Repetition... Preface

Repetition... Preface

Preface

The primary goal of this book is to document repetition in the writings of Moses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and other biblical writers. Secondary goals are to learn the source, purpose, and configuration of this repetition. This is not a book about what the Bible says, but how it is written. It is hoped that the reader will gain an understanding of the Bible’s unique concept and application of repetition. This may be the first book to address the subject of repetition in both testaments of the Bible.

In many respects this is also a book about the aesthetics of repetition in the Bible. As an archeological artifact, the Bible employs repetition as a highly-developed Hebraic genre. In addition to analyzing the data, the reader has the opportunity to visualize the shape of repetition in the text.

In order to support the claims in this volume, approximately 5,000 Scripture verses are quoted herein, which may represent little more than 1% of the possible repetition. All Hebrew and Greek quotations are translated into English for the lay reader. However, publishing the actual Hebrew and Greek was essential for the purpose of documentation. Readers conversant with these languages will want to see concrete evidence.

Despite the significance and enormity of repetition in the Bible, there is scant study of the subject, particularly related to the 4 Gospels. The obscurity and paucity of information have even prevented agreement on a definition of repetition in the Bible. E. W. Bullinger’s 1,004- page tome, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, first published in 1898, catalogs 217 figures of speech in the Bible. For Repetitio (Latin for repetition) he lists 3½ pages of examples with nothing similar to the repetition in this volume.

The early church fathers do not make reference to the presence of repetition in the text. Therefore, ancient copyists must not have been aware that they were copying and preserving repetition in every scroll they reproduced.

Previous books by this author, titled In Search of the Biblical Order, were published in 1987 and 2012, the latter as a significantly expanded second edition. After 37 years of dealing with the subject, this volume arrives at an unexpected explanation for the data. The search for the biblical order was always a search for repetition in the Bible.

In 2008 James B. Jordan, book dealer and Bible chronologist, requested a reprint of the 1987 edition, and was asked to wait for a new and expanded second edition. As work on the second edition progressed, Rabbi Eyal Rav-Noy published his book, Who Really Wrote the Bible?, which defends, by use of pattern analysis, Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. His research was useful in proving that the source of metered words and chiasm in Revelation originates in Genesis.

After the second edition was completed in 2012, this author followed Rav-Noy’s advice to research the works of the great rabbinic scholar Umberto Cassuto. In the late 1920s, Cassuto worked as the Vatican Archivist of Semitic scrolls. His four volumes identify the origin of Hebraic meter in the Bible with Moses.

James B. Jordan recommended books on chiasmus in the Bible by John Breck and David Dorsey, who also confirmed the presence and importance of repetition in the Bible.

In 2013 this writer discovered Dr. Diana Jill Kirby’s 2009 dissertation, titled Repetition in the Book of Revelation, which proves that the repetition of phrases is a biblical genre. She has written the first book dedicated entirely to repetition in a book of the Bible. Kirby produced data similar to that of Cassuto’s commentaries on Genesis and Exodus, published beginning in 1944. However, she was not aware that her data is based on Hebraic meter found by Cassuto.

The research of these authors, combined with the data from In Search of the Biblical Order, led to a search for Hebraic repetition in the Gospels. After reviewing some initial data on repetition in the Gospels, Professor David Kuske encouraged this writer to begin work on a new book. Without his further encouragement, scholarship, and guidance it would not have been written. Reverend Rolf Preus and Reverend Professor Robert Dargatz provided valuable assistance and direction—Preus through his expertise on the Doctrine of Inspiration, and Dargatz with his experience in Old Testament studies.

In addition to the primary editors, Reverend John Preus, Ukrainian Bible translator Roger Kovaciny, and mathematician Anne Betz provided much appreciated assistance in editing this book.

Professional proofreader and copy editor Randi Vincent provided excellent counsel and attention to detail. Sarah Carter, who has mastered the InDesign program, simultaneously set English, Greek, and Hebrew. Working together they produced a professional publication.

The full extent of repetition in the Bible is as yet unknown. The study of repetition first led to an investigation of the New and Old Testaments, the Septuagint (a 3rd-century B.C. translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek), the Apocrypha, the Vulgate, the Pseudepigrapha (false writings), and the Gnostic Gospels. The abundance of data proves that the claims and research of those who promote the Documentary Hypothesis, J E P D, the Q source, higher criticism, and the Markan Priority are without foundation.

Kirby recommended The Poetics of the Biblical Narrative by the noted Hebrew Scholar Meir Sternberg. His insights confirm that there is no external source or explanation for repetition in the Hebrew Bible. By utilizing training in the fine arts; experience teaching as an art professor at the University of Southern Indiana; and training in Hebrew and Greek exegesis, this author concludes that biblical repetition confirms the authenticity of the text. Altering, editing, adding, deleting, conflating, or redacting of the text would necessarily dismember the metered repetition of words and phrases in the text. The existence of undisturbed meter in the text necessarily means we possess the original text.

There is always the question of whether to publish or to continue the research. There are so many areas that require further study, and so much data to evaluate, such a task would extend beyond the life of this writer. Therefore the goal is not to master the subject, but to demonstrate its existence. Scholars with more knowledge than this writer will have more to contribute. Readers of this book are invited to join the expedition and explore repetition in the Bible for themselves.