Irony: Edwin Marshall Good, Professor of Religion & Hebrew, Stanford Univ.

Prof. Good defines

Irony

as a perception of incongruity which is stated in a

suggestive rather than a direct way, which rests on

a stance in Truth, and which has an implicit or

explicit solution"

The chapters in his book

Irony in the Old Testament (1965: Westminster)

are essays on various books / sections / narratives

of the Old Testament (TANAKH).

Jonah,

I Samuel (story of King Saul)

Genesis

the poetic or rhetorical books

he next turns to are:

Isaiah

Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes)

Job.

For example, he find ISAIAH

expressing irony through the

techniques of:

ironic metaphor,

attribution,

wordplay,

understatement,

exaggeration,

and conceptual irony.

The ironic vision stands

in the service of faith's

communication.  The presence

of irony becomes a possible

touchstone to the presence of

liberating faith whose urgency

lies with the faith itself, and

not with the faithful.