A Beginner’s Guide to Ancient Hebrew Poetry

This course is designed to use clear and specific lectures to help students discover how to understand Ancient Hebrew Poetry in a practical and meaningful way. We will discuss the importance of figurative language, rhythm and stress, explain a stitch and distitch, examine three kinds of Parallelisms, Simple Chiasms, and Complex Chiasms. We will apply this knowledge to examples in Ancient Hebrew Poetry and walk through them together in great detail. A class project of your choice will be assigned at the end to help apply it to your own life in a reflective and meaningful way.

There are 11 lectures full of purposed content, explained in clear and concise language for any beginner or student of the Old Testament.

Lecture 1: Introduction to A Beginner’s Guide to Ancient Hebrew Poetry

Lecture 2: Rhythm and Stress in Ancient Hebrew

Lecture 3: Stitch and Distitch

Lecture 4: 3 Kinds of Parallelisms

Lecture 5: Examples of Each Kind of Parallelism

Lecture 6: Simple and Complex Chiasms

Lecture 7: Figurative Language: Alliterations, Puns, Acrostics, and More

Lecture 8: Examples of Figurative Language

Lecture 9: Ancient Hebrew Examples of Parallelisms–Apply What You Have Learned

Lecture 10: Ancient Hebrew Examples of Complex Chiasms–Apply What You Have Learned

Lecture 11: Explanations of the Class Project Part One

Lecture 12: Explanations of the Class Project Part Two

Class Project: Choose your own research project