Unparalleling Biblical Poetry

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 1 begins with a well-known biblical poem, Psalm 23, to illustrate two problems facing biblical poetry readers: What are “lines” in (traditionally unlineated) biblical poetry, and why does it even matter? The chapter sets these overarching problems in the context of modern biblical poetry scholarship: the frameworks of parallelism and meter, and the confusion over whether “biblical poetry” is best defined by style or structure. While parallelism and meter are rejected, Robert Lowth’s early observation of “conformation” is affirmed: biblical poetry does relate to structure, and it is built from lines that fit to each other, not lines that fit to a meter. This raises the question of how the free-rhythm (unlineated) lines of biblical poetry can be perceived or mentally organized as structural-rhythmic units by the listener or reader. A cognitive approach informed by the theory and method of Reuven Tsur is introduced as the solution.