[B-Greek] Rev. 3:12 Pendent Nominative

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Dec 27 17:24:30 EST 2005


 
On Tuesday, December 27, 2005, at 05:15PM, Bert de Haan <b_dehaan at sympatico.ca> wrote:

>The first part of Rev.3:12 reads as follows;
>hO NIKWN, POIHSW AUTON STULON EN TWi VAWi TOU QEOU MOU,
>
>I understand from Wallace's GGBB that this is a case of pendent nominative.
>Besides this text he gives several other examples.
>I found that the other examples read almost naturally correct but not this 
>one.
>When I first read this (I came to a dead stop but then) I wanted to read the 
>nominative in apposition to the implied verb: "I, the one who conquers, will 
>make him a pillar in the temple of my God."
>This is likely due to the proximity of the nominative and the verb.
>Is there such a thing as an apposition to an implied verb or would the verb 
>have to be expressed?
>Another way to ask my question; Reading this sentence without context, is my 
>initial translation also possible?

Not really; the problem is that AUTON is left without any meaningful antecedent.

I personally think this is another of the celebrated solecisms in Revelation; yes, one may point to other instances of it, but I don't think you can argue that this is a standard Greek construction; this appears to be a substitute for something like hOSTIS AN NIKAi, POIHSW AUTON STULON KTL.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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