Chiasm ~ Matt 7:6 Revisited

George Blaisdell maqhth at hotmail.com
Fri Mar 5 13:46:18 EST 1999


B-Greekers ~

Once upon a while ago we had a thread on this pericope that had all 
kinds of ways of approach, and as I am recalling none looked at it 
chiastically. [??]  We had dogs trampling, pigs biting, pigs trampling 
and dogs biting, and both pigs and dogs biting and trampling.  As it 
ended up, we seemed to be left with the somewhat mystifying nature of 
the grammatical implications of Greek word order.  Subsequently I 
figured out that canine [teeth] bite [hence it is the dogs that bite] 
and that hooves trample [hence the pigs], and had put the matter to 
rest, albiet with a lingering sense of word order mystification, for 
this resolution depended upon lexical implication, and not grammatical 
form [Greek word order].

Seen in chiastic terms ~ In this case inverted parallels, the word order 
achieves a sparkling clarity:

A  MH DWTE TO AGION TOIS KUSIN
  
  B  MH DE BALLETE TOUS MARGARITAS
     hUMWN EMPROSQEN COIRWN
  
  B' MH POTE KATARATASOUSIN AUTOUS
     EN TOIS POSIN AUTWN

A' KAI STRAFENTES RHXWSIN hUMAS

This format clearly connects A to A', which has the dogs turning on you 
and ripping you open, and B to B' [the pigs trampling your pearls 
underfoot], and has the following three-fold conceptual ordering of its 
strophes:

1] A B B' A' As heard  
2] A A' B B' Implicitly understood
3] B B' A A' Implicitly understood.  

And no others!!!  [???]

This chiasm business looks like a wonderful syntactical tool...

Are there opposing understandings?

George


George Blaisdell
Roslyn, WA


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