Revelation 22:3

Thomas J. Kraus thomas-juergen.kraus at theologie.uni-regensburg.de
Mon Mar 29 01:42:05 EST 1999


> Date:          Sat, 27 Mar 1999 09:12:59 -0500
> From:          John Reece <jonree at earthlink.net>
> To:            Biblical Greek <b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Subject:       Revelation 22:3
> Reply-to:      John Reece <jonree at earthlink.net>

> What is the antecedent of AUTH in Revelation 22:3?
> 
> John Reece
> http://home.earthlink.net/~jonree/

John,

strictly speaking the AUTH in Rev 21:23 has no antecedent. But I started 
with strictly speaking, i.e. just looking for an antecedent in the clause 
in which the pronoun can be found.
When you are going back verse by verse in Rev 21 you will find more forms 
of the third person pronoun as a singular feminin. This pronoun in Greek 
has an anaphoric force, i.e. it refers back to somethin already mentioned 
and known. At some places in the NT (even more in the Greco-Roman papyri) 
it is hard to find an antecedent which agrees properly with the pronoun in 
number and gender; at some places there are incosistencies (singular 
referring to plural and vice versa; masculin referring to feminin, and so 
on), one form of the socalled *constructio ad sensum, which make things 
even tougher. But in Rev 21 you will find H POLIS in verse 16 (with a 
possessive AUTHS following later in the same clause), and which is the 
decisive point to return to, and THN AGIAN IERUSALEM in verse 10 to which 
the following AUTHS (Rev 21:11) refers.
If you want to find out more about the anaphoric force of the 
third person pronouns (AUTOS, AUTH, AUTON), the following give a valuable 
overview including historical developments:
J. Wackernagel, Vorlesungen ueber Syntax. Vol. II, Basel 1928, 75ff.
E. Schwyzer and A. Debrunner, Griechische Grammatik. Vol. II: Syntax and 
syntaktische Stilistik (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft 2,1,2; Munich, 
4th ed. 1975), 190ff.

Possibly, the German in these grammatical works provide some problem (I do 
not mean your capacity of reading and understanding German, but their 
quite complex and *ancient style).
Thus, Wallace, Grammar, 316-325, will be sufficient anyway.
Probably, there are many experts who could have dealt with this issue in 
a more adequate manner, but I hope this helps.
Best wishes,

Thomas J. Kraus

Universitaet Regensburg
Kath.-theol. Fakultaet
Universitaetsstr. 31
D-93053 Regensburg

Tel. + 49 941 943 36 90
Fax. + 49 941 943 19 86
thomas-juergen.kraus at theologie.uni-regensburg.de



More information about the B-Greek mailing list