Stephen Hughes wrote:Perhaps also;
Revelation 4:6 wrote:καὶ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου ὡς θάλασσα ὑαλίνη, ὁμοία κρυστάλλῳ. Καὶ ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ θρόνου καὶ κύκλῳ τοῦ θρόνου τέσσαρα ζῷα γέμοντα ὀφθαλμῶν ἔμπροσθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν.
with ἐνώπιον being a short distance the foreground, ἐν μέσῳ being "at a middle distance (in the scene) (from the throne)" (beyond the glass), and ἐν κύκλῳ describing the shape of the arrangement.
How was the Revelation seen by John? Or in literary terms, how is the narrator themself of a vision or dream characterised or portrayed in the vision or dream? The first self-referential description given is:
Revelations 1:12, 13 wrote:Καὶ ἐκεῖ ἐπέστρεψα βλέπειν τὴν φωνὴν ἥτις ἐλάλει μετ’ ἐμοῦ. Καὶ ἐπιστρέψας εἶδον ἑπτὰ λυχνίας χρυσᾶς, καὶ ἐν μέσῳ τῶν ἑπτὰ λυχνιῶν ὅμοιον υἱῷ ἀνθρώπου, ἐνδεδυμένον ποδήρη, καὶ περιεζωσμένον πρὸς τοῖς μαστοῖς ζώνην χρυσῆν.
In the third person, ἐπέστρεψεν βλέπειν** "he turned his head to see", would of course be a case of John reporting what he saw somebody else doing, but in the first person in a dream or vision, is he describing what he did, what he saw himself doing, or what we should imagine that if we had seen it then that is what we would have seen?
It doesn't seem to matter much, because this is being seen in big picture regardless, but I'm wondering if he is seeing the stuff in 4:6 and thereabouts from the distant vantage point, or he is seeing himself seeing these things, with the near, the middle, then his own location as an observer. Of the other options; μεταξὺ (in its prepositional use) seems to be looking at something specific then refering to what is either (of two) side of it, while ἐν μέσῳ as a prepositional phrase used with multiple directions, ἀνὰ μέσον (as a prepositional phrase) (as might be expected) seems to have no directionality, and εἰς τὸ μέσον means "and become the middle", "so everybody can see you", i.e. there is a reorientation of direction of the people looking on, a new middle (so too ἐκ μέσου no longer the centre of attention or relevent), but on the other hand διὰ μέσου seems big picture.
**I think that there are two meanings for ἐπιστρέφειν - with a verb of seeing, it means "to turn the head" (changing the body's direction being more στρέφειν), and otherwise it means, "to turn around and come / go back". [In terms of BDAG, that means (2) is a specific meaning of the head, (1) and (3) are divided into transitive (mono-) and intransitive (bi-valent) according to the needs of English language users, and (4) is metaphorical.]