Chiasmus

[charity]

consigieri, don't you know that the standard anti refutation of anything we may find that demonstrates ancientness is found in one word: coincidence.

[TrashcanMan79]

The Book of Mormon is loaded with simple chiasms, as well as complex.

A doublet of a simple chiasm is found below:

2 Nephi 29:13

And it shall come to pass that the Jews shall have the words of the Nephites,

and the Nephites shall have the words of the Jews;

and the Nephites and the Jews shall have the words of the lost tribes of Israel;

and the lost tribes of Israel shall have the words of the Nephites and the Jews.

Now that it has been demonstrated that the Book of Mormon contains simple and complex chiasms; and that the Bible contains simple and complex chiasms; is it possible to reach a consensus that the presence of both simple and complex chiasms in the Book of Mormon is evidence for its ancientess?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

Thanks so much! This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for!

[TrashcanMan79]

Why do you want to find "simple" chiasmus?

A lady I am currently in discussion with challenged me to find examples of these, in keeping with the thought that chiasms are to aid in memory, and, in her estimation, anything with more than 3 or so repeating elements would be counter to this.

I haven't bothered responding to her challenge yet (I'm currently making her defend her premise), but I thought that if it should come up, I'd like to be able to respond.

[charity]

trashcanman, this lady you are talking to does not know much about memory theory. We can most easily remember 5-7 "chunks." We are not limited to three. Her idea about anything more than three is not useful is not scientificially correct.

[TrashcanMan79]

trashcanman, this lady you are talking to does not know much about memory theory. We can most easily remember 5-7 "chunks." We are not limited to three. Her idea about anything more than three is not useful is not scientificially correct.

I thought the same thing. Her knowledge of chiamus is limited to what she has found on the internet in just the past few days, and I think that most, if not all, of the Biblical examples she has seen have been ones where there is a simple A B B' A' structure, and most of the examples she has seen of BOM chiasms have been 5 or more repeating elements. To her, I believe, this is something of a discrepancy.

While I have plenty of examples to show complex chiasms in the Bible, I, until recently, had no examples of simple chiasms from the BOM (which continues to baffle me - many sites make reference to these simple chiasms, but I have yet to find a site that actually gives examples of them!)

[charity]

This is a good example of 2 things: First, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. This lady sounds like she thinks she knows a whole lot more than she does. And second, the down side of the internet. With all the information it puts available to our fingertips, literally, a person can come away less informed they were before they started! If you think you know something and you are wrong, you are more ignorant than you were before.

[Nevo]

Now that it has been demonstrated that the Book of Mormon contains simple and complex chiasms; and that the Bible contains simple and complex chiasms; is it possible to reach a consensus that the presence of both simple and complex chiasms in the Book of Mormon is evidence for its ancientess [sic]?

Probably not.

Consider, for example, these comments from a well-informed participant on these boards:

• "I . . . don't believe that chiasmus provides especially strong evidence for connections between the Book of Mormon and the ancient Near East. Especially since many of the examples typically identified in the Book of Mormon contain chiastic interference."
  
• "Chiasmus happens, especially in a book prone towards the art of repetition."
  
• "I'm actually quite skeptical of chiastic structures."
  
• "I look forward to the publication of David [Wright]'s and Brent [Metcalfe's]'s article on chiasmus, since I for one, believe that Latter-day Saints frequently overstate this 'proof'."
  
• "I do not believe that extended examples of chiasmus [in the Book of Mormon] appear as a result of authorial intent."
  
• "I do not believe that chiasmus proves anything except a propensity for repetition. If a person writes with repetitions, chiastic structures are inevitable.
  
• "Those interested in the subject may wish to visit strangite.org where you will see the Strangites' recent excitement in the fact that chiasmus occurs in James J. Strang's translation of the Brass Plates."
  

[charity]

nevo, instead of just saying a "well-informed" poster, why don't you save us all the work of searching and tell us exactly who this person is, so we can have some ability to form a judgement about the quality of your argument. Thanks.

[urroner]

nevo, instead of just saying a "well-informed" poster, why don't you save us all the work of searching and tell us exactly who this person is, so we can have some ability to form a judgement about the quality of your argument. Thanks.

enummaelish said the sixth.

I don't know who said the rest.

[Bernard Gui]

While I have plenty of examples to show complex chiasms in the Bible, I, until recently, had no examples of simple chiasms from the BOM (which continues to baffle me - many sites make reference to these simple chiasms, but I have yet to find a site that actually gives examples of them!)

You should get The Book of Mormon Text Reformatted According to Parallelistic Patterns edited

by Donald Parry. It's available from FARMS.

See this review:

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=122

Bernard

[Bernard Gui]

IMO, the parallelisms in the BoM are more an indication of how Nephites

thought and wrote than specific connections with Old World rhetoric.

Bernard

[The Dude]

consigieri, don't you know that the standard anti refutation of anything we may find that demonstrates ancientness is found in one word: coincidence.

Chiasmus are proof of composition.

Now that it has been demonstrated that the Book of Mormon contains simple and complex chiasms; and that the Bible contains simple and complex chiasms; is it possible to reach a consensus that the presence of both simple and complex chiasms in the Book of Mormon is evidence for its ancientess?

I won't agree to that, yet. I said complex chiasmus in the BoM could be a problem for ancientness, since I wasn't aware of such things in the Bible, but now that some examples have been shown I will no longer say they are evidence against ancientness. That doesn't, however, turn them into evidence for ancientness. These structures pop up in many places where thoughtful composition has taken place, places that have no alleged connection to Ancient-Hebrew-Transmogrified-through-Reformed-Egyptian-and-Inspired-Dictation-into-King-James-English. Read Dr. Seuss sometime.

Chiasmus happens, especially in a book prone towards the art of repetition. [said in regards to Dr. Seuss' One Fish, Two Fish]

[J Green]

Please forgive me if this is a stupid question.

If someone where to translate a hebrew text that contained chiasmus into say english, would it be expected that the chiasmus would show up in the translated text?

It depends on the type of translation. Translations run the gamut from loose (literary) to tight (carrying across the structure of source language[sL]). Translations I have done for court, military, and other government agencies are typically the latter and attempt to retain much of the SL influence. This would be the kind of BOM translation needed for these types of devices to carry through, and there has been some debate on the issue. I like Royal Skousen's article Joseph Smith's Translation of the Book of Mormon: Evidence for Tight Control of the Text.

J Green

[charity]

the dude, Theodore Geisel wrote "One Fish, Two Fish" in 1960, some 80-85 years after chiasmus had been identified. How is that use parallel with material written before its "discovery?"

[Nevo]

the dude, Theodore Geisel wrote "One Fish, Two Fish" in 1960, some 80-85 years after chiasmus had been identified. How is that use parallel with material written before its "discovery?"

Chiasmus was discovered by John Jebb in 1820.

In particular, it is now evident that John Jebb's 1820 publication became better known in certain circles in the 1820s than was previously thought. Although copies of Jebb's work probably did not make it across the Atlantic in the 1820s, as has been previously conjectured, Jebb's Sacred Literature was positively discussed in a large treatise on the critical study of the Bible by Thomas Horne in 1825. That edition of Horne was published not only in London but also in Philadelphia, and so information about introverted parallelism was present in the United States earlier than I and others had suspected. Yet it still appears unlikely that Joseph Smith had any knowledge of Jebb's ideas before he completed his translation of the Book of Mormon, and the presence of chiasmus in that text remains significant. Indeed, Joseph Smith acquired a copy of the 1825 edition of Horne's treatise, but that did not happen until January, 1834, well after the Book of Mormon was in print.

-- John W. Welch, "How Much Was Known about Chiasmus in 1829 When the Book of Mormon Was Translated?" FARMS Review 15, no. 1 (2003): 52-53.

[The Dude]

the dude, Theodore Geisel wrote "One Fish, Two Fish" in 1960, some 80-85 years after chiasmus had been identified. How is that use parallel with material written before its "discovery?"

You appear to be assuming Geisel was inspired by Hebrew chiasmus. Chiasmus arise in repetitious compositions, whether written before or after its discovery in Hebrew texts. They are not specific indicators of an ancient Hebrew source.

[Dan Vogel]

This is a complex subject, but the highlights are:

1) Welch at first presented chiasmus as proof of the Book of Mormon's Hebrew origins.

2) When chiastic structures were found in many ancient literatures, Welch backed off the Hebrew hypothesis and began presenting chiasmus as evidence consistent with the Book of Mormon's ancient origin.

3) Welch at first argued that chiasmus was not known to Joseph Smith's contemporaries.

4) After an exchange with Michael Quinn, Welch conceded that chiasmus was known to some of Joseph Smith's contemporaries but doubted that Smith knew about it.

5) While the Welch-Quinn exchange pertained to Smith's possible knowledge of Hebrew chiasmus, I suggested in my Sunstone paper that the search include antimetabole, which is a reversal of exact words. E.g., "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first."

6) Antimetabole is discussed in books about rhetoric from Joseph Smith's day.

7) There is evidence that Joseph Smith understood and used antimetabole. In two instances, Smith takes a parallelism from Isaiah 40:4 and creates his own chiasm by reversing the elements.

... which shall break down the mountains,

and the valleys shall not be found. (D&C 133:22)

he can cause the rough places to be made smooth,

and smooth places shall be broken up. (1 Ne. 17:46)

In Moroni 7:11, Smith takes imagery from James 3:11 ("Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?") and arranges it around the antimetabolic construction in Matthew 7:18 ("A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit") to get:

A bitter fountain cannot bring forth good water;

neither can a good fountain bring forth bitter water.

Note how Smith imitates or parallels this word order when creating his own antimetabole in the second part of the same verse:

a wherefore, a man being a servant of the devil

b cannot follow Christ;

b and if he follow Christ

a he cannot be a servant of the devil.

This situation demonstrates that Smith was consciously aware of antimetabolic formulations in the Bible and used them to create his own.

8. Despite evidence of conscious construction, most examples of chiasmus put forth by apologists are due to two factors: a) the large amount of repetition in the Book of Mormon creates a favorable environment for accidental construction for chiasmus; and B: the ingenuity of the analyst combined with loose criteria for what is considered chiastic.

9) Apologists have identified anywhere from three hundred to nine hundred and sixty-one chiasms in the Book of Mormon. Applying the criteria of a growing number of Bible scholars, one can easily see that the vast majority of proposed Book of Mormon chiasms depart from what the chiasmists themselves call "symmetrical parallelism." While Welch and other chiasmists point to symmetry and complexity as signs of conscious design, most (about 85%) exhibit imbalance, questionable demarcation, mixed parallel styles, arbitrary omission and inclusion of key elements. Additionally, many proposed Book of Mormon chiasms ignore and disrupt more dominant literary patterns and serve no discernable literary purpose. When one or more of these characteristics are present, it is much easier to assign these problems to apologetic ingenuity, manipulation, and wishful thinking than to buy into the ad hoc hypothesis offered by Welch and others that the ancient authors "simply took some liberty with the form" (John W. Welch, "Introduction," in John W. Welch, ed., Chiasmus in Antiquity: Structure, Analyses, Exegesis (Hildersheim, Germany: Gerstenberg Verlag, 1981), 13, 14). Nevertheless, Welch has criticized his fellow apologists for their loose criteria in determining the presence of chiasmus, which creates an awkward situation when he limits his evidence to the strongest examples of chiasmus. Even if one allows for the possibility that complex chiasmus might occasionally appear in the Book of Mormon, the multitude of near-misses points to what statisticians call the fallacy of the enumeration of favorable circumstances, or emphasizing the successes and disregarding the failures. In other words, in a book replete with repetition and chiastic-like structures, one should not be surprised to find some relatively good examples.

Was Chiasmus and Antimetabole Known to Joseph Smith's Contemporaries? In addition to clear examples in the Bible, antimetabole was also known through books on rhetoric. Samuel Knox, A Compendious System of Rhetoric (Baltimore, 1809), 110, for instance, gives the following rhyming definition for "epanodos," which is another name for chiasmus:

By Epanodos, a sentence shifts its place,

Takes first and last, and also middle space.

He then gives the following antimetabolic example:

Whether the worst,

a the child accurs'd,

b or else the cruel mother?

b The mother worst,

a the child accurst;

as bad the one as t'other. [emphasis added]

On page 112, Knox defines "antimetabole" as follows:

Antimetabole puts chang'd words again,

By contraries, as the example will explain.

Ex. A poem is a speaking picture;

a picture is a mute poem. [emphasis added]

To Knox epanodos was what might be called a complex antimetabole, rather than a Hebraic inverted synonymous parallelism. Similarly, John Newton, An Introduction to the Art of Rhetoric (London, 1671), 114-15, also defines epanodos: "An Epanodos is, when the like sound is in the beginning and ending of diverse sentences." But the example he gives from Isaiah 5:20 - "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil" - is also not an inverted parallelism, but rather an antimetabole.

[David Bokovoy]

Thanks Dan for an informative post.

Your comments provide evidence for why I maintain that we should not overstate the evidence for Book of Mormon authenticity through chiastic structures.

"I look forward to the publication of David [Wright]'s and Brent [Metcalfe's]'s article on chiasmus, since I for one, believe that Latter-day Saints frequently overstate this 'proof'."

Currently, I do not know if David Wright will still publish his article with Brent.

In somewhat of an ironic twist, since his important contributions to the subject of chiastic interference, Dr. Wright has actually adopted the use of chiasmus as an integral component of his analysis of the covenant code.

Iâ??m currently serving as his research assistant for the book which will appear through Oxford University Press.

[Chris Smith]

Great post, Dan. I actually just ran across the concept of antimetabole earlier tonight while doing some work on statistical chiasm analysis vis a vis Edwards and Edwards. From what I read, though, it looked like it encompasses only 2-element chiasms: quick, axiomatic statements that invert simple phrases. If that's the case, then Alma 36 (for example) is much too complicated to be antimetabole.

Edwards and Edwards have made an interesting, though perhaps flawed, case in favor of intentionality in Alma 36. I'm working on an evaluation/critique of their studies. Do you know if Wright and Metcalfe plan to interact at any length with E&E's methodology?

[consiglieri]

With the discussion of the scholarly treatments of inverted parallelisms in the early 19th century, I think some are slipping back into the theory that Joseph Smith was an absolute genius who studied esoteric Bible literary constructions in his spare time and then knowingly incorporated the same into his masterpiece, the Book of Mormon. This, to me, is about as difficult to believe as Joseph Smith's story of the angel and the gold plates.

I think I understand Dan Vogel's argument as he sets it forth in his post. It is true that a number of LDS with an interest in chiasmus have overdone the subject, and seen chiasmus in the Book of Mormon in places where it is highly questionable, as Mr. Vogel notes, and as John Welch admits. This, of course, renders the subject vulnerable to an attack on the questionable chiastic structures in the Book of Mormon as an avenue to diminishing the significance of the solid chiastic structures in the Book of Mormon.

But I am not sure this is a persuasive argument. Once we have swept all the questionable chiasms in the Book of Mormon out of the picture, we are still left with the numerous solid chiastic structures, and the question of how we account for them.

I am not certain from Mr. Vogel's post whether he is a proponent of the theory that Joseph Smith knew about inverted parallelisms from studying scholarly treatises on the subject, or whether it is simply a chance happening which should be expected in a repetitious text.

I think Alma 36 is far too solid and complex an example of chiasmus to be accounted for by 20-chimpanzees banging away at typewriters for 60-days.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[Dan Vogel]

I believe JS knew about simple and extended antimetabolic forms, just as he knew about other rhetorical repetitions like anaphora and epistrophe. These forms appear in the sermons of JS's day, as well as in his writings and revelations, the latter being given supposedly in the weakness of his own language.

Longer chiasms such as Alma 36 only appear impressive until closer examination reveals the manipulations of the text that are necessary to create it. A natural contrasting parallelism already exists between Alma's pre- and post-conversion experience, which Welch and others exploit. I would refer you to Earl Wunderli's analysis of Alma 36 in a recent issue of Dialogue.

[Chris Smith]

Yeah, I've read Wunderli's analysis. He does a poor job of responding to Edwards and Edwards, though.

[Hammer]

Knowing about chiasmus and effectively reproducing it is two different things. Try writing a poem with just reading about how to do it. Poems can be very difficult for some people even with all the educational tools available to us today.

I lost a whole grade in English when I was in high school because I couldn't write a poem to save my life.

[Bernard Gui]

I believe JS knew about simple and extended antimetabolic forms, just as he knew about other rhetorical repetitions like anaphora and epistrophe. These forms appear in the sermons of JS's day, as well as in his writings and revelations, the latter being given supposedly in the weakness of his own language.

It can equally be argued that Joseph's later writing style was highly

influenced by his experience translating the the BoM, his first and

most successful literary accomplishment. I am unaware of any comparable

complex writing he did prior to the BoM.

How does one absorb literary and rhetorical forms by listening

to a few sermons? Doesn't the structure have to be revealed through

written analysis? What evidence do you have that Joseph engaged

in this kind of esoteric scholarship?

To me, your argument is akin to a neophyte composer writing

a symphony in sonata/allegro, minuet and trio, and theme and

variation forms after listening to a little Mozart and Haydn.

Bernard

[grego]

The point is that there is NO WAY that someone could come up with that complex format of writing without being introduced to it from someone else.

Then who came up with it in the first place?

Literary tradition, as with other things, often builds. (Unless you believe in the best at the first, then a retrogression in a sense, then a rebuilding.)