Hyperbole in the Sermon on the Mount

First, several unrelated comments are in order:

1. When I accuse my wife of exaggerating, she often replies: "I was just trying to get across the emotional truth." Now she can defend herself with this academic article: "Hyperbole can sometimes convey emotional nuances better than literal language."

2. Steven Patemore and I can both appreciate this contribution since it presents both conceptual metaphor theory and relevance theory as equally useful perspectives from which to analyze hyperbole in the Gospels.

3. Finally, one is left wondering not whether hyperbole is actually used in the New Testament (or elsewhere), but whether there is any hope of defining its limits. Perhaps the key statement here would be: "If understanding hyperbole partly depends on expectations of relevance, context is sometimes crucial for hitting the right level. Hence we cannot always intuitively do what Matthew’s or Q’s audience would have done in the past."