Dave Black provided me with a link to his article, The Problem of the Literary Structure of Hebrews: An Evaluation and a Proposal, and I wanted to link that here and connect it to the previous post.
Without intending violence to the overall value of the article, I found one of the most helpful parts to be a summary of Vanhoye’s structure and outline. Anything that has the word “chiasm” in it gets at least a second, if not a third, look from me!
1Now this Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the Most High God, met Abraham when he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. 2Abraham apportioned a tenth of everything to him. He is first “King of Righteousness” and then King of Salem which is “King of Peace.” 3He is without…
[ncs_ad pid=’0664239013′ float=’left’ adtype=’aer.io’]On page 238 of his NTL commentary on Hebrews Luke Timothy Johnson uses the word “interrupt” to describe the transition between exposition and exhortation starting in Hebrews 5:11. In a way I’m nitpicking here, and because I am, I must also note that overall I find Johnson’s commentary nearly the most useful…
I was reading this morning from the introduction to Moffatt’s commentary on Hebrews in the International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, Ltd, 1979), and found an interesting quote on the variety of proposals for the authorship of the book. Few characters mentioned in the NT have escaped the attention of those who have desired in…
This week’s lectionary readings included Luke 18:1-8, the story of the unjust judge. One of the problems many people have with this story is relating the unjust judge to God, but as I pointed out in a devotional one thing we are supposed to hear from the story is how God is different from the…
I’ve said enough negative things about the Orthodox Study Bible that I need to mention when I find it quite helpful as well. Generally, this is when it is either quoting or referring to various church fathers. In the note on Hebrew 1:3a, “who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of…
… or any scripture, for that matter. In graduate school I became progressively less interested in listening to sermons or in reading devotional items. While I was very interested in reading poetry, fiction and other non-technical materials, I applied a largely technical approach to scripture and theology. I say this to make clear that I…
I must admit I am partial to Vanhoye. In the days before I developed my rhetorical analysis software, I explored the epistle with a diagram using Vanhoye as a guide. Yet I wonder if I consider keywords too much. I think you have probably seen this. All the links are active on it.
I’m going to keep that outline with the color coding in mind as I do my study guide. It does the best I’ve seen at reflecting both the complexity and the power of the structure of Hebrews.
http://biblicalchiasmus.wordpress.com/