From: Perry L. Stepp (plstepp@flash.net)
Date: Mon Dec 08 1997 - 04:38:40 EST
Thomas Bond wrote:
> Andrew Kulikovsky wrote:
> > I always understood chiasm as a rhetorical device used by the author to
> > emphasize a point, which is usually set in the centre of the chiasm.
> > However, in this case there seems to be no logical focus on a central
> > point - so I would doubt whether this really is a chiasm...
> I would qualify this statement a bit. I don't necessarily think chiasm
> was just a rhetorical device used to emphasize a point, but was a way of
> ordering thoughts. As a way of structuring thought, or communicating
> thought, a chiasmus would be used to indicate what items relate to each
> other, rather than just what is at focus.
Thomas is absolutely right. Sometimes, as in the prologue to John, a
chiasm does seem to focus on a particular point and make it central to the
argument (see Culpepper's article, "The Pivot of John's Prologue," from New
Testament Studies a few years back.)
In other places, the inclusio is the rhetorical point, the focus is on the
outsides of the envelope--and not on the center. And in other places, a
chiasm is simply a structural device--see the Aramaic sections of the book
of Daniel, for example:
Dan 1--Introduction
Dan 2--a dream of four kingdoms
Dan 3--devine deliverance
Dan 4--devine judgement
Dan 5--devine judgement
Dan 6--devine deliverance
Dan 7--a vision of four kingdoms
In this case, there appears to be no rhetorical point to the use of chiasm.
Its function is structural, nothing more or less.
Grace and peace,
Perry L. Stepp
(Permission granted to quote any or all and to name the writer.)
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