Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In a previous issue of this journal, Professor Herbert Basser drew attention to an instance of Janus parallelism in rabbinic liturgical poetry.1 Janus parallelism occurs, it will be recalled, when a word that carries two senses corresponds in one sense to the words preceding it and in the other sense to those following it.The phenomenon occurs not infrequently in the Hebrew Bible.2The familiar example is in Song of Songs 2:12 נּו.צֵ ְ ר אַ ּבְ ע מַ ְ ׁש נִ ּתֹור הַ קֹול וְ , ַ יע ּגִ הִ יר מִ ּזָ הַ ת עֵ ץ, ֶ ר אָ בָ אּו ְ ר נִ ים נִ ּצָ ּנִ הַ The blossoms have appeared in the land, the time of the zamir has come, the song of the turtledove is heard in our land.(NJPS) 1 Herbert W. Basser, "Janus Parallelism in Rabbinic Liturgical Poetry," Review of Rabbinic Judaism 25 (2022), pp.113-115. 2 David Yellin, בתנ״ך" "משנה-ההוראה (Paronomasia in the Bible), in Tarbiz 5.1 (1933), pp.1-17, is devoted to word play based on the multiple meanings of a word.Items 4, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, and 18 are the closest to our subject.Cyrus Gordon, "New Directions," in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 15 (1978) (Studies Presented to Naphtali Lewis), pp.59-66 at 59-60, coined the term "Janus parallelism" with reference to the verse in Song of Songs.See Scott B.
Source: Review of Rabbinic Judaism
Author: Ranon Katzoff
Institution: Bar-Ilan University
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4409465285