You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Re-evaluating the Star of Bethlehem: Part 5: The mark of divine approval: "the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee" (featuring @vuyusile as author)
Good job.
The chiasm is amazing, and the Hebrew scholars used it so well. For all its shortcoming in precision compared to Greek, some of the literary devices of Hebrew really were amazing - the cadence, the structure, parallelisms, chiasms and poetry sometimes blending in ways that are really quite complex.
I wonder if they grew up learning to use all these devices intuitively, or if it was a practiced skill.
Looking forward to the next one.
Ah! we blog to know we are not alone! You will appreciate the material available at this website then: http://chiasmusresources.johnwwelchresources.com/chiasmus-antiquity
It seems clear to me that it was a deliberate device and much practiced skill resulting in an almost intuitive product. Since I don’t read Hebrew, and am left with the English translations, it remains even more impressive that they are not lost in translation. Thanks for the encouragement!
Here's something you couldn't get from Is 60:1-3 without the Hebrew. I used to be able to read it, but have lost most of my ability. But I can still work with it decently.
The cadence is hard to get here, but you can see a chiasm in the sounds too. The letters in parentheses are the beginning sounds of the words in Hebrew. They're not exact, but with the cadence would have a similar sound. These numbers are in exact order they appear in the passage. And you can see that they mirror each other somewhat. (ch) is a gutteral "h", so almost a soft "k" sound. The italics letters are prefixes, having different meaning depending on construct and context. The most common is the waw (vav). Caveat - I'm out of practice and did this quickly, so it's prone to error. Anyway, just having some fun. :)
1 a - arise (q)
1b - shine (o)
1c - your light has come (b, o)
1d - glory of (u-k)
1e - YHWH (y)
1f - risen upon you (z)
2g - darkness cover earth (h-ch, y-k, e)
2g - thick darkness cover peoples (w-a, l)
2f - arise (y-z)
2e - YWHW upon you (y)
2d - glory will be seen (w-k, y-r)
3c - nations shall come to your light (h, g, l-o)
3b - kings to the brightness (w-m, l-n)
3a - of your rising (z)
Now you are blowing me away ! thanks for this enrichment!
lol, well, it took me way longer than it should have. But it was fun. :)
Your work with the stars is so far beyond my understanding that I can't even pretend to grasp it all. It's incredibly fascinating.