What is a chiasm?

So today I was definitely not sitting in on a class at CCU entitled "Temple and Sacrifice: An Invitation to Approach the Holy One." And I definitely won't be attending it for the rest of the week. And I most certainly did not learn five notebook pages (front and back) worth of exciting things. I thought I'd get that straight first. Just for the record.

Now that we have that out of the way...
I learned all sorts of things, but to keep to my question theme and to keep myself from writing an intolerably long post, I'll just discuss two ancient literary structures I learned about today: the chiasm (about which I asked today's featured question) and the bifid.

The chiastic structure is sort of like a palindrome whose parts are arranged in a specific order to emphasize some points over others. A chiasm must have at least three sections: the beginning (A), the middle (B), and the end related to the beginning (A'). A chiasm can have as many layers as you like, as long as every point except the central point has its complement (ex: A, B, C, D, C', B', A'). The middle section can be split into two related but equally weighted parts (ex: A, B, C, C', B', A'). In a chiasm, the middle part is the most important. The beginning and ending parts are the second most important. All other point fall after these.

Let's look at an example of a chiasm: Deuteronomy 27-28 (the entire book of Deuteronomy is a looser chiasm, and also follows the form of Hittite treaties, but that's a discussion for another time).

A: curses against Israel if they disobey God (27)
B: blessing for Israel if they obey God (28:1-14)
A': more vivid curses against Israel if they disobey God (28:15-68)

When reading this last week for Bible study, I made the mistake that anyone without knowledge of ancient writing structure might make. I assumed that since so much more time was spent on curses than on blessings curses were the focus of this passage. This supports the idea that a lot of people form of God in the Old Testament as a mean and heartless God who is just waiting for a chance to punish us all. The chiasmatic structure of this passage reveals the opposite to be true. The author of Deuteronomy sandwiched blessings between passages on curses to communicate that the blessings are more important, that God longs to bless his people and not to curse them.


And now for bifids. A bifid has two parts, as you can see if you parse this Latin-based word (bi- = two, -fid = split). In a bifid, there are two main points, and the second bears the emphasis. These points are often expounded upon with many sub-points.

As an example, we'll glance at the book of Exodus (which imitates yet distinguishes itself from the tales of conquest inscribed on Egyptian war stela ... again a topic for another time).

Part I: God frees the Israelites from Egypt and leads them to Mt. Sinai. (historical point)
Part II: God gives the law. (theological point)

Although it was important to the writer that God had freed them from the Egyptians, Exodus was written to highlight the interaction between God and his people through the giving of the law.


An understanding of these ancient forms of rhetoric can apparently drastically enrich our understanding of the Bible and any other ancient text. I look forward to learning to recognize them and using them to glean more from scripture.