2Sam 22:14 reads
EBRONTHSEN EX OURANOU KURIOS
KAI
hO hUPSISTOS EDWKEN PHWNHN AUTOU
Berlin argues that these two lines (ignore KAI) are syntactically parallel
because they are "transformed" from the same underlying propositional
structure ("deep structure"). The transformational analysis results in the
following reconstruction of both lines:
KURIOS EX OURANOU EBRONTHSEN
hO hUPSISTOS EX OURANOU EDWKEN PHWNHN AUTOU
Berlin states:
" Geller considers both clauses as different realizations of the same
underlying sentence . . . Geller's analysis is therefore on a deeper
linguistic level . . . it penetrates deeper into the underlying grammatical
structure of the lines."
I have a "deep" objection to this procedure. What we have here is a theory of
syntactic parallelism which is constructed firmly on the foundation of a
speculation. The speculation is the dubious notion that we can reduce all
utterances to a simplistic subject-verb-object propositional structure. I
think this kind of analysis has very little power to "explain" what is going
on in a text because it is reductionist by nature, removing all kinds of
significant detail that is present in the so called "surface structure."
I think A. Berlin's book has a lot to recommend it but the adoption of the
transformational language model is a flaw which I am willing to overlook as I
mine out the other insights she has gathered on this subject. Some of you may
remember that this is the same attitude I have taken toward Richard Young's
Intermediate NT Grammar.
-- Clayton Stirling Bartholomew Three Tree Point P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062
*Page 21, Berlin, Adele. The dynamics of biblical parallelism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1985.
**Page 17, Geller, S., Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry, Missoula:Scholars Press, 1979.