Monday, February 8, 2010

Chiasmus

A friend was telling me about an upcoming conference on Chiasmus to be be held in Salt lake on May 15th, and it sounded really intriguing. A chiasm is like God's fingerprint and many significant documents-including the Declaration of Independence- have that form.

So I just found this in my file and thought I'd share another verse that has that structure.

Poets call this matching pattern a chiasmus: 1, 2, 3:3, 2, 1. A clear example of it is Jesus’ quote of Isaiah:

Sluggish indeed is this people’s heart.
They have scarcely heard with their ears,
they have firmly closed their eyes,
otherwise they might see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts. Matthew 13:15

The end-words form a chiasmic pattern: heart, ears, eyes:eyes, ears, heart.

(Link, Mark S.J., The Seventh Trumpet, Tabor Publishing, Allen, TX, pg 15)

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