Item Detail
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33262
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0
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10
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English
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Asymmetry in Chiasms, With a Note About Deuteronomy 8 and Alma 36
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Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship
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2023
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59
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Salt Lake City, UT
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Interpreter Foundation
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191-280
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"Some students of the Book of Mormon have claimed that chapter 36 of the book of Alma is structured as a chiasm. Some of the proposals depart from perfect symmetry, presenting elements of the suggested chiasm seemingly out of sequence. This has often been pointed to as a weakness in the proposed chiasm or as a problem arising from translation or editorial work, or even as evidence that no real chiasm exists over the text of the chapter. Perhaps, however, asymmetry may be a deliberate feature of ancient chiasmus. Understanding the presence and role of occasional asymmetry or skews, as they are called, may help us better appreciate the rhetorical tools employed in crafting chiastic texts anciently. In particular, we can see that the structure of Alma 36 may well be a beautifully crafted chiasmus featuring what may be an intentional skew similar to those that scholars have identified elsewhere in scripture. One such other chiastic text with a skew in it appears to be Deuteronomy 8. Indeed, one skew proposed in Alma 36, together with conceptual and other structural characteristics of the text, including the proposed chiasm of the text, perhaps suggests that some of the message and structure of Deuteronomy 8 may have served as a model for part of the message and structure of Alma 36." [Author]
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A Masterpiece: Alma 36
“Arise from the Dust” : Insights from Dust-Related Themes in the Book of Mormon
Charting the Book of Mormon : Visual Aids for Personal Study and Teaching
Criteria for Identifying and Evaluating the Presence of Chiasmus
Hebrew Poetry in the Book of Mormon, Parts I and II
Poetic Parallelisms in the Book of Mormon : The Complete Text Reformatted
Rediscovering the Book of Mormon
Rethinking Alma 36
The Book of Mormon Text Reformatted According to Parallelistic Patterns
The Great and Spacious Book of Mormon Arcade Game : More Curious Works from Book of Mormon Critics