Journal: Conservative Theological Journal
Volume: CTJ 08:25 (Dec 2004)
Article: The Chiastic Structure of the Book of Daniel, Part I
Author: Nicholas Panos

---

CTJ 8:25 (December 2004) p. 327

The Chiastic Structure of the Book of Daniel, Part I

Nicholas Panos

Professor Emeritus
San Diego State University

Terminology and Methodology

With the publication of a number of papers, starting in 1930, Lund1 made a great contribution to an understanding of those aspects of literary structure that support the unity of many of the books of the Bible. He brought to the attention of the scholarly community an ancient literary structure, called a chiasm. There are chiasms involving individual passages, varying in size from a fragment of a verse to several consecutive verses. Such chiasms are sometimes called micro-chiasms, but will be referred to in this paper as subchiasms. A subchiasm is a two-part contiguous passage that contains repetition of similar, identical and/or contrasting words and/or phrases, such that the second part parallels the first part, but in reverse order. Often there is an encircled central portion of the passage that has no corresponding parallel. Lund (42) offered a classic example, from Amos 5:4b–6a (NIV):

A “

Seek

me and

live

;

B do not seek

Bethel

,

C do not go to Gilgal,

D do not journey to Beersheba.

C’ For

Gilgal

will surely go into exile,

B’ and

Bethel

will be reduced to nothing.”

CTJ 8:25 (December 2004) p. 328

A’

Seek

the

Lord

and live,

Underlining is used to highlight the parallel language. Lines A and A’ are related by matching content, as are B and B’, as well as C and C. Line D is called the encircled center, or focus. Usually this represents a turning point or a highlight in the movement of the passage. Lines A and A’ (referred to as the A-A’ level) are also significant in that they represent the base, or home, of the subchiasm. The following subchiasm from Zecheriah 9:4 has a two-part center, so the inversion is inclusive (Lund, 41):

A

Ashkelon

will see it and fear;

B

Gaza

will writhe in agony,

C and

Ekron

too,

C’ for her hope will wither.

B’

Gaza

will lose her king

A’ and

Ashkelon

will be deserted.

The concepts of matching verbiage and inversion embodied in these subchiasms can be generalized to a relationship among passages encompassing large portions of a work - or even an entire work. This paper deals exclusiv...

visitor : : uid: ()