For years scholars of biblical poetry have defined parallelism as the simple correspondence of one verse, phrase, or word with another. In this book, Adele Berlin approaches biblical parallelism as a linguistic phenomenon, as a complex interplay among all aspects of language. Her goal is to get at the basics of what biblical parallelism is and how it works. Berlin's examination of the grammatical, lexical, semantic, phonetic, structural, and psychological aspects of parallelism yields an elegantly simple model that reveals the complex workings of this phenomenon. Her book will be a valuable guide for both scholars and students of biblical poetry.

Understanding of biblical poetry is enhanced by the study of its structure. In this book Adele Berlin analyzes parallelism, a major feature of Hebrew poetry, from a linguistic perspective. This new edition of Berlin's study features an additional chapter, "The Range of Biblical Metaphors inSmikhut,"by late Russian linguist Lida Knorina. Berlin calls this addition "innovative and instructive to those who value the linguistic analysis of poetry." It is a fitting coda to Berlin's adept analysis.

In spite of debatable issues, such as metre, we now know enough about classical Hebrew poetry to be able to understand how it was composed. This large-scale manual, rich in detail, exegesis and bibliography, provides guidelines for the analysis and appreciation of Hebrew verse. Topics include oral poetry, metre, parallelism and forms of the strophe and stanza. Sound patterns and imagery are also discussed. A lengthy chapter sets out a whole range of other poetic devices and the book closes with a set of worked examples of Hebrew poetry. Throughout, other ancient Semitic verse has been used for comparison and the principles of modern literary criticism have been applied.

"In most cases references to God are in gender-neutral language. The Tetragammaton, the unpronounceable four-letter name for the Divine, appears in this translation in unvocalized Hebrew to convey that the Name is something totally "other" - beyond translation, gender, speech, and understanding. In some instances, however, male imagery depicting God is preserved because it reflects biblical society's view of gender roles."--BOOK JACKET.

When Othmar Keel's book first appeared in Germany in 1972, it was a pioneering study, the first to compare systematically the conceptual world of a biblical book with that of ancient Near Eastern iconography. First translated into English in 1978, the book has proven its lasting value for exegesis of the Psalms, the comparative study of the Bible and its world, and the study of ancient Near Eastern art and iconography.

An essential resource for sound exegesis of biblical poetry While previous books on parallelism have focused almost exclusively on semantic classification, in his new book David Toshio Tsumura focuses on the grammatical and phonetic aspects as well. In particular, he defines and illustrates the vertical grammatical relationship between parallel lines. Readers will master how to read Biblical Hebrew poetry effectively by focusing on the basic linguistic features of word order, parallelistic structure, and rhetorical devices. For the benefit of nonspecialists, all Hebrew poems are given in accessible transliteration. This book is an indispensable companion to the Hebrew Bible for both beginners and experienced scholars.

This classic study of ancient Yahwistic poetry untangles some of the serious textual difficulties and linguistic obscurities that for many years have been a challenge to students of the Hebrew Bible.