Research purpose
The study asks what instructional propositions occur across Matthew 5–7, how those propositions are expressed grammatically and rhetorically, how they cluster into command families and topics, and how warning, promise, character, obedience, reward, perseverance, judgment, and divine action relate within the discourse.
Corpus and data architecture
| Layer | Records | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Historical occurrence layer | 213 | Preserves first-pass OCC-MT records and project history. |
| Central proposition layer | 179 | Provides the finalized analytical propositions. |
| Occurrence-central links | 220 | Makes merges, splits, and repartitions explicit. |
| Textual controls | 68 | Records wording and semantic-scope questions without inventing apparatus evidence. |
| Mapping controls | 45 | Preserves historically unresolved mappings confirmed provisionally in the AI-ECR release. |
Proposition segmentation
Segmentation preserves distinct grammatical force, logical relations, conditions, consequences, rationales, promises, warnings, and outcomes. Direct imperatives are not treated as the only form of instruction. The project retains prohibitions, beatitudes, identity declarations, divine actions, necessity statements, evaluative assertions, warnings, promises, rationales, and narrative evaluations when they carry normative or interpretive force.
Governing exegetical framework
Scripture first
Scripture is treated as inspired, inerrant in the autographs, authoritative, unified, and sufficient. AI, commentary, tradition, and scholarship remain subordinate.
Grammatical-historical
The analysis prioritizes authorial intent, literary context, syntax, lexical semantics, discourse structure, historical setting, covenantal location, and canonical context.
Free-choice / non-Calvinist
Commands, invitations, choices, warnings, repentance, faith, obedience, apostasy, and perseverance are treated as genuine moral and covenantal realities.
Conditional security
Warnings of judgment, exclusion, destruction, Gehenna, and failure are not neutralized by an automatic unconditional-security assumption.
Moderate dispensational
Meaningful distinctions among Israel, the nations, and the church are preserved without removing the Sermon from Christian discipleship.
Cautious continuationist
Spiritual gifts are neither assumed to have ceased nor accepted as self-authenticating; claims are tested by Scripture, Christology, fruit, order, and apostolic controls.
Classification fields
- Evidence type and instructional form
- Polarity and individual/corporate scope
- Temporal force and normativity
- Primary and secondary command families
- Primary and secondary topics
- Multi-label soteriological relations
- Canonical reauthorization status
- Textual-control and mapping status
- AI adjudication confidence and final review status
Review protocol
Pilot 40 established one consolidated review bundle under strict conservative evangelical principles. The single-review rule meant that one complete review was sufficient. Two AI systems returned complete reviews; both accepted all 179 central propositions without revision and retained all 45 mapping controls provisionally. The second review supplied corroborative AI convergence but did not create a continuing independent-review requirement.
The release is therefore labelled AI-reviewed. It must not be described as human peer review or human inter-annotator reliability evidence.
Counting controls
- A proposition count measures analytical segmentation, not theological importance.
- Historical occurrence and central proposition counts are intentionally separate.
- Topic counts distinguish primary membership from inclusive primary-plus-secondary membership.
- Soteriological relations are multi-label, so summed relation counts exceed 179.
- Main-text observations are not represented as complete critical-apparatus adjudication.
- Future corrections should preserve stable identifiers and be released through versioned change logs.