Irony and Paradox

I have a bone to pick with Bloom. One of the major points he attempts to make throughout The Book of J is that the work is highly ironic, as he seems to see that as the only logical conclusion for the way things don't seem to add up. I disagree.

Irony is not the only writing technique which places two ideas in opposition to each other. G.K. Chesterton (author of such famous works as the Father Brown Mysteries) is probably the most well known purveyor of the other technique: Paradox.

Paradox, like irony, looks at two seemingly inreconciliable ideas and attempts to bring them together. While irony does this to suggest that they are humoursly or odly united, paradox says that they can go together, it just is slightly beyond man's normal comprehension.

The Bible is rife with paradox: there is an infinitely high God who is willing to come infinitely low and talk to his creation. Yahweh is a vengeful God yet he is also merciful (sometimes these traits appear in the same psalm).

The Christian understanding of the Bible offers even more paradoxes: Christ is both fully God and fullt man. God is one, yet three. Man has free will but is predestined by God. The logical brain is unable to reconcile these, yet they appear in the Bible.

As you read the Bible keep an eye out for these paradoxes. They are both large and small, sometimes occuring only in a single passage, other times being a summation of the entire purpose of the Bible (such as the mercy/wrath dichotomy). If you'd like more information on the Christian view of paradox there is a chapter in G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy intitled "The Paradoxes of Christianity."