Mary Douglas describes ancient literature as being written in precisely this way in her book Thinking in Circles (2012). She describes the art of storytelling in ancient literature, including in the Bible, as “ring composition,” a technique that places the meaning in the middle, framed by beginning and ending in parallel. To read linearly, for Douglas, is to misinterpret the text. Stories are a series of metaphors and folds, like Russian nesting dolls. The largest opens in the middle to reveal a smaller doll, which opens in the middle to reveal yet a smaller doll, and so on. According to
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