Illuminations

The February 1989 issue of Bible Review contained an article on biblical poetry titled “Alter vs. Kugel—Taking the Heat in Struggle over Biblical Poetry.” In his introduction editor Hershel Shanks reviews the recent controversy between James Kugel and Robert Alter. In the main article John Gammie provides an analysis of their contributions to the study of biblical poetry.

Both Kugel and Alter have written recent books re-examining the concept of parallelism in biblical poetry. Parallelism is one of the characteristics that has been used to identify poetic passages in the Hebrew Bible.

Most biblical commentaries identify three types of parallelism:

Synonymous Parallelism, were the second line repeats or echoes the ideas of the fist in different words.

“For still the vision awaits its time;

it hastens to the end—it will not lie.

If it seems slow, wait for it;

it will surely come, it will not delay.”

Habakkuk 2:3

Antithetic parallelism, where the second line stands in contrast to the first:

“Behold, he whose soul is not upright

in him shall fail,

but the righteous shall live by his faith.”

Habakkuk 2:4

Synthetic Parallelism, where the second line modifies the thought of the first: