Antecedant of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3

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Stephen_Banes
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Joined: February 16th, 2014, 4:39 pm

Antecedant of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3

Post by Stephen_Banes »

From what I can gather from this specific text, as Pronouns and their Nouns must match case, the recipient of LATREUO must match the case of AUTOU, which is Genitive Masculine Singular. According to the verse there are two possible recipients, THEOU or ARNIOU.

THEOU is Genitive Masculine Singular and
ARNIOU is Genitive NEUTER Singular.

Am I correct to conclude LATREOU can only be given THEOU and not ARNIOU as ARNIOU is Genitive Neuter Singular?
Thanks
Stephen_Banes
David Lim
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Re: Antecedant of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3

Post by David Lim »

Stephen_Banes wrote:[...] the case of AUTOU, which is Genitive Masculine Singular. [...]
Hello Stephen! Perhaps you might find it useful to start learning Greek from a grammar such as http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/project/f ... pre-alpha/. In the first place, "αυτου" in Rev 22:3 isn't the object (or more accurately complement) of "λατρευσουσιν", but belongs to "οι δουλοι αυτου". The complement of "λατρευσουσιν" is "αυτω". Also, I presume that you obtained your parsing of "genitive masculine singular" from some parsed text, but did you know that many words have multiple possible parsings? "αυτου" in Greek can be either masculine or neuter, and so can "αυτω". Furthermore, the grammatical gender doesn't always have to match, due to various reasons such as "construction based on sense".
δαυιδ λιμ
Wes Wood
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Re: Antecedant of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3

Post by Wes Wood »

Here is the text in question.

καὶ πᾶν κατάθεμα οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι. καὶ ὁ θρόνος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀρνίου ἐν αὐτῇ ἔσται, καὶ οἱ δοῦλοι αὐτοῦ λατρεύσουσιν αὐτῷ,
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Object of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Revelations 22:33 (part) wrote:καὶ οἱ δοῦλοι αὐτοῦ λατρεύσουσιν αὐτῷ,
kaì hoi doûloi autoû latreúsousin autō
That is an interesting question. Basically what you are asking is whether knowing Greek can help you understand more clearly what the "his" and "him" refer to in the English.

In short, the situation is that because we know that the lamb refers to Jesus, the English of
Revelations 22:3 wrote:The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city,
and his servants will serve him
sort of gives us four possibilites:
  • God's servants will serve God
    the Lamb's servants will serve God
    God's servants will serve the Lamb
    the Lamb's servants will serve the Lamb
Stephen_Banes wrote:THEOU is Genitive Masculine Singular and
ARNIOU is Genitive NEUTER Singular.
The difference between these two nouns is that THEOS is masucline and ARNION is neuter. They are both singular and they are both genitive.

In Greek, the "his" (αὐτοῦ / autoû) and the "serve him" (αὐτῷ / autō), is as David has told you either masculine (referring to God) or neuter (referring to the Lamb) so that doesn't reduce the number of possibilities at all.

The verb LATREUO is an interesting in itself, because rather than being followed by an accusative, it is quite properly followed by a dative. Iff it was followed by an accusative, we would know clearly half the answer to your quiery? Why? Because the accusative of the masculine and neuter are different.

Greek has a way of avoiding this ambiguity, but that is not used here. The ambiguity can be avoided by using a different demonstrative pronoun - ἐκεῖνος (ekeinos) [Strong's Greek: 1565], but here the Greek doesn't use that demonstrative, so we have to live with the ambiguity in our interpretations and renderings of the Greek text that we have.

In this case, knowing Greek does not solve a problem, it confirms that an apparent problem in English is a real problem in Greek too. Further to that, knowing Greek let's us formulate a good reason why it is ambiguous.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Antecedant of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stephen_Banes wrote:From what I can gather from this specific text, as Pronouns and their Nouns must match case, the recipient of LATREUO must match the case of AUTOU, which is Genitive Masculine Singular. According to the verse there are two possible recipients, THEOU or ARNIOU.

THEOU is Genitive Masculine Singular and
ARNIOU is Genitive NEUTER Singular.

Am I correct to conclude LATREOU can only be given THEOU and not ARNIOU as ARNIOU is Genitive Neuter Singular?
Thanks
Stephen_Banes
Stephen, I agree with the previous responses that you need actually to start learning the language. As it is, I can't even really make sense out of your question. What is the purpose behind your question? What problem do you perceive that needs resolving?

καὶ πᾶν κατάθεμα οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι. καὶ ὁ θρόνος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀρνίου ἐν αὐτῇ ἔσται, καὶ οἱ δοῦλοι αὐτοῦ λατρεύσουσιν αὐτῷ... [SBL]

There are only two pronouns in the text, αὐτοῦ and αὐτῷ (actually three, αὐτῇ but I don't think that is of a concern to you based on the Greek words you mention above), . I think what you might be asking is the antecedent for either one or both? If so, I would take it as ἀρνίου, on the normal principle that the nearest thing to which a pronoun can refer it does. As pointed out, the pronouns can be either masculine or neuter in form, so that they can refer to either θεοῦ or ἀρνίου, but if a pronoun is to refer to something farther back, there needs to be some strongly determining contextual factor which leads to that conclusion, and I see nothing of the sort here.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Scott Lawson
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Re: Antecedant of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3

Post by Scott Lawson »

Barry,
It seems to me that ἀρνίου forms a grammatical unit with θεοῦ in the noun phrase τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀρνίου which modifies ὁ θρόνος and does not serve to introduce a subject.Why would we look for an antecedent in a noun phrase in the genitive that acts as modifier to a noun? It seems to me both αὐτοῦ and αὐτῷ would likely have the same antecedent but not necessarily so as Stephen has pointed out. The nearest nominative for a personage worthy of λατρεύω that could serve as the antecedent for αὐτοῦ/αὐτῷ is κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ παντακράτωρ in 21:22. Why isn't that an obvious choice?
Scott Lawson
Barry Hofstetter
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Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: Antecedant of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Scott Lawson wrote:Barry,
It seems to me that ἀρνίου forms a grammatical unit with θεοῦ in the noun phrase τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀρνίου which modifies ὁ θρόνος and does not serve to introduce a subject.Why would we look for an antecedent in a noun phrase in the genitive that acts as modifier to a noun? It seems to me both αὐτοῦ and αὐτῷ would likely have the same antecedent but not necessarily so as Stephen has pointed out. The nearest nominative for a personage worthy of λατρεύω that could serve as the antecedent for αὐτοῦ/αὐτῷ is κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ παντακράτωρ in 21:22. Why isn't that an obvious choice?
Scott, I'm not sure what you mean by a "grammatical unit." Yes, they are genitives dependent on ὁ θρόνος, but that doesn't mean that they can't have pronouns in the context referring to them. Syntactically, it would be highly unusual, if not practically impossible, for an antecedent to be so far removed from pronouns referring to it as in 21:22. In other words, the natural or default reading would be to see the antecedent as ἀρνίου. "a personage worth of λατρεύω" strikes me as a more theological argument than syntactical/grammatical. However, I can't resist pointing out that vs. 5, and particularly καὶ ὄψονται τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ strikes me as a better suited to the lamb, so that is an added contextual confirmation.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Scott Lawson
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Joined: June 9th, 2011, 6:36 pm

Re: Antecedant of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3

Post by Scott Lawson »

Barry,
It seems to me that τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀρνίου acts as a single grammatical unit and serves specifically to modify ὁ θρόνος. To single out ἀρνίου breaking it out of its primary function in the noun phrase and elevating it to a subject seems odd to me. If anything the whole grammatical unit of τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀρνίου should be considered as the antecedent...but again it seems odd to me because I would expect the antecedent to be in the nominative.

By pointing out that we would expect a subject that is worthy of λατρεύω as an antecedent to αὐτῷ was in no way drawn from theological consideration but rather semantic. The verb itself implies that it is a person that is served/worshipped. I'm still at a loss as to why a 3rd person pronoun in an oblique mood would have its antecedent also in an oblique mood. In 21:23 we have the statement:

καὶ ἡ πόλις οὐ χρείαν ἔχει τοῦ ἡλιου οὐδὲ τῆς σελήνης ἵνα φαίνωσιν ἀὐτῇ,

Here we see that the antecedent to 3rd person dative pronoun ἀὐτῇ is ἡ πόλις which is in the nominative. This is what I expect. Can you show me a clear example of a 3rd person oblique pronoun with an antecedent in an oblique mood?

I'm beginning to think that the referent for αὐτῷ in λατρεύσουσιν αὐτῷ is unstated and to be understood from the context.
Scott Lawson
Catherine Brown
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Re: Object of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3

Post by Catherine Brown »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Revelations 22:33 (part) wrote:καὶ οἱ δοῦλοι αὐτοῦ λατρεύσουσιν αὐτῷ,

In short, the situation is that because we know that the lamb refers to Jesus,
How do you know for sure that the lamb refers to jesus and not a follower of his, one of his lambkins?
Why didnt the writer use the masculine lamb instead of the neuter?

Isn't that an assumption based on theology and your personal understanding and not on the actual greek?

I don't believe this is the case at all but explaning that will have me delve into theology, which I'm not going to do :)
Wes Wood
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Re: Antecedant of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3

Post by Wes Wood »

I believe most would say that the letter makes this fairly clear without having to resort to a "theological" explanation. Though this statement could lead to a philosophical argument of its own.
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
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