[B-Greek] him which is, and which was, and which is to come
Iver Larsen
iver at larsen.dk
Mon Nov 21 02:47:35 EST 2005
> Rev. 1:4
> ...from the is, the was, and the coming one.
> (APO hO WN KAI hO HN KAI hO ERCOMENOS)
> This sounds cool when you sound it out phonetically :
> ahpo ho own kai ho eyhn kai ho erchomenos
> John is being poetic. In Greek you can't really say hO HN, i.e. "the was".
> But it sounds good with hO WN in a way similar to the way "the is and the
> was" sounds good. John knows his Greek, and he's bending the rules.
> Rev. 1:8
> I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God: the is, the was, and the
> coming one (hO WN KAI hO HN KAI hO ERCOMENOS): the all-powerful.
I don't think John is "bending the rules" nearly as much as it sounds from the English translation of hO with "the"
rather than "he who"..
According to BDF 249, the article hO was originally a demonstrative (like English "that"). And demonstrative often have
an implied relative function. Sometimes the relative pronoun was used instead of the article. BDF also says that there
is an Epic and dialectal use of hO hH TO as a relative pronoun.(cf. "der" in German which serves as article, relative
and pronoun).
It seems that especially when used with a participle, the distinction between the article and relative pronoun is not
essential. "the one being" or "the one who is". "The one coming" or "the one who is to come."
Might John be using the article in hO HN as if it was the relative pronoun? Maybe for poetic reasons? If so, would there
be any papyrus evidence to suggest how common this was in Asia minor at the time of John's writing? I am just wondering.
Iver Larsen
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