List do Galatów w świetle niektórych analiz struktury literackiej

Abstract

A survey of publications which undertake an analysis of literary structure of the Epistle to the Galatians suggests a few conclusions. Firstly, there is no standard nomenclature relating to various elements of composition, e. g., for some authors the ABA construction is concentric symetry, for others, chiasmus. The ABB'A' construction is described as chaismus or reversed symetry. A coherent suggestion regarding nomenclature – having considered the history of the problem first – is given by R. Meynet in his textbook publication on literary structures, which distinguishes at the same time the level of “relations between linguistic elements” from “composition figures”. Secondly, it seems that it is necessary to establish principles of considering some regularity in the construction of the text as an actual composition figure, to eliminate optionality. Principles relating to chiasmus formulated some time ago (N. W. Lund) are now being discussed. Thirdly, in addition to establishing the steps of creating a method of discovering composition figures, it is necessary to define a method of interpreting die discovered structures – so that they are coherent with the procedures of exegesis.