: 'The people believed in the name of the Memra of the Lord' (הימנו בשם מימרא דייי).
- Targum Psalms 106:12: 'They believed in the name of his Memra.'
The phrase πιστεύω εἰς ὄνομα ('believe in/into a name') is itself uniquely Johannine in the New Testament — it appears in John 1:12, 2:23, and 3:18, but nowhere in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or Paul, who consistently use πιστεύω with a simple dative.[2]
Dwell: 'The Speech became flesh and tabernacled among us' (John 1:14)
John 1:14 uses the striking verb ἐσκήνωσεν (eskēnōsen, 'tabernacled'), a word that does not naturally take λόγος as its subject in Greek. A logos does not pitch a tent. But the Memra dwells — because the Memra is associated with the Shekinah, the divine indwelling presence. The Peshitta renders the verb as ܐܓܢ (agen, Aphel of ܓܢ), meaning 'to shelter' or 'to spread a tent over,' and the Targums consistently pair the Memra with שכן (shaken, 'to dwell'):
- Targum Neofiti Leviticus 26:11-12: 'I will make the glory of my Shekinah dwell among you... my Memra will go among you... my Memra will be to you a redeeming God.'
As Ronning observes, John 1:14 is the single most concentrated fusion of Targumic theology in the New Testament: 'The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory' — Memra, Shekinah, and Yeqara in one sentence.[3]
Hear/Obey: 'He who hears my word' (John 5:24)
John 5:24 reads: ὁ τὸν λόγον μου ἀκούων — 'the one hearing my word.' The Peshitta renders this as ܕܫܡܥ ܡܠܬܝ (d-shma' milty), using the root ܫܡܥ (shma'), the same root as in the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4). The Targum parallel deploys the identical root with the Memra as its object:
- Targum Neofiti Deuteronomy 28:2: 'If you diligently listen to the voice of the Memra of the Lord your God' (שמע קל מימרא דייי).
Keep/Guard: 'If anyone keeps my word' (John 8:51)
This is the most consequential pattern. John 8:51 reads: ἐάν τις τὸν ἐμὸν λόγον τηρήσῃ — 'if anyone keeps my word.' The Peshitta renders the verb as ܢܛܪ (ntar, 'guard, keep, observe'), and the Targums use the identical root נטר (ntar) with the Memra:
- Targum Onqelos Genesis 26:5: חֲלָף דְקַבֵיל אברהם לְמֵימְרִי וּנטַר מַטְרַת מֵימְרִי — 'Because Abraham received (קבל) my Memra and kept (נטר) the charge of my Memra.'
- Targum Onqelos Leviticus 8:35: וְתִיטְרוּן יָת מַטְרַת מֵימְרָא דַיוי — 'You shall keep the charge of the Memra of the Lord.'
- Targum Onqelos Numbers 9:23: יָת מַטְרַת מֵימְרָא דַיוי נָטְרִין עַל מֵימְרָא דַיוי — 'The charge of the Memra of the Lord they kept, by the Memra of the Lord.'
Genesis 26:5 is particularly striking because it contains both the RECEIVE and KEEP patterns in a single verse — Abraham received the Memra and kept the charge of the Memra — exactly mirroring John's Prologue, where those who receive the Speech (1:12) are those who keep it (8:51, 14:23).
This pattern appears eight times across John's writings: John 8:51, 8:52, 8:55, 14:23, 15:20, 17:6, 1 John 2:5, and Revelation 3:8. It is the most frequently repeated verb+logos construction in the Johannine corpus.
Judge: 'The word that I spoke will judge him' (John 12:48)
John 12:48 reads: ὁ λόγος ὃν ἐλάλησα ἐκεῖνος κρινεῖ αὐτόν — 'the word which I spoke, that one will judge him.' The modifying clause ὃν ἐλάλησα ('which I spoke') explicitly identifies the logos as a spoken utterance, and any careful reader will note this. Yet even while identifying it as something spoken, Jesus attributes independent judicial agency to it at the last day — the word itself will be the judge. This goes beyond prophetic rhetoric (cf. Deuteronomy 18:19, 'whoever does not listen to my words... I will require it of him'). The Peshitta renders the verb as ܕܢ (dan, 'judge'), and the Targums use the same root with the Memra:
- Targum 2 Chronicles 19:6: 'You are judging before the Memra of the Lord' (דנין קדם מימרא דייי).
- Targum Psalms 7:9: 'The Memra of the Lord judges the peoples' (מימרא דיהוה ידין עממיא).
No other New Testament writer attributes judicial agency to the logos. In the Synoptics and Paul, God judges, Christ judges, the law condemns — but the word does not judge. The Targumic Memra, by contrast, regularly exercises judicial functions because the Memra is a divine agent, not merely a divine message.[4]
The Greek Vacuum
The construction τηρέω τὸν λόγον ('keep the word') is the most consequential evidence in this analysis. While τηρέω itself is a perfectly ordinary Greek verb — used for keeping oaths, laws, agreements, and peace — no Greek writer before John applies it to a personal divine λόγος in a covenantal sense. The vocabulary is Greek; the semantic combination is not. This is confirmed across every major lexicographical tool and corpus available:
TDNT (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament) catalogues τηρέω with ὅρκους (oaths), εἰρήνην (peace), πίστιν (pledges), νόμους (laws) — but never with λόγον.[5]
LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones, the standard classical Greek lexicon) lists τηρέω with δώματα (houses), πόλιν (a city), κύνας (dogs), ἀσφάλειαν (safety), ἀρχήν (office), ἀξίωμα (rank), τεῖχος (walls) — never λόγον.
Moulton & Milligan (the definitive papyri vocabulary) attests τηρέω with persons, embankments, wine, friendship, pledges, money, and land — never λόγον.
BDAG (the standard New Testament Greek lexicon), under τηρέω §3, lists τηρέω τὸν λόγον exclusively with Johannine citations: John 8:51, 8:52, 8:55, 14:23, 15:20, 17:6, 1 John 2:5, and Revelation 3:8. No non-Johannine example is cited.[6]
Philo of Alexandria — the one Hellenistic Jewish writer who personifies the Logos extensively — yields zero instances of τηρέω + λόγον across his entire extant corpus. Philo shares the Logos title but none of the behavioral verbs.
The individual words are Greek. The combination is Aramaic. John did not need to invent new vocabulary — he simply applied an existing Greek verb to an object (a personal divine λόγος) that no Greek writer before him had used, calquing the Targumic collocation נטר + מימרא into the nearest available Greek.[6]
The Control Tests
Test 1: The Synoptic Gospels and Paul
If John's verb patterns reflect common early Christian Greek rather than a distinctive Aramaic source, they should appear in other New Testament writers. They do not.
| Pattern | John | Matthew | Mark | Luke | Paul |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| τηρέω + λόγος | 8:51, 14:23, 17:6 | 0 (τηρέω + commandments only) | 0 (τηρέω + tradition, 7:9) | 0 | 0 |
| σκηνόω (tabernacle) | 1:14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| λόγος as agent of κρίνω | 12:48 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| πιστεύω εἰς ὄνομα | 1:12, 2:23, 3:18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| λαμβάνω/παραλαμβάνω + logos (personal) | 1:11-12 | 0 | 4:16 (parable) | 0 | 0 |
| ἀκούω + logos | 5:24 | 7:24 (sermon) | 4:16 (parable) | 8:21 (sermon) | 0 |
Four of six patterns are exclusively Johannine — found nowhere else in the entire New Testament. The 'hear the word' pattern is the weakest of the six, since hearing a word is a universally human expression: Matthew 7:24 (ὅστις ἀκούει μου τοὺς λόγους, 'whoever hears these words of mine') uses the same verb+noun pair in the Sermon on the Mount. What distinguishes John's usage is the theological sense: in Matthew and Luke, people hear teachings; in John 5:24, the one who hears Jesus' word has passed from death to life — the logos functions as a saving divine agent, not a sermon to be applied. The two Mark 4:16 cases use λόγος to mean a preached message, not a divine person. The Synoptic logos is the message of the kingdom. John's logos is the Memra.[7]
Test 2: The Septuagint (LXX)
If John's τηρέω + λόγον reflects standard Greek biblical usage inherited from the Septuagint, the LXX should attest it. It does not.
At the critical verse — Genesis 26:5, where the Targum reads 'Abraham kept the charge of my Memra' — the LXX renders the Hebrew entirely differently:
| Source | Verb | Object |
|---|---|---|
| Hebrew (MT) | שָׁמַר (shamar, 'kept') | מִשְׁמַרְתִּי (mishmarti, 'my charge') |
| LXX | ἐφύλαξεν (ephylaxen, φυλάσσω) | τὰ προστάγματά μου ('my ordinances') |
| Targum Onqelos | נטר (ntar, 'kept') | מַטְרַת מֵימְרִי (matrat memri, 'charge of my Memra') |
| John 8:51 | τηρήσῃ (tērēsē, τηρέω) | τὸν ἐμὸν λόγον ('my word') |
John matches neither the LXX's verb (φυλάσσω, not τηρέω) nor its object (προστάγματα/ἐντολαί, not λόγον). His construction is an independent Greek rendering of the Aramaic Targumic collocation, not an echo of the Septuagint. Across the entire LXX corpus of 624,000 words, τηρέω does appear — with objects like βουλήν (counsel, Proverbs 3:21) and in other scattered instances — but it is never paired with λόγος.[8]
Test 3: Classical Greek (18.7 million words)
A systematic search of the classical Greek corpus — 18.7 million words spanning Homer, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, the Stoics, Philo, and hundreds of other authors — was conducted for τηρέω in all its forms. The results:
- 1,714 occurrences of τηρέω across the corpus
- Zero instances of covenantal 'keep the word' (τηρέω + λόγον in the sense of guarding or observing a divine speech)
Classical uses of τηρέω fall into well-defined categories: physical watching or surveillance (Thucydides, military contexts), empirical observation (Artemidorus, Ptolemy), maintaining agreements with τηρέω + πίστιν (Polybius, 'keep faith'), and medical preservation (Soranus, pseudo-Galen). The closest approach is Isocrates, To Demonicus 22: τήρει τὰς τῶν λόγων παρακαταθήκας ('guard the deposits of words/confidences') — but λόγων is a genitive modifier, not a direct object, and the context is fiduciary trust, not covenantal obedience to a divine person.[9]
Summary of Negative Controls
| Corpus | Size | τηρέω + λόγον (covenantal)? |
|---|---|---|
| Classical Greek | 18.7 million words | No (0 of 1,714 τηρέω hits) |
| LXX (Rahlfs) | 624,000 words | No (τηρέω attested, never with λόγος) |
| Philo | 8,073 articles | No |
| Synoptic Gospels | — | No |
| Paul | — | No |
| John | — | Yes (8:51, 8:52, 8:55, 14:23, 15:20, 17:6; 1 John 2:5; Rev 3:8) |
| Targum Onqelos | — | Yes (נטר מטרת מימרא: Gen 26:5, Lev 8:35, Num 9:19, 9:23) |
Approximately 19.4 million words of Greek literature searched. The covenantal 'keep the word' construction exists in exactly two traditions: John's Gospel and the Aramaic Targums.
The Four-Way Chain: Genesis 26:5
Genesis 26:5 provides the clearest single-verse demonstration of how John's language relates to each textual tradition. The Hebrew text says Abraham 'listened to my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.' Four different traditions render this verse, and their divergences reveal John's source:
| Tradition | 'Listened' | 'Kept' | Object of 'kept' |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hebrew (MT) | שָׁמַע (shama') | שָׁמַר (shamar) | מִשְׁמַרְתִּי ('my charge') + commandments, statutes, laws |
| LXX | ὑπήκουσεν (ὑπακούω) | ἐφύλαξεν (φυλάσσω) | τὰ προστάγματά μου ('my ordinances') + commandments, statutes, laws |
| Targum Onqelos | קַבֵיל (qabbel, 'received') | נטַר (ntar, 'kept') | מַטְרַת מֵימְרִי ('the charge of my Memra') |
| John | ἔλαβον (λαμβάνω, 'received') / παρέλαβον (1:11) | τηρήσῃ (τηρέω, 'kept') | τὸν λόγον μου ('my word') |
The Hebrew uses שָׁמַע ('heard/obeyed') and שָׁמַר ('kept') with institutional objects — charge, commandments, statutes, laws. The LXX follows the Hebrew faithfully, using different Greek verbs (ὑπακούω, φυλάσσω) and the same institutional objects. The Targum departs: it replaces שָׁמַע with קבל ('received'), replaces the institutional objects with 'the Memra,' and retains the root cognate נטר for 'kept.' And John matches the Targum — not the Hebrew, not the LXX. He uses λαμβάνω ('receive,' cognate with the Targum's קבל via the Peshitta ܩܒܠ) and τηρέω ('keep,' calquing the Targum's נטר via Peshitta ܢܛܪ) with a personal divine object (τὸν λόγον μου, 'my word' = the Memra).
John bypasses the Greek Bible entirely to calque the Aramaic Targum independently. This is not a case of a Greek writer drawing on Greek sources. It is a case of a bilingual writer whose theological vocabulary — the verbs he assigns to the divine Speech — comes from the Palestinian synagogue tradition.[10]
Conclusion
The Memra's name was lost through routine translation. מימרא (memra) became λόγος (logos), which became ܡܠܬܐ (milta), which became 'Word.' At each stage, the theological specificity of the original term was diluted. But the Memra's behavioral DNA survived. What the Memra does in the Targums — it is received or rejected, believed in by name, dwells among its people, is heard and obeyed, is kept and guarded, and judges on the last day — is precisely what John's logos does in the Gospel. The same six verbs, the same Semitic roots — and when the Greek is translated back into Syriac (a sister Aramaic dialect), the Targumic roots resurface naturally, confirming the semantic fit.
The negative controls make the case decisive. These patterns are not generic Greek, not Septuagintal, not Synoptic, not Pauline, and not Philonic. They are Johannine. And they are Targumic. The only way to account for a Greek construction that exists in no Greek literature before John, and that maps precisely to an Aramaic construction attested across multiple Targum traditions, is that John was drawing directly on the Aramaic Memra tradition — the same tradition his first-century audience would have known from the synagogue.
The translation 'Speech' captures what 'Word' obscures: a divine person who acts, not a static concept that sits on a page. When Jesus says 'if anyone keeps my Speech, he will never see death' (John 8:51), he is speaking the language of the Targums — the language of Abraham who 'received the Memra and kept the charge of the Memra' (Genesis 26:5). The verb is the fingerprint. The name changed. The actions did not.
Footnotes
[1] The receive/reject pattern (קבל + מימרא) is one of the densest Memra collocations in the Targums, appearing throughout Deuteronomy and the Prophets. Key instances: Tg. Onq. Deut 1:26, 9:23; Tg. J. Jer 7:28, 25:7, 35:14-15; Tg. J. Zech 1:3-4. Ronning, The Jewish Targums and John's Logos Theology (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010), ch. 10.3, 'The Consequences of Not Receiving the Word of the Lord.'
[2] The construction πιστεύω εἰς ὄνομα is distinctively Johannine. The Synoptics and Paul use πιστεύω with a dative object or with εἰς + a person, but never with εἰς ὄνομα. Cf. Ronning, ch. 1.3.3.4, 'Receiving/Not Receiving the Divine Word.'
[3] Ronning, ch. 1.3.3.5, 'Word, Glory, Shekinah.' The three Targumic theological terms — Memra (Word), Shekinah (dwelling presence), and Yeqara (glory) — converge in John 1:14: 'The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.' On the Syriac Peshitta's ܐܓܢ (agen) as a Shekinah equivalent, see Sebastian Brock's discussion of magenanutha as the standard Syriac rendering of the divine indwelling.
[4] Tg. Ps 7:9. Aramaic text from the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon: מימרא דיהוה ידין עממיא. Cf. Ronning, ch. 11.7, 'The Divine Word as Judge.'
[5] H. Kleinknecht et al., TDNT, s.v. τηρέω. The article catalogues τηρέω + object constructions across classical, Hellenistic, and LXX Greek. Objects include ὅρκους (oaths, Democritus), εἰρήνην (peace, Demosthenes), πίστιν (pledge, Polybius), νόμους (laws, Diodorus Siculus), but never λόγον.
[6] W. Bauer, F.W. Danker, W.F. Arndt, and F.W. Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (BDAG), s.v. τηρέω, §3.
[7] The one partial overlap — Mark 4:16, where hearers 'receive the word' (λαμβάνουσιν τὸν λόγον) in the parable of the sower — uses λόγος to mean a preached message, not a divine person. The theological sense is entirely different: the Synoptic logos is a sermon to be heard; John's logos is a Person to be received or rejected, kept or abandoned, obeyed or defied. This distinction is precisely the difference between the ordinary sense of 'word' and the Targumic Memra.
[8] The LXX data was verified against the complete Septuagint (Rahlfs edition, 624,000 words). The verb τηρέω does appear in the LXX — notably with βουλήν (counsel, Proverbs 3:21), ἐντολάς (commandments), and other institutional objects — but it is never paired with λόγος as its direct object. At the critical verse, Genesis 26:5, the LXX uses ἐφύλαξεν (φυλάσσω, 'guarded') with τὰ προστάγματά μου ('my ordinances'), τὰς ἐντολάς μου ('my commandments'), τὰ δικαιώματά μου ('my statutes'), and τὰ νόμιμά μου ('my laws') — a completely different verb and different objects than John's τηρέω + λόγον.
[9] Isocrates, Ad Demonicum 22. The phrase τήρει τὰς τῶν λόγων παρακαταθήκας means 'guard the deposits entrusted through words/confidences' — a fiduciary duty, not a covenantal obligation to a divine speech. The corpus search was conducted across 18.7 million words of classical Greek (733 works), encompassing Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Polybius, Philo, and the major classical Greek collections.
[10] Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967); C.F. Burney, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922); Martin McNamara, Targum and Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972); Daniel Boyarin, 'The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to John,' Harvard Theological Review 94:3 (2001): 243-284; Maurice Casey, Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Ronning's The Jewish Targums and John's Logos Theology (2010) provides the most comprehensive treatment of the verb correlation evidence, with detailed analysis of each pattern across multiple Targum traditions.
References
- John L. Ronning, The Jewish Targums and John's Logos Theology. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010.
- G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, eds. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Eerdmans, 1964-1976.
- W. Bauer, F.W. Danker, W.F. Arndt, and F.W. Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. University of Chicago Press, 2000.
- H.G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H.S. Jones. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. with revised supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
- J.H. Moulton and G. Milligan. The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1930.
- Daniel Boyarin, 'The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to John.' Harvard Theological Review 94:3 (2001): 243-284.
- Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts. 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.
- C.F. Burney, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922.
- Martin McNamara, Targum and Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.
- Maurice Casey, Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.