[B-Greek] Revelation 12.7

Polycarp66 at aol.com Polycarp66 at aol.com
Fri Apr 9 08:11:08 EDT 2004


On April 8, 2004 dirkzwger at pandora.be wrote:

In my opinion the apostle John wrote the Revelation. If you do not agree,
the author must have been a Jew, who, like John, used to think in a
Semitical language. There are many examples in the Revelation where the
Greek language could be improved (Blass-Debrunner-Rehkopf, par. 136). I do
not think that we have to classify these examples as mere mistakes. It is
clear that John had from time to time some problems expressing his thoughts
in a foreign language (like me now).

So it is not clear if John *wrote* the Revelation in Hebrew or Aramaean.
Anyhow, *in his mind* the Revelation was present in Hebrew or Aramaean.

His style in the Gospel and the letters is better. But we should not forget,
that John was very old when he wrote the Revelation. It is also possible
that he did not have the time (the text had to be send to the seven churches
in order to comfort them) or did not have the right person at hand to
improve the language of the text he was writing.
___________________________

I, on the other hand, am of the opinion that the author of Revelation was 
skilled in the use of Greek but was feigning a Semitic background.  This accounts 
for the unevenness of the composition where he sometimes uses better Greek 
than at other times.  It is much like an author writing in dialect -- in fact, 
that is precisely what it is.

gfsomsel



More information about the B-Greek mailing list