Rhetorical Forms in the Bible: Parataxis / Hypotaxis

Today, I want to talk about parataxis. Parataxis (from Greek: παράταξις, "act of placing side by side"; from παρα "beside" + τάξις "arrangement") is a rhetorical technique that uses short, simple sentences, one after the other, without an explanation for how they connect. Some people compare it to the speech of children. Punctuation is allowed: commas, semi-colons, and periods. These force juxtaposition. But every element of punctuation can be replaced by “and”--coordinating conjunctions are allowed, but not subordinating conjunctions. The result is a string of pearls where every idea is as important as the next, a staccato text without consistent rhythm. In her article on parataxis, “There’s Parataxis, and Then There’s Hypotaxis,” published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Constance Hale writes that “parataxis can also lead to a sense of things piling up, a rush of ideas, a fast-moving narrative.”

Parataxis is different from asyndeton, though they are easy to confuse. Both lack syntactical structure and therefore ask their audience to guess at the gaps. The difference between them is one of intent. Asyndeton is an intentional removal of conjunctions to tighten the pace and length of a text or speech. Parataxis is not intentional. Its quick waterfall never contained connective material in the first place. In a sense, then, asyndeton is a subset of parataxis by way of human intention.

Mark’s Gospel is an excellent example of parataxis in its ubiquitous use of καί between clauses. Bruce Metzger observed that 80 of 88 sections in Mark begin with καί. Sixty-four percent of the sentences in Mark begin with καί. Thirty-three of the thirty-eight sentences that make up its first chapter begin with καί. About this, Rodney Decker said:

It appears that Mark’s usage of καί as an unmarked sentence (and clause) connective is very similar to narrative books that I have examined in the LXX. Adjusted for length, the frequency of sentence-initial καί in Mark is very close to 1 Maccabees and 1 Chronicles . . . with Genesis and Joshua close behind.[1]

Mark’s frequent use of καί is therefore a result of exposure to the LXX (probably reflecting Hebrew’s eponymous vav). It was not intentional; not asyndeton.

Another example of parataxis (which also results from the Hebrew conjunction vav) is its restoration in the English translation of Robert Alter’s Five Books of Moses. Since the KJV, English translation committees working in Old Testament books have used subordinate clauses for easier reading without consistent demands on the reader to supply connection. But, as Alter says in his introduction, parataxis reflects the Bible’s context in which the reader was asked to “establish precise connection between actions.” Eliding it, he continued, also ruins the effect of the language and creates “a kind of narrative arrhythmia.” “The artfulness of biblical parataxis is precisely in its refusal to spell out causal connections, to interpret the reported narrative data for us.”

“Parataxis is the ordering of words in parallel clauses linked by ‘and,’ with very little syntactic subordination or the accompanying subordinate conjunctions such as ‘because,’ ‘although’ or ‘since’ that specify the connection between clauses. It creates ‘one beautifully uncoiling rhythmic sequence’ that ‘marches us steadily from one point to the next in the narrative sequence.’ In the Hebrew, parataxis is very much an artful vehicle, generating imposing cadenced sequences of parallel clauses and often exploiting the lack of causal explanation of the relation between clauses to create thought-provoking ambiguities.”[2]

For the purpose of illustration, let me give two more examples. One from Ernest Hemingway. As a young man in Paris in the early 1920s, Hemmingway was influenced by the work of Paul Cezanne and Ezra Pound. Placing images and colors next to each other without explanation achieved an emotional response that Hemingway adopted. He liked the way parataxis allowed him to build impressions that would ultimately suggest a meaning without saying it. He could provoke emotion without explanation. Here is an example from an early story, "Big Two-Hearted River":

“Nick was happy as he crawled inside the tent. He had not been unhappy all day. This was different though. Now things were done. There had been this to do. Now it was done. It had been a hard trip. He was very tired. That was done. He had made his camp. He was settled. Nothing could touch him. It was a good place to camp. He was there, in the good place. He was in his home where he had made it. Now he was hungry.”

The fictional Nick Adams takes the reader on a ride through his consciousness of clipped sentences. Each one sits equally with the rest. And none of them overtly tell the reader anything about Nick's overall mood. And now, an example from the Old Testament, NRSV + LXX.

Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children’s children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you. (Deut. 6.1-3 NRSV)

***

Καὶ αὗται αἱ ἐντολαὶ καὶ τὰ δικαιώματα καὶ τὰ κρίματα, ὅσα ἐνετείλατο κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν διδάξαι ὑμᾶς ποιεῖν οὕτως ἐν τῇ γῇ, εἰς ἣν ὑμεῖς εἰσπορεύεσθε ἐκεῖ κληρονομῆσαι αὐτήν, ἵνα φοβῆσθε κύριον τὸν θεὸν ὑμῶν φυλάσσεσθαι πάντα τὰ δικαιώματα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ, ὅσας ἐγὼ ἐντέλλομαί σοι σήμερον, σὺ καὶ οἱ υἱοί σου καὶ οἱ υἱοὶ τῶν υἱῶν σου πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ζωῆς σου, ἵνα μακροημερεύσητε. καὶ ἄκουσον, Ισραηλ, καὶ φύλαξαι ποιεῖν, ὅπως εὖ σοι ᾖ καὶ ἵνα πληθυνθῆτε σφόδρα, καθάπερ ἐλάλησεν κύριος ὁ θεὸς τῶν πατέρων σου δοῦναί σοι γῆν ῥέουσαν γάλα καὶ μέλι.

It is difficult to see it in the NRSV, but plain enough in the Septuagint underneath; the text is one short, breathless clause after the next. Moses's oration builds on and on about itself. The effect is hypnotic.

Contrast parataxis with hypotaxis. In hypotaxis, grammatical information abounds as sentences lengthen in complexity with subordinate clauses. Syntactical structure is intentional and "the logical relationships among sentences are explicitly rendered" (John Burt).

The subordinating style orders its components in relationships of causality (one event or state is caused by another), temporality (events and states are prior or subsequent to one another), and precedence (events and states are arranged in hierarchies of importance). 'It was the books I read in high school rather than those I was assigned in college that influenced the choices I find myself making today' -- two actions, one of which is prior to the other and has more significant effects that continue into the present.[3]

Good writing is an intentional combination of parataxis and hypotaxis.

__________

[1] Rodney Decker “Parataxis in Mark’s Gospel” https://ntresources.com/blog/?p=672 accessed 3/20/2022.
[2] Everett Fox, “Robert Alter and the Art of Bible Translation,” Expositions 2:2 (2008): 231-281. Princeton University Press quoting Alter in Twitter on April 24, 2019. I also recommend reading chapter 1 from Robert Alter’s the Art of Bible Translation: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780691189253-002/pdf
[3] Stanley Fish, "How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One", 2011.

Rhetorical Forms in the Bible: Asyndeton

Today, I am going to talk about asyndeton. A. T. Robertson will get us started--from his Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research:

The Greeks, especially in the literary style, felt the propriety of indicating the inner relation of the various independent sentences that composed a paragraph. This was not merely an artistic device, but a logical expression of coherence of thought. Particles like καί, δἐ, ἀλλά, γάρ, οὖν, δή etc., were very common in this connection. Demonstrative pronouns, adverbs, and even relative pronouns were also used for this purpose.

What Robertson is saying is that good Greek is overt about how sentences join up; they use connectives to tell the reader or hearer how to put it together. In English, we do not use explicit connectors, but educated Greeks did. These many connectors supplied the reader or hearer with info about the writer/speaker's intentions.

When a Greek sentence does NOT have an explicit connector, that is called asyndeton. Asyndeton is an unmarked connection.

There is a hermeneutical principle that says, "Choice implies meaning." And therefore, when an author employs asyndeton, when an author does not include connectors and the information they represent, it means something. As Steven Runge says in his Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: "The use of asyndeton indicates that the writer chose not to make a relation explicit. The relation must be gleaned from the context" (22).

Think of it like seeing a young man and a young woman walking together in a bridal store. A quick glance says that there are no rings on fingers. So, there is some asyndeton going on here; connectors aren't there to give you info about their relationship. Nevertheless, in communication anyway, the assumption is that consecutive sentences relate. So, you could make the assumption that even though there is no explicit relationship between these two people (rings), the context still implies a relationship.

So, asyndeton doesn't mean there is not a connection. It just means that the connection is implicit, not explicit. And, going back to literary information, an author may have reasons to prefer subtlety. "Good argumentation is not always clear. Asyndeton may allow the movement of the argument to be realized only after more of the story is heard, and then with the benefit of gaining a better hearing." An author might even intentionally throw down asyndeton to disrupt the flow and call attention to the next thing coming in his argument.

Going back to our young couple--there could be no connection at all. These two people may be in the same place for different reasons altogether. There is always that possibility. Now, let's talk about that lovely early Christian sermon, probably given in the Jerusalem church, James.

James displays a significant use of asyndeton. As the speaker moves from idea to idea, the resulting text is thick with it. Scholars often made the mistake of assuming that such rampant asyndeton meant rampant discontinuity. But not so fast! Asyndeton can mean discontinuity--as with our couple who isn't a couple, but it can also mean implied cohesion or even such tight cohesion that there is no need for explicit connection. Interpreting asyndeton means interpreting along a continuum from tight connection to no connection. The exegete has to rely on contextual clues.

Indeed, authors, such as those of the NT, may employ asyndeton differently according to their own style. Here is Stephen Levinson from Discourse Features of New Testament Greek:

The ways in which καὶ and δὲ are used in John’s Gospel do not correspond exactly with how they are employed in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts. This is because two other forms of linkage are employed in John’s Gospel in contexts in which καὶ and δὲ would have occurred had the material been written in the style of the Synoptics. One of them is asyndeton (the absence of a conjunction), which is John’s default means of conjoining sentences (Poythress 1984:331), instead of καὶ. John’s other common marker of linkage is ὅτι; he uses it as a low-level development marker in certain contexts in which the Synoptics and Acts use δὲ. (81-82)

Therefore, as choice implies meaning, close reading and attention is always required of the exegete.

Rhetorical Forms in the Bible: Anaphora

I'm going to be digging into this rhetorical term anaphora. Looking at the new testament through ancient rhetoric is all the rage these days, btw. Why? Because the study and practice of rhetoric was the Minecraft Redstone goodness of the ancient world. If you could understand language, much less read and write, you absorbed rhetorical forms. And those forms would shape you. So, for example, scholars can look at the structure of Galatians against rhetorical forms to see if the way material is being presented conforms to established structures, structures that would help us understand what he meant to highlight and how.

I dipped my (amateurish -- because this fad came in after my formal schooling) toe into this while doing the initial blogpost on an "example of how to do exegesis" series I have been writing using Mark 12, the story of the widow's mite. That last bit that Jesus says "This widow has put in more than the others because while they gave of their plenty she gave all she has." That rhetorical device is called syncrisis, which is a subset of a rhetorical form called an encomium, which is a public praise used to praise (or shame) someone in order to invite public emulation (or avoidance). Syncrisis is when this is done in a comparative way. Syncrisis tweaks the encomium. Not only does it praise or shame, but it highlights a persons worth (or demerit) to society.

So, what I am saying is that Jesus himself is employing rhetorical devices. He is using syncrisis to not only shame one group and to praise another, but to further comment upon their value to society. In this case, the widow is praised as someone not only to be emulated but also to be seen as far more valuable to her community despite her lack than those with means who gave from their plenty. It is a complete upset of even a pious understanding of who was valuable and who was not.

How did you do this? Did you study ancient rhetoric? No. I saw Jesus using some kind of structure. I found a page of ancient rhetorical forms online. And I just read them until I found one that fit. Was it correct? Well, no one is testing me. Jesus is obviously employing some kind of rhetorical structure. Why not one well-understood in the entire ancient world?

So, anyway, anaphora. This is a compound Greek noun composed of the prefix ανα (before) and φορειν (to carry). "Anaphora is a rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses. By building toward a climax, anaphora can create a strong emotional effect." Here is a short article about it in reference to the rhetorical stylings of Martin Luther King Jr. Here are entries about anaphora in the Net Bible and in the Handbook of Biblical Criticism. I also like this definition and video from Oregon State University.

Anaphora is seen directly in Jesus's Beautitudes 'blessed are . . . blessed are . . . ." And, finally, George Kennedy in New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1984) observes that the eleventh chapter of Hebrews is a splendid example of anaphora, (“By faith…By faith…By faith…By faith…”). This is not only pleasing to the eye and ear, but results in a progressive building of rhetorical “tension” and at last culminates in a satisfying resolution (“because God has provided something better for us”).

There is also another use of anaphora. Here is the NET Bible:

2. the use of a substitute word, such as a pronoun, in reference to a something already mentioned in a discourse; also, the relation between the substitute word and its antecedent. It is contrasted with cataphora, the use of a pronoun for a word or topic not yet mentioned. Thus, in the sentence “John was tall but he was not very heavy,” the “he” is an anaphora for John, or an anaphoric reference to John.

The Wikipedia entry on Anaphora in its linguistic use is quite detailed on this and worth a read. Lovers of the pronoun will already appreciate anaphora, because a preposition refers back to the previous proper noun as its antecedent. Thus, our pronoun is an anaphor and it is functioning anaphorically.