"chiasmus": Biblical 'pyramids'

[BarbTherese]

I found this SECRET INFO CLUB from Jimmy Akin video quite fascinating (I have never heard of "chiasmus"before) - and with potential to simply increase general knowledge of language structure, but primarily perhaps to give insight into Scripture in places :

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CQ5fGSpZrVE

 

Jimmy Akin is a Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers

[Luigi]

I've known about chiastic structure at the sentence level for a while but I was unaware that it also structured stories and books. In another thread, I talk about how I read literature for language - that being my gift of focus, I noticed a long time ago the repetition or twinning of concepts within a sentence - Isaiah does it constantly. But it also shows up in the Our Father - people sometimes ask, "Why would God even WANT to lead us into temptation?" I've thought for a while, "He doesn't - it's just one of those twinning things (NEGATIVE) "Lead us not into temptation, (POSITIVE) but deliver us from evil." 

 

This Jimmy Akin seems kind of interesting. I might have to look in his & his work. 

[BarbTherese]

Thank you for sharing. 

 

I have been receiving emails from Jimmy Akin's site for a while, including the Secret Info Club.  I find him very informative on quite a few subjects.  There was a very interesting email in my Inbox from his site this morning on Mortal Sin - and while it addresses the question: "Are most Catholics in America going to hell?", it deals with mortal sin generally and the three conditions necessary at the same time to constitute mortal sin per se.  Catholics can be prone to calling anything of grave matter as "mortal sin", which it isn't unless the other two conditions are also present at the time of grave matter being committed.  And probably we are never ever in a position to discern/judge about another whether the other two conditions are or were present.  Judgement is always God's alone.

 

 ARE MOSTCATHOLIC GOING TO HELL

 

 

 

We are warned not to judge by Jesus in The Gospel or earn judgement ourselves.  If I state another is in the state of mortal sin per se, then I am also at once judging since the choice made and consequence involved for mortal sin is eternal separation from God.  But Akin goes into this exceptionally well I thought (quoting Pope Benedict in places) and what exactly the state of mortal sin would mean in a person's spiritual disposition or 'makeup'.  I haven't read the comments after the text.

 

 

***Luke Ch6 "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.  Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given to you: good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over shall they give into your bosom.

 

For with the same measure that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again"

 

 

[BarbTherese]

^{My edit facility disappears very quickly on Phatmass - too quickly for me.  I had to make a quick phone call in the interim between posting and then wanting to edit. But my edit facility had timed out.}

 

^{Very interesting comments about the Our Father, Luigi - thanks heaps for sharing what you have, giving food for much thought in the light of the video by Akin on "Chiasmus".  I need now to go back to the video and internalize it more and then reflect on the "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" lines of the Our Father which you point out are a chiasmus.  I think Akin had something to say about what precedes a chiasmus in Scripture may be the crux of the matter in the chiasmus - something like that.  I have to go back to the video, so forgive me if I have things all upside down and back to front.}