The Chiastic Structure Of The Farewell Discourse In The Fourth Gospel, Part 1 -- By: Wayne A. Brouwer

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 175:698 (Apr 2018)
Article: The Chiastic Structure Of The Farewell Discourse In The Fourth Gospel, Part 1
Author: Wayne A. Brouwer


The Chiastic Structure Of The Farewell Discourse In The Fourth Gospel, Part 1

Wayne A. Brouwer

Wayne A. Brouwer is Associate Professor of Religion, Hope College, Holland, Michigan.

Abstract

While scholars recognize John 13–17 as a unique literary unit within the Fourth Gospel, various difficulties in these chapters distract from their cohesive integrity. Some have recognized that a chiastic reading of the Farewell Discourse may help resolve these difficulties. However, there is wide disagreement as to whether chiastic readings that span several chapters are valid. The first part of this two-part series argues that it is indeed possible to read longer biblical passages as macrochiasms and outlines a set of criteria to govern such readings. The second article in this series will apply these criteria to the Johannine Farewell Discourse.

The Art Of Chiasm

Broadly defined, chiasm is the use of a balance of words, phrases, or themes around a pivotal center idea, provided that the order of these words, phrases, or themes is inverted in the second half. Because of this movement of the text, the key words in defining chiasm are parallelism, symmetry, and inversion.

Ian Thomson says that “chiasmus may be said to be present in a passage if the text exhibits bilateral symmetry of four or more elements about a central axis, which may itself lie between two elements, or be a unique central element, the symmetry consisting of any combination of verbal, grammatical or syntactical elements, or, indeed, of ideas and concepts in a given pattern.”1 In Thomson’s

definition, chiasm requires at least four phrases or literary elements clearly related to one another. His reason is clear: if a pericope has only two symmetric phrases, the result is simple parallelism. There is no way to know if a reflexive movement of thought happens between the parallel ideas. Similarly, if a pericope has three phrases, with the first and the third in symmetric parallelism, the whole literary unit is not necessarily a chiasm. Chiasm occurs only when there is a movement away from and then back to the parallel words or phrases. It is the reflexive mirroring—left to right, right to left; up to down, down to up; in to out, out to in; or other similar movement—that is required for chiastic thought.

While all agree with Thomson on this minimal requirement for assessing chiastic development, there are different perspectives regarding the axis or centering element itself. For Thomson, the centering element of a chiastically develo...

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