vol. 35, Issue #4

Online Journal Article: "MOTIVATION AND ANTITHETIC PARALLELISM IN PROVERBS 10-15" by TED HILDEBRANDT *JETS 35/4 (December 1992) 433-444

https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/35/35-4/JETS_35-4_433-444_Hildebrandt.pdf

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Complete article may be found here:
https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/35/35-4/JETS_35-4_433-444_Hildebrandt.pdf

"MOTIVATION AND ANTITHETIC PARALLELISM
IN PROVERBS 10-15"
by TED HILDEBRANDT
*JETS 35/4 (December 1992) 433-444

Excerpt:
Motivation is a critical issue for employers, administrators, teachers
and parents. It is also a key topic in the book of Proverbs. This paper will
attempt to make contributions to proverbial motivation studies in several
areas. A methodology will be developed for digging out the deep semantic
motivational structures buried in the sentence literature (Proverbs 10-
15). By applying this method of analysis to the sentence literature, a rich
diversity of motivational forces will be exposed even though there is a
dearth of explicit motive clauses. Eight deep-structure categories will provide an initial framework for categorizing and understanding the underlying thought structure of the proverbial sentences. It will be suggested that
"approach/avoidance" motivation theory may provide a psycholinguistic
reason for the sages' frequent selection of antithetic parallelism as a medium to express their instruction. A dialogue will be initiated between proverbial motivation study and the vast literature on the psychology of
motivation that lies untapped by Biblical scholars. Such an integration
may yield fresh insights into a Biblical theory of motivation that may be of
use to educators, employers and parent
--from the first page of the article