Re: Where's the Oyster?

Jonathan Robie (jwrobie@mindspring.com)
Mon, 06 Oct 1997 10:41:28 -0400

At 09:24 AM 10/6/97 -0500, John M. Sweigart wrote:
>Jonathan;
>I gleaned the subject line from another list but it raises a b-greek
>issue. Are we justified in Rev. 21:21 in assuming that the writer wanted
>to assert that each gate was (made) of one pearl? BAG seems to suggest
>in their article that EIMI+EK can be rendered "belongs to one pearl".

Rev 21:21...ANA hEIS hEKASTOS TWN PULWNWN HN EKS hENOS MARGARITOU

I think this does clearly say that each of the gates was made of one
margarita, er, pearl, and most of the translations I checked seem to render
it this way ("made of a single pearl", not "made of a single margarita").
NRSV says "each of the gates is a single pearl", and I can't quite figure
out how they derived that translation, but I'm sure someone will point it out.

EK can be used to describe the material out of which something is made.
hENOS clearly means "one", so EKS hENOS MARGARITOU means "made out of one
pearl", and I *think* that is unambiguous. If I'm wrong, we'll surely hear
from someone soon ;->

Jonathan

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