"Syntactical Chiasmus"

Stephen C. Carlson scarlson at mindspring.com
Mon Jan 29 09:02:20 EST 2001


At 08:01 AM 1/29/01 -0600, Steven Craig Miller wrote:
>One can find "Hysteron Proteron" mentioned in Smyth-Messing's grammar. But, 
>the examples they give in no way appear similar to the examples of Phil 5 
>and Mt 7:6. In addition, they list it as a figure of speech and not as 
>something which can override normal Greek syntax. Both Chiasmus and 
>Hysteron Proteron were familiar rhetorical figures of speech in ancient 
>Greek literature. But I can't find any hint in classical grammars that they 
>were ever used to override normal Greek syntax. Does any of the works which 
>you've cited offer any justification for assuming that they can be used to 
>override normal Greek syntax?

What makes you think that "normal Greek syntax" is overriden in
Matt 7:6?  Putting aside Philem 5 (which is an arguable case),
I don't quite understand the objection to treating Matt 7:6 as
a chiasmus, when other factors, such as the senses of KATAPATHSOUSIN
and hRHCWSIN, so indicate (as supported by Davies & Allison in
their magisterial commentary).  Perhaps a clarification of the
objection would be helpful.

Stephen Carlson
--
Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com
Synoptic Problem Home Page   http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35



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