Taken from The Mysteries of the Kingdom (available on this site):

Today we have a certain way of writing. From our elementary school days we have been taught this Western way of communication. First, we learned how to read. Then we learned how to write. Then we learned how to compose. We learned about sentences, sentence structures, paragraphs and outlines. We learned how to organize our thoughts and put them on paper in a specific and orderly way. If we tried to write in a different way, our grades were lowered. We were stylistically taught. Basically, there was only one way to write. Our understanding of written communication consisted of the literary conventions mentioned above. So in this, our literary vision has been trained, it has been focused, even tunneled if you will, in regards to how we, here in the Western world, see and understand our written communication. Do you think it would be wise to apply these modern methods of organization, these methods of understanding, to an ancient document written in a very different language and in a very different time? What if Matthew and his contemporaries used different literary conventions than we do today? How might that impact our understanding? Scholars are now finding that the ancient Hebrew used different literary conventions than we do today. This should really come as no surprise to us; however, it does to our conceited way of thinking. In understanding the ancient Hebrew literary conventions, or how the Hebrew authors organized their material, we can begin to learn the secret keys needed to understand their writings, the secrets the fog of time has obscured.

Indeed, scholars are finding that the ancient Hebrews - the ones who wrote the New Testament, and the Old Testament in particular - used literary conventions that were much different than the ones we use today. Logically we should expect this to be the case. But why should literary conventions matter?

The ancient Hebrews used their literary conventions to impart meaning to their careful readers. Yet today, we read the Bible and expect to fully understand it on the first reading.  But the Scriptures were never meant to be understood that way.  They were meant to be poured over, to be wrestled with, to be an integral part of peoples thoughts prodded by their curiosity.  Take for instance the Old Testament book of Lamentations. It is perhaps the saddest of all the books of the Bible. It is filled with destruction and death. So when the author of that short book decided to compose his message, he used a particular literary convention to do so. This convention, among scholars, is now referred to as the dirge pattern.

Literarily speaking, Lamentations is made up of five poems. Each of the first three poems are acrostic and made up of 66 lines, or three times through the Hebrew alphabet (acrostic means that each successive line begins with a different letter of the alphabet coming in order from first to last, e.g., a, b, c, d,...). Then the fourth poem is made up of the same, only shorter (44 lines). The fifth poem is shortened to 22 lines, but this time not acrostic (disorderly). And symbolically, there is no sixth poem. In ancient Hebrew literature, parallelism was used pervasively. If the Hebrew author wasn't meaning to convey a 'death' by his work, it would be assumed that there would have been another 3 poems following the first three, each being 66 lines, all acrostic, thus matching the first three. But because the author was using the ancient dirge pattern, the way he organized his material mirrored what was going on in the text. The text was also dying out, eventually in a chaotic manner (poem 5 - 22 lines, not acrostic) to give the reader a sense, literarily speaking, of exactly what was happening - Jerusalem was dying. If Lamentations were written using the normal Jewish parallel literary structure it would have looked like this: A.  66 line acrostic poem              A'.  66 line acrostic poem B.  66 line acrostic poem              B'.  66 line acrostic poem C.  66 line acrostic poem              C'.  66 line acrostic poem But instead, so as to convey a death, or a loss of something before its time, it was carefully and purposefully written like this: A.  66 line acrostic poem             A'.  44 line acrostic poem (dying out) B.  66 line acrostic poem             B'.  22 line non-acrostic (chaotic dying out) C.  66 line acrostic poem             C'.  No poem at all (signifying elimination) In our modern Bible, A. (from above) is Chapter 1, B. is Ch. 2, C. is ch. 3. A'. is ch. 4 and B'. is ch. 5.  Obviously there is no chapter 6.  The ancient Hebrew would have recognized this pattern and would have been further saddened to realize the literary structures' symbolic agreement with the text.  It's not unlike the music in a horror movie that accentuates what's happening on the screen.  It's interesting that Matthew also chose to employ the dirge pattern.  Any idea where he might have used it?

Understanding how the ancient Hebrews wrote does matter. It matters greatly in comprehending the meaning of their texts. I personally recommend a book titled, The Literary Structure of the Old Testament, by David Dorsey. It is well worth your time and effort.

Matthew was a Hebrew, writing to Hebrews. Without understanding how they wrote, our understanding will remain limited. It is the ancient Hebraic literary patterns, located within the book of Matthew, that will unlock the mysteries contained therein. Understanding these magnificent conventions must not be overlooked.