Re [B-Greek] Bad grammer in Rev??

George F Somsel gfsomsel at juno.com
Thu Jan 13 18:53:39 EST 2005


On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:12:24 -0500 Schmuel <schmuel at escape.com> writes:
> Hi b-greek,
> 
>    When we look at bad grammar claims in Revelation, there is an 
> important issue that is often omitted.
> 
> Will Kinney, although not claiming to be an accomplished Greek 
> scholar, looked at a number of the verses claimed by Torrey to be 
> terrible grammar, simply using the regular tools available.
> This was done in the context of a dialog with Aramaic Primacists, 
> who were claiming error
> in the Greek text. 
>
http://www.studylight.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2415&postdays=0&postorde
r=asc&start=165
> 
> Ten examples were offered by Charles Cutler Torrey to which Will was 
> responding.
> Upon analysis seven of these supposed Greek grammatical errors were 
> simply limited
> to the critical text, and the supposed grammatical error does not 
> exist in the Textus Receptus. 
> 
> Will also showed that the other three were essentially errors of 
> Torrey, 
> although of course folks on this forum may want to offer their 
> commentary. 
> 
> Even if modern scholarship often is done on the alexandrian critical 
> text, it is
> important to realize that this accusation against the Greek NT 
> (which is often
> made by those who believe in "Aramaic Primacy" or by those like 
> skeptics who 
> are belittling the NT) is not applicable against the historic 
> Reformation/Protestant Bible. 
> 
> And, it would be incumbent to see if this is true on other such 
> accusations against 
> other verses in Revelation.  It surely would not be fair scholarship 
> to impugn the historic
> Greek NT because of the errors of the text that mostly just came to 
> be used in the 20th century.
> 
> Here are the seven examples in which the TR and the alexandrian text 
> differ.
> 
> Rev. 1:15
> His legs were like burnished brass (neut. gender dative case) as in 
> a furnace purified" 
> (Fem. gender sing. no., gen. case) 
> 
> The TR and majority text has masculine plural (purified) agreeing 
> with "his feet" 
> 
> Rev. 14:14
> "I saw on the cloud one seated like unto a Son of Man (accus.) 
> having (nom.) upon his head a golden crown." 
> 
> And upon the cloud ONE SAT (the subject of the sentence and is in 
> the nominative case in the TR )
> 
> Rev. 14:19 
> "He harvested the vintage of the earth, and cast it into the 
> winepress (fem), the great [winepress] (masc.) of the wrath of God.
> 
> TR has both winepress and "great" as feminine. " 
> 
> Rev. 17:4 
> A golden cup filled with abominations (gen.) and with unclean 
> things" (accus.) 
> 
> The TR has both "abominations" and "filthiness" (genitive singular) 
> in the genitive. 
> 
> Rev. 20:2 
> And he seized the dragon (accus.), the old serpent (nom.) who is the 
> Devil and Satan, and bound him." 
> 
> Rev. 21:9 
> "Seven angels holding seven bowls (accus.) filled (gen.) with the 
> seven last plagues." 
> 
> TR - the old serpent in the accusative case. 
> 
> Rev. 22:5 
> "They have no need of lamplight (gen.) nor of sunlight (accus.)." 
> 
> Shalom,
> Steven Avery
> Queens, NY
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/ 
> 
> cc: Will Kinney
> 
> schmuel at escape.com
> 
> Messianic_Apologetic-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/  
______________

The tendency of the Byz Maj text to "rectify" the readings of the NT to
make them more correct Greek is well documented.  This is not simply a
matter restricted to the Apocalypse.  This is not a forum for textual
criticism so I will restrict myself to one comment only which will not
here be further discussed by me.  By adopting a text which reads more
smoothly than that of the critical text you are denying the validity of a
number of principles of textual criticism which seem to me to be
well-founded.  It is the tendency to improve a text by reading what the
reader thinks should have been present.  To use an example in English: 
If I read  something which says "hte man went to hte store", I will tend
to correct the reading to "the man went to the store" since I know
English and expect that I understand what the writer was intending to
say.  This is overly simplistic, but reflects the tendency of the later
Byz Maj text to smooth out what it perceives as errors.  The difficult
readings are not, of course, restricted to such readily recognizable
spelling errors but nevertheless reflects the tendency to smooth out the
text to conform to what one understands the author to be saying.  The
principle of textual criticism involved here is that the lectio
difficilior (more difficult reading) is likely the more original.  One's
reconstruction of the text may be a correct understanding of what the
author intended (as in the English example given), but the original
nevertheless is the uncorrected form.

george
gfsomsel
___________



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