Several excellent
articles that are a close reading of the Hebrew text.
You should read especially
The Creation Weave and
Leviticus According to its Structure. Special
fonts are automatically downloaded and installed in Internet
Explorer 6.x +.
The Shape of
Biblical Language is the most
comprehensive treatment of chiasmus occurring in both the Old
and New Testaments yet published. This work will fascinate
and inform anyone who is interested in the dynamics of biblical
literary composition. Its special appeal will be to
students, scholars, pastors and others who seek to understand
more fully the message of the Scriptures and the manner in which
the original message was conveyed.
The Literary Structure
of the Old Testament is an outstanding work and is the first
comprehensive treatment of chiasmus of the Old Testament books
and its significance for understanding their meaning and
message. The Old Testament authors conveyed meaning and
emphasis by the way they structured their writings according to
ancient Near Eastern methods. Most modern readers are not
aware of this, and thus, this volume will be pivotal to their
understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures.
Far from the scissor and
paste notion of modern biblical criticism of Mark's Gospel, the
author argues for Mark's master craftsmanship of rhetorical form
by employing literate compositional art. The book
documents the chiastic structure for the entire Gospel of Mark,
divided into nineteen narrative complexes.
This volume is a combined edition of Poet and
Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes, Kenneth Bailey's intensive studies of the
parables in the gospel of Luke. Kenneth
Bailey draws on more than twenty years of experience with Middle Eastern peasant
culture in his study of the literary structure and cultural milieu of sixteen of
Jesus' most significant parables as they are recorded in Luke. In addition
to illuminating the cultural framework of the parables, Bailey offers an analysis
of their literary structure, most notably based on chiasmus. Through its
combination of literary and cultural analyses, Bailey's study makes a number of
profound advances in parabolic interpretation.
"The chiastic reading of
John 13--17 presented in this study results in an interpretation of the farewell
discourse that addresses a number of important issues in Fourth Gospel studies.
It offers, for instance, an intelligible role for the repeated "love
command", showing it to be part of the chiastic framing and centering of the
discourse as a whole. Furthermore, it highlights the significance of the
vine and branches teaching in John 15:1-17, allowing it to stand prominently as
the turning point around which the discourse is built, and using its metaphor as
the guiding principle by which the rest of the teachings of the discourse hold
together. Finally, it balances the introductory narrative, shaped by its
expression of union with Jesus at entrance into the hour of glory, with the
concluding prayer, where, once again union with Jesus is shown to take place in
the experience of the hour of glory" (pgs. 167-168).
Three survey chapters
prepare for discussion of ten biblical books from representative
genres spanning Genesis through Revelation. Divine
Symmetries considers the relationship of shape to meaning in the
pattern of selected units within each book. An appendix on
the Sermon on the Mount guides the reader through a practical
methodology. Divine symmetries offers a highly visual
approach to seeing the shape of Scripture on the Bible's own
terms. Extensive indexes and bibliography are
provided.
''Man was not made for the
Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man.'' That's inverted parallelism
or ''chiastic structure,'' and since the 1942 publication of
this landmark study, you can hardly read a commentary without
finding a reference to it. Lund's work shows how Jewish speech
and thought patterns influenced New Testament writers,
challenging the assumption that they wrote without literary
training or intention.
The study of ancient
literature has been enriched in the twentieth century by the
growing awareness and understanding of the presence of
chiasmus. This form of inverted parallelism has been found
in the Bible and in other ancient writings, where it adds beauty
and helps to reveal meaning. The essays in Chiasmus in
Antiquity, first published in Germany in 1981, examine the
use and effect of chiasmus in both the Old and New Testaments,
as well as in Sumero-Akkadian, Ugaritic, Talmudic, Greek, and
Latin Literatures. Readers will also find useful the
extensive bibliography and index of what had been written up to
1980 on each identifiable chiastic passage.
In 1981, an significant
bibliography of works on chiasmus was published in Chiasmus
in Antiquity. Chiasmus Bibliography extends
that bibliographic effort by including a large number of
relevant works published or located in the last two
decades. Students of this literary form will find Chiasmus
Bibliography an invaluable guide to the growing body of
scholarly writings on this subject.
This is the first popular
book ever published on the literary and rhetorical device of
chiasmus. If you aren't sure what chiasmus means, you have
a lot of company. Chiasmus occurs when the order of words
is reversed in parallel expressions. While you may not be
familiar with the word, you're well acquainted with the
phenomenon, for it shows up in thousands of famous sayings, like
"Failing to plan is planning to fail," "Quitters
never win and winners never quit," and "When the going
gets tough, the tough get going." Some of the most
clever, thought-provoking, and memorable things ever said or
written are examples, like JFK's famous "Ask not what your
country can do for you".
