Essay 2 | Poetry

Question 1

What are some of the key ideas associated with biblical poetry?

Answer 1

• Parallelism

- Repetition of development of motifs

Question 2

How have ideas about biblical poetry changed?

Answer 2

x

Question 3

What are some of the features of biblical poetry?

Answer 3

• Parallelism
• Inclusio
• Repitition
• Intentional Ambiguity
• Metaphore
• Alliteration
• Assonance
• Merismus
• Imagery
• Personification
• Refrain
• Acrostic

Question 4

In what ways does poetry show up in the psalms and the prophets?

Answer 4

• constitutes the entire psalter
• major parts of Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, Jeremiah, Amos
• the ways it shows up is in the differing genera’s

** Add Petersen’s examples of genera’s breakdown

• Does not attempt to give facts or report
• Attempts to elicit emotional or rhetorical response
• Borrowed from various sitz em leben

Prophetic Examples:

• Judgement Oracle (Jer. 6:16-21)- indictment and sentence
• Woe Oracle (Isa. 10:1-4)- same as judgement with hoy
• Lawsuit (Mic. 1:2-7)- borrowed from lawcourt
• Lament (Jer. 8:18-9:3)- cultic
• Hymn (Hab. 3: 3-15)- cultic
• Song (Isa. 5:1-2)
• Allegory (Ezek. 1:2-10)
• Acrostic (Nah. 1:2-8)

Question 5

How does an understanding of poetry aid interpretation?

Answer 5

• helps understand how parallelism functions & provides structure to the work
• genre; a poems meaning is inseparable from its form and structure ( Miller article)
• Prophets and Psalms in a poetic form show limitations on how we can understand the text (ATIOT)
• Structure, macro and micro structures help in interpretation

Question 6

How has the term “parallelism” been understood with regard to biblical poetry?

Answer 6

• According to Robert Lowth
  1. Synonymous Parallelism- two lines say basically the same thing
  2. Antithetic Parallelism- contrast w/in two lines
  3. Synthetic Parallelism- neither above category
• Further broken down by Newnan and Popper
  1. Comprehensive but not conducive to be able to work with
• Grey
  1. Complete Parallelism- all elements of parallelism repeated (a-a’, b-b’, c-c’)
  2. Incomplete Parallelism- not all elements parallel
  (a-a’, b-b, c-c’)
• After the discovery of the Ugaritic Poetry, which is almost entirely complete poetry, Freedman and Cross assumed that ealier poetry was complete and later was incomplete, but this idea was highly contested.