Read a Quotation Inside a Bible Quotation: Keep Voices and Boundaries Clear
When a speaker quotes an earlier message or Scripture, indent each voice and label the current speaker, embedded speaker, audience, and boundary. This prevents every sentence from being attributed to the outer speaker in the same way.
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Reading orientation
Draw the voice tree
Start with the narrator, then add the current speaker and audience. Indent any earlier speech or Scripture cited inside that speech. A citation can be voiced by the current speaker while originating in an earlier text.
Treat Stephen's address as the outer speech, then mark where he recounts or quotes earlier words. Use speech verbs, introductions, and source references as boundary clues without reproducing the whole chapter.
Write a concise paraphrase once without labels and once with speaker labels. If the first version makes the source of a statement unclear, keep the labelled version in your study notes.
For each excerpt identify who is speaking now, whose earlier words are included, where the quotation begins and ends, and which clue supports the boundary. Typography differs across editions, so grammar and context remain important.