Changes

==The Chiasmus of the Flood Account==

==The Chiasmus of the Flood Account==

Early rationalist critics of the Bible, unaware of the literary methods of antiquity (and often unwilling to learn from ancient sources because doing so would threaten their presupposition-based theories), missed completely the chiastic structures that are used in the Scripture. The most elegant and complete of all chiastic structures in the Bible is that of the account of the Flood, found in Genesis 6:10 to 9:19. The entry of people and animals into the ark, followed by the rise of the Flood waters, then their fall, then the exit of people and animals, perhaps suggested a chiastic structure to the original author or authors. The Genesis Flood narrative is one of the most artistic examples of this literary device from all of antiquity. The Flood chiasm is presented here as adapted freely from a 1978 article by Gordon Wenham.<ref>Gordon J. Wenham, “The Coherence of the Flood Narrative” ''Vetus Testamentum'' 28/3 (1978) 338. See also David A. Dorsey, ''The Literary Structure of the OT'' (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999) pp. 51-52. Dorsey says “Everyone seems to agree that the story [of the Flood] is symmetrically arranged although they disagree on the number and identification of the parts.” The “everyone” does not include rationalist scholar J. A. Emerton, who attempted to undo the damage done to the classical [[documentary hypothesis]] in “An Examination of Some Attempts to Defend the Unity of the Flood Narrative in Genesis, Part 2” ''Vetus Testamentum'' 38/1 (1988) pp. 6–15.</ref>

Early rationalist critics of the Bible, unaware of the literary methods of antiquity (and often unwilling to learn from ancient sources because doing so would threaten their presupposition-based theories), missed completely the chiastic structures that are used in the Scripture. The most elegant and complete of all chiastic structures in the Bible is that of the account of the Flood, found in Genesis 6:10 to 9:19. The entry of people and animals into the ark, followed by the rise of the Flood waters, then their fall, then the exit of people and animals, perhaps suggested a chiastic structure to the original author or authors. The Genesis Flood narrative is one of the most artistic examples of this literary device from all of antiquity. The Flood chiasm is presented here as adapted freely from a 1978 article by Gordon Wenham.<ref>Gordon J. Wenham, “The Coherence of the Flood Narrative” ''Vetus Testamentum'' 28/3 (1978) 338. See also David A. Dorsey, ''The Literary Structure of the OT'' (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999) pp. 51-52. Dorsey says “Everyone seems to agree that the story [of the Flood] is symmetrically arranged although they disagree on the number and identification of the parts.” The “everyone” does not include rationalist scholar J. A. Emerton, who attempted to undo the damage done to the classical [[Documentary Hypothesis]] in “An Examination of Some Attempts to Defend the Unity of the Flood Narrative in Genesis, Part 2” ''Vetus Testamentum'' 38/1 (1988) pp. 6–15.</ref>

{| style="background:#F0FFF0" border=1; cellpadding=8

{| style="background:#F0FFF0" border=1; cellpadding=8