The Poetic and Narrative Shape of the Hebrew Bible and Literary Forms of Antithesis

• Authors: Jože Krašovec
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Linguistic and stylistic properties of various literatures can only be assessed when evaluated on the basis of the specific way of thinking, of the philosophy of life in general and of the religion in particular, as related to their specific concerns and answers. While dealing with the Hebrew Bible it becomes evident, that the most characteristic unifying force is the following fundamental antithesis: the verticality and radicality of God, evident in his promises, his deeds, and by the attitude of those who follow him versus the horizontality of idols and of human disobedience and its consequences. In spite of thematic and formal variety, the same vertical-horizontal dimension is conspicuous everywhere. The fundamentally inadequate relationship between transcendental realities and our available expressive categories is the main reason for using poetic and narrative means of expression. Literary forms of antithesis are used to express theological-moral motivations by conjoining terms, sentences and larger units and by disjoining sense regarding the nature, quality, or action of persons or things. The concept of antithesis appears to have multiple meanings, and it is therefore necessary to state at the outset that in this paper on the concept of antithesis is treated primarily in the rhetorical-stylistic sense. As regards the Hebrew Bible, the theological principles are always of prime significance. Most antitheses in the Hebrew Bible are constructed in the form of antithetic parallelism; nevertheless most antithetic units are original in terms of theme as well as the form.

Keywords

EN

narrative theology; the Hebrew Bible; the concept of word; wisdom; stylistics; antithesis; merism; translation and comparative research

• Publisher: Fundacja Naukowa Katolików “Eschaton”
• Journal: Religious and Sacred Poetry: An International Quarterly of Religion, Culture and Education
• Year: 2013
• Issue: 1(1)
• Pages: 23-39

Dates

published

2013-01-01-2013-03-31

Contributors

author

Jože Krašovec

• The Slovenian Academy of Sciences in Ljubljana in Slovenia

References

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Identifiers

ISSN

2299-9922