RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Dorsey, David. The Literary Structure of the Old Testament: A Commentary on Genesis-Malachi. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1999.
This is the most important book I own on the Old Testament. It might be one of the most important books written on the Old Testament in the 20th century. Had mainline Protestantism been aware of Dorsey’s analysis, the critical theories of the Old Testament would have been killed on arrival.
Chiasms are inevitable. Whether Dorsey is reading them into the text, or whether they are there naturally (or probably both), the point is they are there. Once you see them, you can’t ignore them. And given the economy of space in ancient writing, it’s almost a given that the author (indirectly God) was using chiasms. In any case, it is no more forced than the conservative preacher’s reducing every text in the Bible to “3 points and a poem.”
A modern speaker says something like, “I am moving on to point #2.” An ancient man didn’t have enough room on the stone tablet to say something like that. He had to construct the second point from within the structure itself. Chiasms do not have to make the beautiful X. They can also run in parallel (a-b-c-a’-b’c’). This book, however, will focus mainly on symmetrical patterns.
Within a symmetrical pattern we should look for the “pivot” point. It is the “d” in an a-b-c-d-c’-b’-a’ (or some variant) structure. It will probably be the main point of the text. Dorsey gives an example from Babel (Dorsey 53).
a. Introduction. All the earth had one language (11:1)
B. people settle together
C. Resolution by the people (come, haba)
D. Yahweh discovers the plot (11:5)
C’ Resolution of Yahweh (come, haba)
B’ People disperse
A’ All the earth now has many languages (11:9).
This was fairly easy and few could dispute it. Others not so much, but that’s probably the nature of the case. It will be too difficult (but no doubt worthwhile) to reproduce by hand all the outlines.
The payoff for this approach is that it shows that ancient man would have written with a coherent plan in place. If that is so, then there is no reason to accept the Documentary Hypothesis.
(Sorry about the photos. I did this on google docs and had them right side up)
This is the most important book I own on the Old Testament. It might be one of the most important books written on the Old Testament in the 20th century. Had mainline Protestantism been aware of Dorsey’s analysis, the critical theories of the Old Testament would have been killed on arrival.
Chiasms are inevitable. Whether Dorsey is reading them into the text, or whether they are there naturally (or probably both), the point is they are there. Once you see them, you can’t ignore them. And given the economy of space in ancient writing, it’s almost a given that the author (indirectly God) was using chiasms. In any case, it is no more forced than the conservative preacher’s reducing every text in the Bible to “3 points and a poem.”
A modern speaker says something like, “I am moving on to point #2.” An ancient man didn’t have enough room on the stone tablet to say something like that. He had to construct the second point from within the structure itself. Chiasms do not have to make the beautiful X. They can also run in parallel (a-b-c-a’-b’c’). This book, however, will focus mainly on symmetrical patterns.
Within a symmetrical pattern we should look for the “pivot” point. It is the “d” in an a-b-c-d-c’-b’-a’ (or some variant) structure. It will probably be the main point of the text. Dorsey gives an example from Babel (Dorsey 53).
a. Introduction. All the earth had one language (11:1)
B. people settle together
C. Resolution by the people (come, haba)
D. Yahweh discovers the plot (11:5)
C’ Resolution of Yahweh (come, haba)
B’ People disperse
A’ All the earth now has many languages (11:9).
This was fairly easy and few could dispute it. Others not so much, but that’s probably the nature of the case. It will be too difficult (but no doubt worthwhile) to reproduce by hand all the outlines.
The payoff for this approach is that it shows that ancient man would have written with a coherent plan in place. If that is so, then there is no reason to accept the Documentary Hypothesis.
(Sorry about the photos. I did this on google docs and had them right side up)
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