METHODOLOGY FOR CHIASTIC STRUCTURES

To be absolutely convincing the determination of a chiastic structure should be

based upon a methodology with very rigorous criteria. It must be clear that the chiasm
has not been subjectively imposed upon the text but actually subsists and operates
objectively within the text. Our investigation will be guided by the following list of nine
criteria for detecting an chiasm:
1) There must be a problem in perceiving the structure of the text in question,
which more conventional outlines fail to resolve.
2) There must be clear examples of parallelism between the two halves of the
hypothesized chiasm, to which commentators call attention even when they propose
quite different outlines for the text overall.
3) Linguistic (or grammatical) parallelism as well as conceptual (or structural)
parallelism should characterize most if not all of the corresponding pairs of subdivisions.
4) The linguistic parallelism should involve central or dominant imagery or
terminology, not peripheral or trivial language.
5) Both linguistic and conceptual parallelism should involve words and ideas not
regularly found elsewhere within the proposed chiasm.
6) Multiple sets of correspondences between passages opposite each other in
the chiasm as well as multiple members of the chiasm itself are desirable.
7) The outline should divide the text at natural breaks which would be agreed
upon even by those proposing very different structures to account for the whole.
8) The center of the chiasm, which forms its pivot, should be a passage worthy of
that position in light of its theological or ethical significance.
9) Ruptures in the outline should be avoided if at all possible.1
An important and distinctive feature of this investigation is that all of the
proposed chiasms are based on precise linguistic parallels found objectively in the text,
rather than on thematic or conceptual parallels, which can often be subjective. Indeed,

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the main criterion for the establishment of chiasms in this investigation is the
demonstration of these linguistic parallels. We will seek to determine how the
subsequent occurrence(s) of a paralleled word or phrase develops the first occurrence
after a central unparalleled element or central parallel elements serve as a pivot from
the first to the second half of the chiasm.
Since they are based strictly on linguistic parallels, some of the proposed
chiasms may or may not exhibit a balance in the length of the various parallel elements
or units--one parallel element or unit may be much longer or much shorter than its
corresponding parallel. This may seem odd to a modern audience, but an ancient
audience would presumably be attuned to the key linguistic parallels that are heard
rather than the balance of length between the elements or units of a given chiasm. The
main presupposition of this investigation is that if there are demonstrable linguistic
parallels with a pivotal section between them, then a chiasm is operative regardless of a
certain lack of balance between various elements or units.
Furthermore, some of the linguistic parallels involve what might be considered by
a modern audience as rather ordinary or trivial words, unlikely to be key words in
chiastic parallels. But it should be kept in mind that what may seem to be insignificant
words or phrases on the surface to a modern audience may have been very significant
indeed to the particular rhetorical strategy of the author and the particular situation of
the original audience as they listened to the entire oral performance of the Letter to the
Philippians. In some cases the parallels are between cognates or between synonymous
and/or alliterative terms. And in some cases an identical grammatical form of a word
determines the chiastic parallel.
Not all of the proposed chiasms have the same number of elements or units.
Some chiasms may exhibit a single unparalleled central element, e. g. A-B-C-B-A,
while others may exhibit dual, parallel central or pivotal elements, e. g. A-B-C-C-B-A.
Nevertheless, both of these types operate as chiasms in the ears of the implied

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audience, since they both involve a pivot from the first to the second half of the chiasm.
In one type a central unparalleled element serves as the pivot, whereas in the other
type two parallel elements together serve as the pivot to the second half of parallel
elements. In addition, it may often be more accurate to speak of the central element or
elements as the pivotal point of the chiasm and the final A element as the climax. This
is important to keep in mind, lest one think that chiastic patterns are a type of circular or
merely repetitive argument, rather than exhibiting an on-going, dynamic development.
Chiastic patterns serve to organize the content to be heard and not only aid the
memory of the one delivering or performing a document, but also make it easier for the
implied audience to follow and remember the content. A chiasm works by leading its
audience through introductory elements to a central, pivotal point or points, and then
reaching its conclusion by recalling and developing, via the chiastic parallels, aspects of
the initial elements that led to the central, pivotal point or points. Since chiasms were
apparently very common in ancient oral-auricular and rhetorical cultures,2 the original
ancient audience may and need not necessarily have been consciously identifying or
reflecting upon any of these chiastic structures in themselves as they heard them. They
merely experienced the chiastic phenomenon, which had an unconscious effect on how
they perceived the content.3 But a discovery, delineation, and bringing to
consciousness of the chiastic structures of ancient documents can greatly aid the
modern audience to a more proper and precise interpretation of them.

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Notes
1

For a more detailed version of this list and an example of an extended biblical chiasm,

see Craig L. Blomberg, The Structure of 2 Corinthians 17, CTR 4 (1989): 48. And
for more discussion of criteria and more biblical examples of extended chiasms, see
Wayne Brouwer, The Literary Development of John 1317: A Chiastic Reading (SBLDS
182; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000). See also Joachim Jeremias,
Chiasmus in den Paulusbriefen, ZNW 49 (1958): 14556; John W. Welch, Chiasmus
in the New Testament, in Chiasmus in Antiquity: Structures, Analyses, Exegesis (ed.
John W. Welch; Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981), 21149; idem, Criteria for Identifying
and Evaluating the Presence of Chiasmus, in Chiasmus Bibliography (eds. John W.
Welch and Daniel B. McKinlay; Provo: Research, 1999), 15774; Ian H. Thomson,
Chiasmus in the Pauline Letters (JSNTSup 111; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1995), 1345; John L. White, Apostolic Mission and Apostolic Message: Congruence
in Pauls Epistolary Rhetoric, Structure and Imagery, in Origins and Method: Towards a
New Understanding of Judaism and Christianity: Essays in Honour of John C. Hurd (ed.
Bradley H. McLean; JSNTSup 86; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 15357;
Mark Wilson, The Victor Sayings in the Book of Revelation (Eugene, OR: Wipf and
Stock, 2007), 38; David A. DeSilva, X Marks the Spot?: A Critique of the Use of
Chiasmus in Macro-Structural Analyses of Revelation, JSNT 30 (2008): 34371.
2

For some of the evidence of this see Brouwer, Literary Development, 23-27.

On chiasms as an aid to both listener and performer, see Joanna Dewey, Mark as

Aural Narrative: Structures as Clues to Understanding, Sewanee Theological

Review 36 (1992): 5052.