New Testament Poetry

All of us who are Bible readers are pretty familiar with poetry in the scriptures. However, for most of us, our experience with Biblical poetry is pretty much limited to the Psalms. We probably also understand that sections of Job, the prophets, etc are also done as Hebraic poems, but honestly, the only way we really get that is 'cause our English translations indent the text in a way that says to us: "THIS IS POETRY."

Without having at least a basic understanding of Hebrew or Greek there's no way we'd know that certain sections are poetry. This is where having a GOOD commentary helps immensely.

Recently I've been walking through Paul's letter to the Colossians with a group of guys.

Colossians just happens to be one of the New Testament books with a strong poetic presence. There isn't a lot of poetry in the New Testament (although there is likely a lot more than we usually make note of; ex. 1Tim3:16; 2Tim2:11-13; etc) and with the language barrier, what poetry is there we often miss.

One of the most amazing, powerful, and beautiful images of who Christ is, is provided for us in the form of the poem in Col. 1:15-20. Maybe in another post I'll break this one down, because I love it and think it's amazing! ...

... but this isn't the kind of poetry/literary device that I'm talking about. With this poem we can see it's structure and form even in English and can, as such, identify it as poetry. There are also sections of Colossians that are chiastic (don't know what a chiasm is? Click: here). These can also be identified in English.

But there's so much more going on within the text that we just can't see without the help of either a good commentary or a knowledge of (in this case) Greek.

Here are a couple of examples:

Alliteration:

Colossians 2:1-2 (ESV) ¹ For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, ² that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ...

It was Ben Witherington's Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Colossians that pointed out to me that the phrase "all the riches of full assurance" is, in fact, an alliteration: pan ploutos tes plerophorias.

Rhyme:

Here's where Witherington's emphasis on rhetoric really comes into it's own (speaking of Col. 2:16-19):

"Again, this section can best be appreciated if heard and not read. For example the end rhyme sets the cadence in 2:16 with brosei, posei, and merei and in vv. 18 and 19 with thelon, ton angelon, embateuon, kraton, ton haphon, syndesmon, and then epichoregoumenon and symbibazomenon. The length of the terms goes from two syllables to three to seven and six. By the very sounds of the rhetoric, Paul is building to a conclusion and the most polysyllabic terms, those that make the biggest impression, are served up last" (pg 151).

I know that this might look and sound a little technical, but surely you can see how (even if you don't know a lick of Greek) these groups of words rhyme with each other and that the rhyming words are grouped together by the number of syllables.

Punning?:

Colossians 2:8 (ESV) ⁸ See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

In N.T. Wright's commentary on Colossians (his IVP/Tyndale commentary, not the "for everyone" commentary) he proposes that the Greek verb for "take captive" (sylagogein) is a pun off of synagogue (synagoge). This makes perfect sense providing you agree with his thesis that the threat to the Colossian church is one with Jewish roots (ie. don't get "taken captive" into a "synagogue").

So, obviously not many of us will ever learn the original languages of the Bible in a way that we would be able to catch these subtle (or not so subtle) poetic/literary devices, but we are all capable of picking up a good quality commentary! Unfortunately, the more accessible the commentary, the less likely it will pick up on stuff like this... it's the more difficult-to-read, scholarly commentaries that will make note of this.

What other literary devices can you think of that show up in the NT?

How important do you think it is that we are able to identify these literary devices?

How do the existence of poetic/literary devices in a text influence how we interpret/translate a passage of scripture?

Do you ever read commentaries? If so, which ones?