Dick wrote:
How would you read that? Is Numbers a poetic book?
I don't know about all of Numbers, I haven't studied every line from the
vantage point of Hebrew poetry. But in general, it is true that much of the
Old Testament is written poetically. It should be clarified that when they
talk about "poetry", they are not talking Mother Goose stuff, not sing-song
fictional nonsense chosen just to make the words rhyme. Hebrew poetry
consists of chiasmus (repeating series of points in reverse order),
parallelism, immediate repetition, and a series of other literary devices.
It's not generally poetry of sound, but poetry of thought, which probably
made it easier for the Hebrews to memorize the scriptures. This might
include individual verses, or whole chapters. This doesn't prove whether
you are right or wrong about bene adam, but most of the verses you have
referenced do appear to be immediate repetition/parallism poetic structure.
Repetition of the same or similar word or idea is a way of providing extra
emphasis, such as "holy, holy, holy is the Lord".
Jon Tandy
Received on Wed Apr 12 07:11:04 2006
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