'Genesis Death Sandwich' Discovered in Bible

Researchers using text-analysis software say they've discovered a new literary device in the first book of the Bible: the "Genesis death sandwich."

The name refers to a familiar rhetorical structure — sandwiching bad news in between the good. In the case of Genesis, the slices of white bread are themes of life, and the slimy cold cuts in between are mentions of death.

"The structuring of life and death in Genesis appears to be something that hasn't been noticed before," researcher Gordon Rugg, a senior lecturer in Computing and Mathematics at Keele University in the United Kingdom, wrote in a Feb. 21 blog post. "We think it's a standard literary device being used on a larger scale than had been previously realized. No aliens, no secret codes, no conspiracies, but some striking images, and a great name for a band."

For their study, Rugg and his colleagues ran the King James version of the text through software known as the Search Visualizer, which plotted mentions of life in red and death in green on a single gridded page representing the whole book. Their results showed frequent mentions of life in the opening and closing verses of Genesis.

For example, toward the end of the book, when Joseph is reunited with his brothers, he tells them: "Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life" (Genesis 45:5). Meanwhile, mentions of death are clustered in the middle, the researchers found, especially in Chapter 27, when an aging Isaac talks to his son Esau, saying, for example, "Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my death" (Genesis 27:2).

The researchers say this structure is an example of a literary convention known as inclusio, also called bracketing, where one theme frames another. Rugg acknowledged that it is uncertain whether or not this "death sandwich" convention was applied to the text intentionally. Nonetheless, he says it might have been used to cushion the negative messages of death, or perhaps to put life and death in stark contrast.

read more http://news.yahoo.com/genesis-death-sandwich-discovered-bible-132400828.html