Chiasms in the Bible
Another Hermeneutical Tool
The word “chiasm” comes from a mid-17th century rendering of the Greek word khiasmos, which means “mark with the letter chi” (khi = chi). Chi means cross… So, essentially, a chiasm could be called a crosswise arrangement.
Chiasms are a literary structure that repeats itself in reverse order. Often called the chiastic structure, this literary form appears throughout the Bible. A chiasm is structured like a sandwich: A) a piece of bread on top, B) mustard, C) a tender piece of oven-roasted turkey, C’) another piece of turkey, B’) mustard, A’) a piece of bread on the bottom.
The Literary Need for Chiasms
Chiasms are often used to add emphasis to a particular passage. Remember, the ancient texts of the Bible written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek did not use emphasizing techniques like bold, italics, underline, indention, paragraphs, bullet points, or font size. Instead, structural arrangements like parallelism or repetition of phrases brought emphasis to the reader.
In addition to adding emphasis, Chiasms also bring clarification. As you will see shortly, by identifying a chiasm, the reader will read the passage in the chiastic structure, which will clarify the point of the passage. This makes sense if emphasis is being added to a passage, then the main point of said passage will be clarified.
A side usage for chiasm is they work for any language. It’s unrealistic that every person will learn Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. However, chiastic structures should work with any good literal translation of the Bible.
Old Testament Examples
It is common in Old Testament narratives you will see that a story is repeated. Critics of the Bible will see such repetition as proof that the Bible has errors, isn’t infallible, etc. Once the reader understands there are methodological restrictions to what the languages could do to stress a main point or add emphasis, then such repetitious phrases are seen as a literary device rather than human error.
Our first example from the Old Testament is found in Genesis 9:12–17:
The main point of Genesis 9:12–17 is that God will remember His covenant, and never again will He destroy all life on earth via flood.
Our second Old Testament example comes from the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1–9. I’m going to summarize each chiastic section instead of writing the entire verse. Hopefully, this will make it a little easier to see the chiastic structure:
The emphasis in this passage is not that people built the tower or that God confused their languages but that Yahweh Himself came down.
New Testament Examples
Chiasms are not always long and complex. For instance, consider this New Testament chiasm from Matthew 6:24:
The emphasis is for the person to love God.
When we love God, serving Him is a natural outflow. All other religions do it the opposite way: Serve your god/do certain things for god, and he will forgive/love you.
Let’s look at one more New Testament chiasm found in John 13:36–14:5. For this one, the reader has to read past the chapter heading to get the full chiasm:
The center of this chiasm shows the reader that the main message Jesus communicates is for people to come to saving faith in him.
How to Find Chiasms
The following eight hints to find chiasms are provided by author Thomas B. Clarke. He has provided us with a wealth of resources and study aid here. On his website, he goes into detail explaining each of the following hints. I highly recommend checking it out!
1. Watch for a Pairing Process
2. Look for Common Themes
3. Look for a Change in the Flow
4. Look at the Length of Paired Themes
5. Look for the Story Being Told Twice
6. Trace it in Your Bible
7. Draw Connected Lines for Repeated Themes
8. Take Advantage of the Charting Method
Conclusion
Of course, looking for chiasms is not to replace the interpretive model of the historical-grammatical method. As a friendly reminder, the reader aims to discover the authorial original intent. What did the author mean when they wrote x, y, z? It is through interpretive tools like chiasm that we can clarify the main point of passages.
There are many chiasms throughout the Bible. An amazing resource for chiasms is this website called the Biblical Chiasm Exchange:
https://www.chiasmusxchange.com/
Enjoy uncovering more chiasms on your own and seeing with more clarity the beauty of the glory of Christ on every page of the Scriptures!
