LE3 .A278 1999

1999

Ashley, Timothy

Acadia University

Master of Arts

Masters

Theology

Acadia Divinity College

The goal of this thesis is to demonstrate the need for a modified methodology for determining chiastic structures in biblical Hebrew texts. A brief survey of critical studies that investigate the presence of chiastic structures in various biblical passages shows both the lack of a uniform method and the often arbitrary selection and application of criteria by which these structures are analyzed. The majority of studies have proceeded on the basis of word repetitions alone, a criteria which has proved inadequate as the sole means of identifying chiasmus. An examination of Mike Butterworth's recent monograph, Structure and the Book of Zechariah (JSOTSup 130; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), which serves as the main stimulus for the present study, aptly illustrates the present need for a modified approach. That a satisfactory methodology for determining chiastic structures does not yet exist is demonstrated: (1) by the suspect nature of Butterworth's proposed chiastic structures in the book of Zechariah; and (2) the identification of several chiasms in Zechariah which Butterworth's methodology does not identify. On the basis of this analysis the foundation for a new methodology with stricter methodological guidelines will be proposed.

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