And now we will say a little about reading the Scripture in the flesh, by the letter, using the example of chiasms, according to the principle of which many passages of Scripture are written. You can familiarize yourself with the definition and types of chiasms on the internet (encyclopedias, dictionaries, literary studies, etc.), and we will show the essence with examples.
Let’s say a few words about the structure of the Gospel of John. Biblical scholars of the 20th century discovered (by a miracle! Revelation! Until the 20th century, this was simply unnoticed!) the chiastic structure of the Gospel of John. These recent studies of the Gospel of John revealed its chiastic structure. It turned out that this Gospel is a large chiasm. The term chiasm is a literary term used in the study of poetry. It comes from the name of the Greek letter Χ (chi). Its essence can be well understood by the example of biblical poetry. Many psalms are constructed in the form of chiasms. All psalms consist of lines, two lines form one stanza (each stanza consists of two lines). Let’s take, for example, Psalm 51:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.
…
Do not cast me away from your presence,
And do not take your Holy Spirit from me.
…
Let’s take, for example, the second stanza:
Wash me thoroughly (A) from my iniquity (B)
And cleanse me (A′) from my sin (B′)
Wash and cleanse – this is the same thing, the essence is the same, only expressed in different words-synonyms (wash = cleanse); sin and iniquity – this is also a reference to the same reality with different words-synonyms (sin = iniquity). So by content A = A′, B = B′. That is, in two lines the content is the same, and the corresponding elements (blocks) are arranged (if you connect A and A′ and B and B′ with lines) in the form of the letter Χ (chi). In the first stanza: Have mercy on me, O God, (A) = blot out my transgressions (A′); according to your steadfast love (B) = according to your abundant mercy (B′). Do not cast me away from your presence, = And do not take your Holy Spirit from me (that is, the content of the lines is the same: to cast away from God’s presence – is to take away the Holy Spirit; to fall away from God’s presence, from communion with Him – is to lose the Holy Spirit). This poetic structure typical for the entire Bible is called chiasm. It is especially characteristic for the evangelist John, for the words of Jesus Christ, for the apostle Paul, etc. For example, the Lord Jesus Christ says in the Gospel of Mark:
The last will be first
And the first last.
Here it is very simple and obvious: last – first, first – last
(Χ).
Very often in this chiastic structure A B B′ A′ (Χ) a third element C is inserted:
A B C B′ A′, Χ.
This central element C is called inclusion.
First comes the first line (A B), then the insertion (C), and then the second line (B′ A′); the insertion in the middle (meaningful) separates the two lines. Thousands of examples can be cited from the Bible, and we will give a simple example from the first epistle of the evangelist John (1 John 3:9; Ukrainian translation of the Synodal translation): “No one born of God commits sin, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.” We see in the example of this verse the constant repetition of the same words: born – born, sin – sin, etc. Let’s write out this chiasm with the inclusion:
No one born of God (A) commits sin (B)
Because God’s seed abides in him (C)
and he cannot sin (B′)
because he is born of God (A′)
So, we see that A = A′ (born of God = born of God), B = B′ (commits sin = cannot sin), and in the middle is C – because God’s seed abides in him. They are begotten by seed, and God’s seed is the Holy Spirit. In the language of the evangelist John (this just needs to be known, because the text does not define what God’s seed is) God’s seed is the Holy Spirit. So, in baptism, a person receives God’s seed, that is, the Holy Spirit, Who transforms him, brings him into new life, into the Kingdom of God, in which he no longer commits sin (and cannot; great freedom is not to sin, but the greatest, which is Love, is not being able to sin! Christians cannot sin!). The whole essence is that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, enters a person, not that he immersed himself in water (baptized in water)… This is a simple example of how to understand the meaning (the call-pointer of the Icon) in the Bible, and we can see that very often it is not the same as in European literature. This is a small example. Now, if we carefully look at the
entire Gospel of John as a whole, we will see something amazing. It begins with the prologue (John 1:1-18). If you break it (the prologue) into lines, we will see a continuous chiasm (clearly visible in the hypothetical original – in Greek):
In the beginning was the Word, the Logos
(A – B: Word – God)
and the Word was with God, the Logos Theos