4: Literary Contexts Flashcards
What are the circles of contextual relationships?
- Immediate Context (words or sentences immediately following or preceding the text)
- Context of the whole paragraph or series of paragraphs
- Content of the same subsection of a biblical book
- Context of a main section (author’s flow of thought)
- The entire context of the biblical book
- Other biblical writings of the same author
- Other books in the NT by a different author
What are Walter Kaiser’s guidelines in creating biblical outlines?
- A repeated term, phrase, or clause may indicate the beginning or the end of a section
- Transitional conjunctions or adverbs may highlight a section break
- Rhetorical questions may start a new unit of material
- A change in time, location, or setting may indicate a new theme or section
- A vocative - noun of direct address - may mark off a new section
- Changes in tense, mood, or aspect of a verb may suggest a break
- Topic sentences tip the author’s hand to the main point of a new beginning section
What are two structures that writers in the ancient world used?
- Chiasm (inverted paralellism)
- Chain-link reasoning (association by catchwords)
Explain the Chiastic Structure
Structured as ABBA, ABCBA, ABCDCBA, etc. for the purpose of drawing attention to the central element.
Explain the Chain-Link Reasoning Structure
A key term or expression in one sentence or paragraph which produces the topic for the next sentence or paragraph, which then spawns a third, and a fourth, and so on.
What are some major NT literary genres and examples of forms within each?
- Gospels
- parables
- proverbs
- miracles: nature and healing
- Acts
- travel narratives
- more miracles
- speeches/sermons
- Epistles
- creeds/hymns
- virtue and vice lists
- diatribe
- Apocalypse
- hymnody
- visions
- letter to the seven churches
What are the five-parts of Hellenistic letters?
- Opening greetings
- Thanksgiving prayer
- Information to convey
- Exhortation/Instruction to be communicated
- Closing greetings
What did the Reformers meant by sensus literalis?
Avoid reading into the text allegorical or spiritual meanings never intended by the authors of Scripture
What are the six categories of metaphors in the NT?
- Figures of comparison
- Figures of addition or completion
- Incomplete figures of speech
- Figures involving contrast or understatement
- Figures centering on association or relation
- Figures stressing the personal dimension of something
What are some examples of figures of comparison?
- Metaphors
- Similes
What are some examples of figures of addition or completion?
- Pleonasm - verbal redundancy (“answered and said”)
- Paronomasia - play on words (“faith without works doesn’t work”)
- Epanadiplosis - repetition for emphasis
- Hyperbole - rhetorical exaggeration
- Hendiadys - two mutually defining terms to express one concept (“breathing threats and murder” = murderous threats)
What are some examples of incomplete figures of speech?
- Ellipsis - leaving out words that must be supplied
- Aposiopesis - when a portion of a sentence is omitted for emphasis
What are some examples of figures involving contrast or understatement?
- Irony
- Litotes - negative of the contrary (“no small city”)
- Euphemisms
- Antitheses (“you have heard it say, but I say to you”)
What are some examples of figures centering on association or relation?
- Synecdoche - the part for the whole
- Metonymy - one subject substituted for a closely related one
What are some examples of figures stressing the personal dimension of something?
- Personification (“Where, o death, is your victory…”)
- Apostrophe - addressing people not present to hear you
