Yes, it can. Genetic Literary Reconstruction, which is a literary tool I developed for writings such as Genesis-Exodus, Luke-Acts, Revelation, and many more works in which the author used Hebrew poetry for content creation. I look for the the following things:Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 9:33 am
Well, the best sort of examples would be cases from antiquity in which we are already pretty sure that a single author him/herself published the two or more versions of the work known to us, and in which certain clear structures from the first edition have been mangled in the second.
That may be asking a lot, since our evidence from antiquity is sparse to begin with, and our evidence for multiple editions probably authored by the same person is even sparser. So examples from other eras (medieval and modern, for example) would at least help by way of analogy.
Close detective work like this can, with some degree of success, establish that patterns have been interrupted. I am not sure how it could, on its own, establish the common authorship of both parts (the original parts and the interrupting parts). Can you clarify?
- When an author forms a parallel, we can assume that it is a perfect parallel. For later illustrations I will refer to one side of the parallel as 'A' and the other side as 'B'. So the more perfect the parallel the more recent it was written.
- When an author forms a parallel with one earlier sections such as 'A', in the earlier example, with a new section 'C'. Parallel elements of 'A' and 'B' will become malformed. In this case we will see content that originally formed the 'A' 'B' parallel also moved to 'C' and content form 'C' that will overwrite 'A'. Thus the original 'A' 'B' parallel will be malformed. The more malformed the parallel the earlier it was written.
- Sometimes, another parallel is formed with 'A' and a different section such as 'D'. As a result, the same process happens, content from the 'A' 'B' parallel is moved to 'D'. Sometimes when this happens, content from the original parallel 'A' 'B' is malformed even further. However, content from the 'A' 'B' parallel might be found in 'C'. In this case, parallel A' B' was written first, parallel B' C' was written secondly because it has elements in C' that is found in B' but not A' So it is likely that parallel A' D' caused an element between A' B' and A' C' to be lost but retained in both B' and C'. In this case there should not be an element, unless by accident, found in C' and D'.
- Revelation chapter 1 and chapter 22 form a chiasmus.
A. What will happen soon (Rev 1:1).
B. Blessed is he who reads, hears, and obeys Revelation (rev 1:3).
C. The coming of God (or Jesus?: "those who pierced him in Rev 1:7).
D. John encounter with Jesus, he fell down, Jesus told him to write what he sees (Rev 1:17-18).
D'. John's encounter with the angel, he fell down and worshiped him, the angel told John to publish what he wrote (Rev 22:5-10).
C'. Jesus or God is coming (Rev 22:6-7).
B'. Cursed is he that changes this book (Rev 22:18-19).
A'. Jesus will come soon (Rev 22:20-21). - The descriptions of Jesus in Revelation in chapter 1 and the letters to the seven churches form a chiasmus (malformed).
A. Faithful witness (Rev 1:5).
B. [No match] - perhaps the key of death and Hades (1:18)
C. Soft matched / items out of order / not identified with Jesus: Seven spirits of God in (1:4) and seven stars (Rev 1:20).
D. Out of order: God his father (Rev 1:6); Eyes like a flame of fire, feet like burnished bronze (1:15)
E. Has a sharp two-edge sword out of his mouth (1:16).
F. First and the last, was dead and came back to life (1:18).
G. Has the seven stars and seven candlesticks (1:20).
G'. Has the seven stars and seven candlesticks (2:1).
F'. First and the last, was dead and come back to life (2:9).
E'. Has a sharp two-edge sword out of his mouth (2:12).
D'. Son of God (2:18 -- only mentioned in 1:6 and 2:18 in Revelation, contrasted with Thyatira = daughter).
C'. Has seven spirits of God and the seven stars (3:1).
B'. Has the key of David (3:7).
A'. Faithful and true witness (3:14).
Note that faithful and true is also found in Rev 22:6 - Descriptions of Jesus in Revelation 1 and 19 from Daniel 10 (Note Revelation 19 forms a chiasmus with Daniel 10). In my book I only list Daniel 10 with Revelation 19. If you want a listing I can provide it.
Sorry for how terse this is, but 300+ page book lists most of these parallels but told in the way that Revelation was written.
If you want a copy of the book, I can send you one.
