I'm reading C.S. Lewis' Reflections on the Psalms, a book I've owned for a long time but never read. He has an interesting perspective as a literary critic, although he claims (with false modesty) that he is an amateur writing to and for other amateurs. In his introduction, Lewis praises God for employing parallelism as the chief characteristic of the Psalms' poetry, and he describes it as "saying the same thing twice in different words." What really struck me, however, was the idea of how parallelism conveys a "varied echo," in that the second phrase doesn't add anything new per se, but it does "beef up" the idea being conveyed.
What got me thinking is something I remember from seminary, when a professor warned us budding preachers against too much originality in scripture interpretation. In short, he said, "If no one else has ever said it, it's probably wrong." Intellectually and theologically, there really is nothing new under the sun; it's all been said before (a bit of parallelism there). But this doesn't have to make us feel defeated, as though we're just parrots saying the same thing over and over again. Instead, we are providing the "varied echo" of poetic parallelism, restating the truth of God in different words for different audiences at different times. There are as many ways of restating and repeating Truth as there are different types of snowflakes. The basic form and content doesn't change because Truth doesn't change. But I can provide the "varied echo" that people need in order to hear and understand.
What got me thinking is something I remember from seminary, when a professor warned us budding preachers against too much originality in scripture interpretation. In short, he said, "If no one else has ever said it, it's probably wrong." Intellectually and theologically, there really is nothing new under the sun; it's all been said before (a bit of parallelism there). But this doesn't have to make us feel defeated, as though we're just parrots saying the same thing over and over again. Instead, we are providing the "varied echo" of poetic parallelism, restating the truth of God in different words for different audiences at different times. There are as many ways of restating and repeating Truth as there are different types of snowflakes. The basic form and content doesn't change because Truth doesn't change. But I can provide the "varied echo" that people need in order to hear and understand.
