Chiasms are also known as chiastic structures, woven into the text. These patterns are encountered throughout Scriptures in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament. They are actually the way to tell the reader when a thought starts and when it ends in times when the text was not divided up into chapters and verses. Chiasms are based on symmetry or antisymmetry. In the text, a thought or an expression that is used,  that will be repeated later on or its opposite meaning will be encountered. Between these two places other terms or their opposites can be embedded. The best way to understand a chiastic structure is to think in terms of an onion. You successively peel one layer (thought) after the other until you end up in the middle, where you will find the main point of the structure. This is usually called the cross-over point and resembling the middle of the Greek letter X=Chi, where the structure derives its name from.

​

The thoughts or layers are usually numbered with 1–2…2’–1’. The repetitions in the text lead right to the structure. At the center, one may find one verse, called the crossover point, e.g. 1–2–3–2’–1’. The cross-over point contains the message. In case it is missing the message is evident from the opposing thoughts. I made it a habit to label the chiastic thoughts with X, the chapter and verse with 'ch:v'. Often the chiasms are nested, containing more than one message. A simple example is found in Luke 1–2:

X    Ch:V    Interpretation                               Text

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1     2:1a     Caesar, ruler of the world           Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus,

2     2:1b    the registration, the census        that a census be taken

3     2:1c     all will be counted                        of all the inhabited earth.

2'    2:2a     the registration, the census       This was the first census taken

1'    2:2b    Quirinus, govenor of Syria          while Quirinus was govenor of Syria.

 

A masterly application of extracting messages from Scripture can be found in Kenneth E. Bailey's books "Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes", Intervarsity Press, 2008 and "Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes", Intervarsity Press, 2011.

​