Sunday, December 1, 2024

1 Corinthians 10:1-4

Just over a month ago, I read 1 Corinthians 10 after having found a citation of it (verse 31 specifically) in the introduction to my edition of The Bhagavad Gita.  I noticed a couple rhetorical devices in the first four verses:
1 For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink.  For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.  [ESV]
This passage exhibits both anaphora (the repeated "all") and polysyndeton (the repeated "and"), and these devices provide a sense of entirety.