[B-Greek] Rev 1 1 => Main Clause

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Oct 31 09:20:12 EST 2004


At 1:37 PM +0100 10/31/04, Peter Streitenberger wrote:
>Dear Harold and George,
>thank you for answering !
>
>To be more specific:
>
>I'd consider:
>
>1) as main clause:
>    KAI ESHMANEN TW DOULW AUTOU IOANNH hOSA EIDEN
>         (Jesus indicated his servant John the things he saw. 'He' is
>refering to John and not to Jesus, who is the seer in the
>revelation:1,11ff. His name is introduced in between: V.1.hOSA EIDEN
>refers to the receiving of the revelation by seeing)
>
>
>2) as Adverbial Clause (specifiying the way the revelation came to John):
>    APOSTEILAS DIA AGGELOU AUTOU
>
>3) as appositiv clause to identify John more specific (refering to two
>past - Aorist- events leading to his exile - exactly as in Rev 1 9):
>hOS EMARTURHSEN TON LOGON TOU QEOU KAI MARTURIAN IHSOU XRISTOU
>
>I can't see any refering point in the appositive clause (hOS EMARTURHSEN
>TON LOGON TOU QEOU KAI THN MARTURIAN IHSOU XRISTOU) to hOSA EIDEN, so I
>consider the appositiv clause to be ended with XRISTOU. The hOSA EIDEN
>belongs then as an object to the main clause. John did not yet EMARTURHSEN
>(Aorist) hOSA EIDEN in the past, because the complete revelation still is
>a future thing for John in the introduction Verses.

Text (Most people find it easier to grasp what's at stake with the text
clearly present before the eyes): APOKALUYIS IHSOU CRISTOU hHN EDWKEN AUTWi
hO QEOS TOIS DOULOIS AUTOU hA DEI GENESQAI EN TACEI, KAI ESHMANEN
APOSTEILAS DIA TOU AGGELOU AUTU TWi DOULWi AUTOU IWANNHi, hOS EMARTURHSEN
TON LOGON TOU QEOU KAI THN MARTURIAN IHSOU CRISTOU hOSA EIDEN.

I had thought the discussion was about Rev 1:1 as the subject-header
indicates, but I now see that it actually is about hOSA EIDEN in verse 2. I
can see how one might want to take the subject of hOSA EIDEN from the
genitive phrase immediately antecedent IHSOU CRISTOU, but I don't really
think that's at all likely; I think that hOSA EIDEN refers to what John
saw--it's part of the relative clause that begins with verse 2: hOS
EMARTURHSEN ... The content of the book announced in verse 1 is what John
saw in his apocalyptic vision; that's the visionary experience which the
author begins to narrate in verse 9 after the introductory proclamatory
section. I would understand hOSA EIDEN as a noun clause in apposition to
TON LOGON TOU QEOU KAI THN MARTURIAN IHSOU CRISTOU.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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