Abstract
The didactic literature, especially the book of Proverbs, but also many other books of the Hebrew Bible are characterised by numerous antithetic sentences. They express general principles, values and experiences. Their form tends to be short, concise and symmetrical. In many cases every sentence is an independent unit by itself, without organic connection with a broader context. The quest for general principles and a tendency to symmetry in the wisdom movement may explain why the Hebrew Bible contains only a few longer antithesis of the wisdom genre. Yet, even in these parallels the similarity is actually very limited. The more carefully we investigate the whole structure of every single text and compare with others, the more the uniqueness of each text becomes apparent. This fact clearly confirms the total structural approach as the most appropriate way in which to do justice to the communicative intention of a given author.Keywords: antithetic parallelism; book of Proverbs; didactic literature; Hebrew Bible
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
