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In rhetoric, chiasmus (/ k aɪ ˈ æ z m ə s / ky-AZ-məs) or, less commonly, chiasm (Latin term from Greek χίασμα chiásma, "crossing", from the Greek χιάζω, chiázō, "to shape like the letter Χ"), is a "reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of words".
In 1969, John W. Welch discovered a variety of instances of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon and along with his discovery came attention to the phenomenon. [21] The most commonly cited example of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon is the prophet Alma's religious experience, as recorded in Alma 36.
The verse contains 9 sentences which exhibit chiasmus, but perhaps more interesting is that it is found in the longest chapter of the Quran, Al-Baqara, which itself contains a fractal chiastic structure in its 286 verses, i.e. where each (outer) chiasm is composed of (inner) chiastic structures reflected in some sense in the analogue outer chiasm.
Supporters of the Book of Mormon say it uses chiasmus—a figure of speech utilizing inverted parallelism—and point to it as evidence supporting the book's ancient origin. [92] Critics such as Jerald and Sandra Tanner argue that chiasmus in the Book of Mormon is a characteristic of Joseph Smith's speech pattern and not evidence of antiquity.
In antiquity, the cross, i.e. the instrument of Christ's crucifixion (crux, stauros), was taken to be T-shaped, while the X-shape ("chiasmus") had different connotations.. There has been scholarly speculation on the development of the Christian cross, the letter Chi used to abbreviate the name of Christ, and the various pre-Christian symbolism associated with the chiasmus interpreted in terms ...
The use of the chiasmus, a form of rhetorical parallelism, is seen by Mormons as further evidence of the Book of Mormon's historic origins, since it was also used in Biblical Hebrew. [28] Below is an example of chiasmus in Mosiah 3:18-19:
Daniel 3 forms part of a chiasmus (a poetic structure in which the main point or message of a passage is placed in the centre and framed by further repetitions on either side) within Daniel 2–7, paired with Daniel 6, the story of Daniel in the lions' den: [9] A. (2:4b-49) – A dream of four kingdoms replaced by a fifth
Chiasmus, the figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point; that is, the clauses display inverted parallelism; Chiasmus (cipher), a German government block cipher