{"id":44699,"date":"2017-10-26T16:02:21","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T22:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=44699"},"modified":"2017-10-26T16:04:28","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T22:04:28","slug":"44699","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/10\/44699.html","title":{"rendered":"Character, Literary and Otherwise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"J'lem's<\/a>
Jaffa Gate (Sha\u2018ar Yafo<\/em>; or, in Arabic, Bab al-Khalil<\/em> [The Gate of (Abraham) the Friend (of God)], in Jerusalem). Our hotel is located near\u00a0Jaffa Gate, and we passed through it several times today. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I may be in the Holy Land, but my vicious and mean-spirited lies in the Deseret News<\/em>\u00a0continue unabated:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lady Sariah of Elephantine\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

From a work-in-progress, a brief passage on the Book of Mormon as literature:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Study of the literary character of the Book of Mormon is in its infancy, but it has already revealed the book to be far more sophisticated and complex than most readers\u2014certainly more than most critics\u2014have recognized. One of the areas of demonstrable complexity involves the concept of parallelism. Two lines of poetry or similar writing are said to be parallel if the elements of one line correspond directly to the elements of the other line in a one-to-one relationship. Such parallelism is extremely common in the Hebrew Bible. Consider, for example, the following four examples from the book of Proverbs:<\/span><\/p>\n

A gentle response<\/i> allays wrath<\/i>;<\/span><\/p>\n

A harsh word<\/i> provokes anger<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The tongue of the wise<\/i> produces much knowledge<\/i>,<\/span><\/p>\n

But the mouth of dullards<\/i> pours out folly<\/i>. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

A healing tongue<\/i> is a tree of life<\/i>,<\/span><\/p>\n

But a devious one<\/i> makes for a broken spirit<\/i>. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

In the house of the righteous<\/i> there is much treasure<\/i>,<\/span><\/p>\n

But in the harvest of the wicked<\/i> there is trouble<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the noted Berkeley scholar of comparative literature Robert Alter has observed with reference to the Hebrew Bible, \u201cThere would seem to be some satisfying feeling of emphasis, for both the speaker and his audience, in stating the same thing twice, with nicely modulated variations.\u201d Parallelism, says the Harvard biblical scholar James Kugel, \u201cis the basic feature of biblical songs\u2014and, for that matter, of most of the sayings, proverbs, laws, laments, blessings, curses, prayers, and speeches found in the Bible.\u201d Not surprisingly, therefore, similar simple parallel structures abound in the Book of Mormon, as well. Consider, for instance, the following to specimens, from 2 and 3 Nephi respectively:<\/span><\/p>\n

Pray<\/i> unto him continually by day<\/i>,<\/span><\/p>\n

and give thanks<\/i> unto his holy name by night<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wo unto him<\/i> that spurneth at the doings of the Lord<\/i>; yea,<\/span><\/p>\n

wo unto him<\/i> that shall deny the Christ and his works<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very sad to see Jeff Flake\u2019s decision to leave the United States Senate. \u00a0I\u2019m even more saddened by the rottenness in American politics that has obliged the Senator to renounce his political career.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I like these two articles, one from a liberal-leaning Latter-day Saint and the second \u2014 which makes much of Senator Flake\u2019s Mormon upbringing and values \u2014 from a rather prominent non-Mormon conservative political commentator:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a fellow Mormon, I\u2019m proud of Sen. Jeff Flake\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJeff Flake is the senator from the wrong state\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Quite seriously: \u00a0The departure of Jeff Flake will be a loss to both the Senate and the United States as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even the President appears to be concerned:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump Signs New Travel Ban Preventing Republican Senators from Fleeing\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>

Posted from Jerusalem, Israel<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I may be in the Holy Land, but my vicious and mean-spirited lies in the Deseret News\u00a0continue unabated: \u00a0 \u201cThe lady Sariah of Elephantine\u201d \u00a0 *** \u00a0 From a work-in-progress, a brief passage on the Book of Mormon as literature: \u00a0 Study of the literary character of the Book of Mormon is in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCharacter, Literary and Otherwise<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I may be in the Holy Land, but my vicious and mean-spirited lies in the Deseret News\u00a0continue unabated:   "The lady Sariah of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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