Chiasms in the Bible

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OK, all you Bible experts - have you studied Chiasms in the bible? Is there any good list of chiasms, as well as a good study into the meanings of each one?

Before you ask, a Chiasm is typically a series of verses that build to a certain point and then unbuild. The central point is supposed to be very important. I seem to remember one of them where Jesus demonstrates his heavenly powers, calls the apostles and distributes those same powers to the apostles, but I can’t remember the details.

Can anyone out there help someone whose memory is a little sketchy?

Notworthy
 
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NotWorthy:
OK, all you Bible experts - have you studied Chiasms in the bible? Is there any good list of chiasms, as well as a good study into the meanings of each one?
Click to expand...
Before you ask, a Chiasm is typically a series of verses that build to a certain point and then unbuild. The central point is supposed to be very important. I seem to remember one of them where Jesus demonstrates his heavenly powers, calls the apostles and distributes those same powers to the apostles, but I can’t remember the details.

Can anyone out there help someone whose memory is a little sketchy?

Notworthy## Chiasmus is simply a stylistic device - that’s all. The use of it has no more to do with the authority or origin of a book, than does the author’s height or hair colour 🙂

STRUCTURE
  • **Parallelism **`pÃrElelIzm] (Parallelismus): the deliberate (absichtlich)repetition of similar or identical words, phrases or constructions in neighbouring lines, sentences or paragraphs.
  • Anaphora [E`nÃfErE] (Anapher): a form of parallelism where a word or several words are repeated at the beginning of successive (aufeinander folgend) lines, sentences or paragraphs.
In every cry of every man / In every infant’s cry of fear / In every voice, in every ban. (Blake London)

**
  • Inversion** (Inversion): a change of the ususal word order (subject-verb-object).
A lady with a dulcimer (Hackbrett) / In a vision once I saw.

**
  • Chiasmus**[kaI`ÃzmEs] (Chiasmus, Kreuzstellung): a reversal in the order of words so that the second half of a sentence balances the first half in inverted (umgekehrt) word order.
Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love. (Shakespeare)

**
  • Climax** `klaImÃks] (Steigerung, Höhepunkt, Klimax):a figure of speech in which a series of words or expressions rises step by step, beginning with the least important and ending with the most important (= climactic order). The term may also be used to refer only to the last item in the series.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed (schlucken), and some few to be chewed (kauen) and digested (verdauen).

**
  • Anticlimax** (Antiklimax): the sudden fall from an idea of importance or dignity (Würde)to something unimportant or ridiculous in comparison, especially at the end of a series.
The bomb completely destroyed the cathedral, several dozen houses and my dustbin.

**
  • Enumeration** (Aufzählung): the listing of words or phrases. It can stress a certain aspect e.g. by giving a number of similar or synonymous adjectives to describe something.
Today many workers find their labor mechanical, boring, imprisoning, stultifying (lähmend), repetitive, dreary and heartbreaking.
======

A full list of stylistic devices can be found here:

http://www.jochen-lueders.de/abitur/stylistic_devices.doc
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NotWorthy:
The central point is supposed to be very important
Click to expand...

It needn’t be - the content of the chasmus is irrelevant to its use as a **stylistic **device​

 
OK, Gottle, now I’m confused. After reading you’re post, I remembered where I originally came across them. Here’s what I dug up:

. Another form of literary technique is the “Chiasm”. It is often used to stress a point that is crucial to the author(s) of the biblical books. A chiasm uses a group of sentences to build on a central point by building up to the point and then building down in reverse order. Let’s look at a chiasm that may help to explain their significance.

In Mathew, chapters 11:35 to 10:8, Jesus is instructing the apostles, giving them new authorities. Let’s look at the verses:

9:35) Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. 36) At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. 37) Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; 38) so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” 10:1) Then he summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. 2) The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3) Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; 4) Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. 5) Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, "Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. 6) Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7) As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8) Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.

He draws a number of parallels between what Jesus does in 9:35-38 and the mission He gives the apostles in 10:1-8. Jesus preaches the kingdom and heals the sick (9:35), and He sees the people are like sheep without a shepherd (9:36) and in need of laborers being sent out to them (9:38). All of this parallels in reverse order how Jesus sends the apostles out (10:5) as shepherds to the lost sheep of Israel (10:5) so that they may preach the Gospel of the kingdom and heal the sick just as Jesus did (10:7-8).
Code: 
Let's look at this in a pyramid form:

A) Jesus went about *preaching* the Gospel of *the kingdom *and *healing*

          B) The people are like "*sheep without a shepherd*" (9:36).

                    C) Pray the Lord to sen*d out *laborers (9:38).

                               D) Jesus called *the twelve* disciples (10:1).
** E) Jesus gave the twelve authority (10:1).**
Code: 
D) The names of "the twelve" (10:2-4) (notice Peter is first, Judas is last).

                    C) Jesus *sent out* the twelve (10:5).

B) Jesus sent them to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (10:6)

A) The Apostles are to *preach "the kingdom* of heaven is at hand" and *heal the sick *(10:7-8).
In a chiasm’s structure, what is important, and what the author is trying to emphasize, is what is in the middle of the structure. The theme of Jesus authority is important for Matthew. In the first chapter of Matthew, Jesus’ lineage is traced all the way back to David, showing his messianic authority. In Matthew 3, Jesus’ authority as the anointed King is fully revealed when the Spirit descends upon Him at the Jordan River. In Matthew 4, Jesus exercises His authority over the devil by defeating Him in the three desert temptations. In Matthew 5-7, Jesus establishes His authority in His teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, and in 8-9, He manifests His authority over the storms, the sea, disease, infirmities, and even demonic spirits. Matthew 1-9 is all about establishing Jesus’ messianic authority through His words and deeds. But in Matthew 10, making use of a chiasm, Matthew stresses that the very authority of Jesus is now given to the twelve apostles. (9:35).

Notworthy
 
Notworthy:

Part of the problem is that the word “Chiasm” doesn’t even turn up in my expensive soon to be burned Oxford English Reference Dictionary or in its companion kindling Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus in Dictionary Form… If I only had a fireplace!

Well, I found this - Probably from some English Lit Lecture:

What’s a Chiasm?

Suppose I employed several people and had to lay off one of them. I might organize my memo to him something like this:

1 A Dear John:
2 B You’re fired.
3 A’ Sincerely, Herb

Even this crude first draft is a “chiasm,” a form suggested by its conforming to the > shape of the left half of the Greek letter chi, which is drawn like the English X. The “outer” elements, designated AA’, are the “frame,” or (since this is a letter, or epistle) an “epistolary frame.” The inner layer, designated B, has the all-important, bad news message.

Such a letter would greatly shock and irritate John, of course. So I would add another layer to the chiasm to make John (and myself) feel better–but without removing the message. The message is thus elevated to level C and the new BB’ pair might be called the level of “explanation”.

1 A Dear John:
2 B Things are tough. We can’t afford you any more.
3 C You’re fired.
4 B’ I’m really sorry I have to do this. It’s not my fault–it’s circumstances.
5 A’ Sincerely, Herb

Obviously, I can continue to insert layers–such as an “affirmation” pair designed affirm John’s worth–but you get the idea. Modern teachers of the art of writing business letters don’t use the word “chiasm,” but rather use “sandwich” because it is easier to remember. The message is the “meat,” and the outer layers of bread and condiments are part of the “delivery system.” Some managers are so distressed at having to write letters like the one outlined above that they over-compensate, making them so elaborate and complex that the employee receiving the letter is confused, not being sure whether he is to report for work the next day or not! I have known people who have received such letters–one of them who had sat next to his boss during a letter writing seminar told me that he regarded his former boss as having given him the “sandwich treatment.” Perhaps it would be better to say that he was the victim of a poorly constructed chiasm.

So chiasm is not something that is necessarily done for poetic beauty, even though it is a poetic device often used in antiquity. It is not even something that people do deliberately or something that requires special training–you have probably used chiasmic form yourself without really realizing it! Chiasm is therefore a natural result of the social need to package a difficult message in a way that prepares one for its force and provides encouragement after the delivery.

Letter writing involves chiasms with an odd number of lines, while poetry often uses chiasms with an even number of lines. The odd number identifies the inner-most, unpaired element with the message. It becomes the “focus” of the letter. All other elements of the letter exist to help deliver that message. They may convey information (perhaps informing the ex-employee of his cobra plan options and the company’s outplacement services), but they are subordinate to the main message. Such chiasms have “climactic centrality” because they focus on their center–the innermost layer that contains the “meat” of the sandwich.

to be con., Michael
 
Con. from Previous >

A Biblical Example

Let me offer a favorite chiasm from a favorite Old Testament book–Qohelet (more commonly known as Ecclesiastes). This was discovered by Daniel C. Fredericks (“Life’s Storms and Structural Unity in Qohelet 11:1-12:8,” Journal for the study of the Old Testament 52 (1991), 95-114). Fredericks identifies the focus verse (that is, the main message) in Eccl. 11:9–“But know that for all these things God will bring you to judgement” This is a verse that many biblical scholars had scoffed at, saying that it appeared contrary to Qohelet’s whole carpe diem (“seize the day!”) philosophy and had probably been added by a pious scribe in order to get the book into the Old Testament canon. But Fredericks, in showing that the structure of the passage absolutely depended on its focus verse, demolished such arguments. Here is the chiasm discovered by Fredericks–examine it with Ecclesiastes open before you and marvel at the symmetry of the matching of the pairs AA’, BB’, CC’, and so forth. What do you think? Do you agree that the chiasm was the intent of the book’s ancient author? Or was it a mere coincidence?

Eccl. 11:3-12:2 as a Chiasm discovered by D. C. Fredericks

Eccl. 11:3 A Clouds and Rain
Eccl. 11:7 B Light and Sun
Eccl. 11:8a C Consider the days of darkness
Eccl. 11:8b D All that comes is breath
Eccl. 11:9a E Enjoy your Youth
Eccl. 11:9b F But know … God will bring you to judgment
Eccl. 11:10a E’ Enjoy your Youth
Eccl. 11:10b D’ All of youth is breath
Eccl. 12:1 C’ Consider God before the days of darkness
Eccl. 12:2a B’ Sun and Light
Eccl. 12:2b A’ Clouds and Rain

hccentral.com/gkeys/chiasm.html

Ecclesiastes11 & 12

Chapter 11:

v,3: If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth; and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.

v.7: Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to behold the sun.

v.8: For if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.

v.9: Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth; walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

v.10: Remove vexation from your mind, and put away pain from your body; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

Chapter 12:

v.1: Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;

v.2: before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain;

Revised Standard Version

That is my Chiasm for the group.

In Christ, Michael
 
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