Revelation...
Ken Smith
kens at 180solutions.com
Tue Jun 19 01:12:38 EDT 2001
> My question for you right now is: What significance is
> there in the fact that John wrote in verse four: "APO
> hO WN KAI hO HN KAI hO ERCAMENOS"? Why did he not use
> the genitive: APO TOU ONTOS... KTL?
A number of commentators have suggested that hO WN, from the LXX of Ex.
3:14, had taken on the nature of a fixed formula, enough so that John,
whose Greek was marginal (albeit better than most of ours), didn't
notice or didn't care about the agreement.
In addition, Barclay, in a suggestion perhaps not original with him, has
pointed out that there isn't an aorist participle form of EIMI, and that
something like GENOMENOS would introduce an element of changeableness or
becoming. So the writer chose the distinctly ungrammatical HN to "mark"
the unchangeableness of God.
Clay, Carl, et al., what *would* the correct, grammatical options for
this sentence be?
> Beyond that, it seems that John was bad with
> agreement, also. He says in verse five: "KAI APO
> IHSOU CRISTOU, hO MARTUS, hO PISTOS, hO PRWTOTOKOS TWN
> NEKRWN KAI O ARCWN TWN BASILEWN THS GHS." It is
> interesting (if not an error) that he uses the
> genitive for "Jesus Christ" and the nominative for
> "the witness, the faithful one, the first-born of the
> dead... KTL." Is this non-agreement bad grammar,
> period? Or is there a reason for it?
The Greek of Revelation is notoriously ungrammatical -- this is, I
think, probably just one example. My own Greek is far more marginal
than John's, but I've been able to pick out any number of examples from
my own reading. You'll find more as you go through.
Ken Smith
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