Rhetorical patterns

The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery entry “Rhetorical Patterns” identifies important conventional literary
“devices” or patterns observable in biblical literature (adapted): 1
1. Shapeliness and completeness (resolution): beginning, middle, end. This applies to
many genres of the Bible, not just narrative. It also applies to the whole of the Bible as a
unified whole. BT helps to tell this whole story.
2. Circular structures: envelope structures that begin and end similarly (inclusio,
bookends), ring composition arranges material in concentric circles around a pivot middle
(see chiasm, p. Error: Reference source not found).
3. Theme and variation: the unifying core idea, image, situation of a composition (the
whole in every part). Every detail relevantly supports the whole composition.
4. Repetition: is found in all the genres of the Bible in a diversity of forms, patterns,
structures, formulas
5. Binary patterning: pairing of antithetical (opposites like good and evil, light and
darkness, hero and villain), pairing of positive complementarities (male and female,
parent and child, heaven and earth). In a fallen world, the complementary pairs can easily
become antithetical.
6. Balance: wherever the first part of something is completed by a second part to balance it
out (OT anticipates at all points the NT which completes it). For example, in Paul’s
epistles he moves from doctrine to application, theology to morality. Judgment followed
by mercy and restoration. See also biblical parallelism in both narrative and poetry. See
plot below, p. Error: Reference source not found.
7. The Rhetoric of subversion: subversive challenges to conventional ways of thinking,
human wisdom, and valuing, turning the tables, in which the first shall be last, the
humbled will be exalted, the weak will be strong and confound the “wise,” having
nothing but possessing everything. Patterns of reversal and inversion. Parody and satire.
8. Rhetoric of make-believe: metaphor, simile, symbolism, hyperbole, and non-literal
apocalyptic are frequent means to communicate spiritual and moral truths and the
mysterious nature of reality.
9. Rhetoric of transcendence: efforts to convey the close relationship of the unseen to the
seen realms: contrasts (the other world and this world, new heaven and new earth);
negation (portraying things in terms of what they are not, like “God is not mortal,” God is
“beyond measure”; affirmation (portraying things by analogy and metaphor, in which the
links establish connections between the earthly realm and the heavenly); symbolism
(represent symbolically what a thing is but not what it is); distancing (of the supernatural,
unseen real, and the earthly, seen realm) in order to convey something envisioned that is
remote and presently unknown to experience (using enameled imagery[combines
brilliance of light and hard textures, etc.], conceptual imagery [abstract qualities instead
of sensations]; internalizing effects (of heaven on the visionary).
10. Rhetoric of genres: formulas and patterns (summons to listen/heed,
admonitions/consequences about obedience/disobedience, analogies to nature, command
and reward, rhetorical questions, lead-in statements to visions [“thus says the Lord”],
directly quoted speeches, oracles of judgment and redemption, woes, commands to
reform, name-calling. The NT uses epistle forms (five part: opening, thanksgiving, body,
exhortations, closing). Persuasion includes proem intro, narration, proposition, proof and
rebuttal, epilogue. Also, lists of virtues and vices.
11. Rhetorical irony: verbal (saying the opposite of one intends); situation (when a situation
is the opposite of what one expects or is appropriate); dramatic (when readers know more
than the characters in the story). Failure of faith is the most pervasive form of irony
1
“Rhetorical Patterns,” Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, pp. 720-727.
 (when better behavior can be expected of characters). Inversion of values (inversion of
expectations, for example that the strong will prevail over the weak, but the inverse
happens), ironic discrepancy between expectation and reality. Also, the juxtaposition of
the apparent and non-apparent plots: the apparent is in the foreground, but the non-
apparent, hidden, plot is in the background and concerns God’s ultimate providential and
redemptive purposes.
12. Rhetorical devices: drama, direct quotation, apostrophe, rhetorical questions, calling of
imaginary witnesses, parallelism, logical argumentation (summoning witnesses,
concession, correction, exclamation, exhortation, inclusion, indignation, mocking,
interrogation, refutation, prayer, prologues, epilogues, aphorisms, authority statements,
heaping up synonyms).

Identifying literary expression