EIS AIWNAS AIWNWN

33brindle 33brindle at cua.edu
Sat Dec 4 19:23:50 EST 1999


James,

[about Rev 14:11, EIS AIWNAS AIWNWN]

>I wonder if this is another one of John's "solecisms" where he is carrying
>over the exact grammatical forms to signal OT allusions.  Beale's The Book of
>Revelation (NIGTC)  argues that many Daniel allusions in Revelation are
>intentional and that Daniel is a framework for the entire book. If the
>anarthrous form in a similar sense is also found in Daniel and Psalms that
>may explain John's use of it here.

I don't think EIS AIWNAS AIWNWN is really a solecism since the phrase is not 
grammatically incongruent.  We wouldn't find the construction here peculiar at 
all if all the other occurrences of the construction in the NT (and LXX for 
the most part) weren't articular.

I would also be hesitant to say that the phrase in Daniel is motivating the 
anarthrous construction in Rev 14:11 since it appears in the (non-apocalyptic) 
story of Susanna, which doesn't seem to have been very influential on John's 
Apocalypse.  Perhaps the Psalms references (7 times in 5 psalms) were 
influential, but they're all in the singular.  Why would John change to the 
plural?  Of course, there's a lot of grammatical mystery in Revelation, so we 
can't exactly call on the testimony of a consistently correct syntax.  
Whatever the reason for John's phrase, I don't think it's different in meaning 
from its articular counterpart.  But it is nonetheless very interesting.

Robert

Robert Brindle
Ph.D. Student, Biblical Studies
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.
http://www.campus.cua.edu/~33brindle/home.htm




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