Ancient Chiasmus Studied Chiasmus in Antiquity: Structures, Tive; These Methods Have Cast New Light on Analyses, Exegesis by John W

146 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT rent and historic significance to all Saints and lavishly illustrated, the Kansas City of various varieties, including those whose history is a centerpiece of publishing and attitudes about priesthood allowed them to writing quality. Its brief though complete pursue African converts long before the treatment of the Mormon part of the com- Cannons and the Mabeys. Presently under- munity's story is typical of the overall way all across the country, Windsor Press's quality of the production. Pleasantly under- community history projects have already standing though perhaps overly sympa- covered most major American towns, in- thetic, the authors trace concisely the ar- cluding Salt Lake City (by John McCor- rival, the trials, and the expulsion of the mick) and now Sherry Lamb Schirmer and Saints in the 1830s and then the return of Richard D. McKinzie, At the River's Bend: the RLDS. This is a book that exemplifies An Illustrated History of Kansas City, In- the best in local history, a delightful con- dependence, and Jackson County (Wood- trast to what this column usually addresses land Hills, California: Windsor Publica- itself. So, you see, you critics of "Brief tions, Inc., 1982, 362 pp., biblio., index, Notices," I am not such a hardened cur- $24.95). Beautifully packaged, well-written, mudgeon after all. Ancient Chiasmus Studied Chiasmus in Antiquity: Structures, tive; these methods have cast new light on Analyses, Exegesis by John W. Welch, ed. many obscurities of the biblical text. How- (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981), 353 pp. ever, the dominance of the historical- Reviewed by John S. Kselman, Asso- critical method in biblical studies and in ciate Professor of Semitic Languages at the professional training of biblical scholars the Catholic University of America in has had the unintended effect of deflecting Washington, D.C., and book review editor interest from the literary-esthetic level of for the Catholic Biblical Quarterly. the text. There were, to be sure, scholars who studied the biblical text as literature, FOR THE LAST TWO CENTURIES, the scientific like the English scholar R. G. Moulton at study of the Bible has been dominated by the end of the nineteenth century and the historical concerns, as scholars have at- American Nils Lund at the beginning of tempted, in different ways, first to write a the twentieth; but they were a minority. history of the literature of ancient Israel Happily, the situation has changed and of the primitive church, and then, on dramatically in recent years. While not the basis of these sources, to reconstruct ignoring or rejecting the continued impor- the histories of both communities. The tance of the historical-critical method, more methods developed for such study over the and more scholars are turning their atten- last two centuries are varied. To mention tion to the literary qualities of the Old and two examples, there are source criticism (the New Testaments. The volume under re- attempt to discover and describe the sev- view is one of the most recent and most eral sources that make up a book like interesting of such studies. Its approach Genesis) and form criticism (the study of is both narrow and wide: narrow, in that the recurring patterns of the small, pre- it studies only one literary device, chiasmus; sumably originally oral units of the litera- wide, in that it is concerned with this de- ture, and the purposes for these units — vice not only in biblical literature, but in preaching, catechesis, miracle stories or the such related literature as that of ancient like, as in the synoptic gospels). Mesopotamia, of the second millennium The impact of such historical questions B.C. Syrian city of Ugarit, and of the fifth and concerns has been enormously produc- century B.C. Aramaic literature of Elephan- REVIEWS 147 tine. The volume also includes a study of documented. Also of high interest to me chiasmus in classical Greek and Latin lit- was the contribution of B. Porten, "Struc- erature, in post-biblical Jewish literature, ture and Chiasm in Aramaic Contracts and and in the Book of Mormon. Letters" (pp. 169-82). In this relatively In the introduction (pp. 9-16), John brief piece, the presence of chiastic pat- Welch, to whom we owe double gratitude terning in ordinary Aramaic business docu- for editing the volume as well as for sev- ments — material that in no sense could be eral contributions to it, describes chiasmus described as "literature" — demonstrates as "the appearance of a two-part structure the ubiquity of the device in the ancient or system in which the second half is a Near East. mirror image of the first, i.e. where the first Another paper of particular interest to term recurs last, and the last first" (p. 10). me and presumably to the readers of DIA- An example of this simplest form of chias- LOGUE, is the editors' contribution on "Chi- mus is found in Isaiah 22:22: asmus in the Book of Mormon" (pp. 198— 210). The instances of chiastic arrange- I will place the key of the House of ments of material, particularly in the early David on his shoulder; parts of the Book of Mormon, are set out when he opens, no one shall shut, with clarity and with an admirably non- when he shuts, no one shall open. apologetic tone. As a non-Mormon, I The balance and inversion that mark the would draw different inferences from the last two lines above are chiastic and can evidence, a possibility that Welch allows be represented schematically as AB//BA. for, both at the beginning and at the end of However, the volume's contributors are not this article. In evaluating this contribution, concerned primarily with such simple and it seems to me that the point Welch makes obvious inversions but with more elaborate (i.e., that the presence of chiastic structures and extended inverted structures discover- in parts of the Book of Mormon indicates able in larger units of the text as described, their status as ancient scripture) is weak, or for instance, in Michael Fishbane's fine at least is explainable in other ways. After study of the chiastic structure of the cycle all, if one wants to repeat a list of items not of Jacob stories in Genesis 25-35, originally haphazardly, but in some sort of order, published in the Journal of Jewish Studies there are only two ways to do it: by mir- 26 (1975): 15-38 —a study that does not roring the first instance (ABCD=ABCD), seem to have been noted by Y. T. Radday or by reversing it (ABCD = DCBA). I am in his chapter on "Chiasmus in Hebrew also impressed by the work of several con- Biblical Narrative" (pp. 50-117). temporary LDS scholars who are believers It is virtually impossible to summarize who approach the Book of Mormon as genu- or evaluate thoroughly a book like this, ine revealed scripture but as equivalent to whose importance lies in the hundreds of the pseudepigraphical literature of the Old examples that are included. Therefore, I Testament (the book of Daniel, written in will focus on those chapters that were of the second century B.C. but purporting to most interest to me. My professional in- be from the sixth century B.C.), or of the terest in the Old Testament drew me first New Testament (the Pastoral Epistles-— to the contributions of Radday and 1-2 Timothy and Titus — claiming to be W. G. E. Watson, "Chiastic Patterns in written by the apostle Paul but actually Biblical Hebrew Poetry" (pp. 118-68). written after his death, perhaps as late as These two chapters, along with that of the mid-second century A.D.). This ap- John Welch on "Chiasmus in the New proach would explain the apparent de- Testament" (pp. 211-49), make up over a pendence of the Book of Mormon on the third of the book, some 160 pages. Wat- King James version of the Bible (a charge son's article was especially full and well used regularly by opponents of Mormonism.

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