[B-Greek] him which is, and which was, and which is to come

Dan Gleason dan-bgreek at hotmail.com
Mon Nov 21 23:52:57 EST 2005


Here is what Wallace says re Rev 1:4

D. B. Wallace, Exegetical Syntax, 63, argues: "Either of these is doubtful 
here because (1) such a flagrant misunderstanding of the rudiments of Greek 
would almost surely mean that the author could not compose in Greek, yet the 
Apocalypse itself argues against this; (2) nowhere else does the Seer John 
use a nominative immediately after a preposition (in fact, he uses "from" 32 
times with the genetive immediately following)." The passage appears to be 
an allusion to Exodus 3:14 (in the LXX) where God refers to himself as "he 
who is," the same wording in Greek as here in Rev 1:4. Thus, it appears that 
John is wanting to leave the divine name untouched (perhaps to allude to 
God's immutability, or as a pointer to the Old Testament as the key to 
unlocking the meaning of this book), irrespective of what it "looks" like 
grammatically. The translation has placed the "he who is" in quotation marks 
to indicate to the reader that the syntactical awkwardness is intentional. 
For further comments see D. B. Wallace, Exegetical Syntax, 63

Dan Gleason

>From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at ioa.com>
>To: Iver Larsen <iver at larsen.dk>,B-Greek B-Greek 
><b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
>Subject: Re: [B-Greek] him which is, and which was, and which is to come
>Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 06:00:30 -0500
>
>
>On Nov 21, 2005, at 2:47 AM, Iver Larsen wrote:
>
> >> 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).
>
>I hardly think that the author of Revelation is mimicing Epic style
>here. What is conceivable is that he is alluding to Exodus 3:14: KAI
>EIPEN hO QEOS PROS MWUSHN: EGW EIMI hO WN, KAI EIPEN hOUTWS: EREIS
>TOIS hUIOIS ISRAHL: hO WN APESTALKEN ME PROS hUMAS.
>
> > 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."
>
>When used with a participle, sure: hO WN = hOUTOS hO/S ESTIN, and hO
>ERCOMENOS = hOUTOS hO\S ERCETAI (or hO\S ELEUSETAI) -- but hO
>ERCOMENOS is already attested in a LXX text cited in the GNT: Ps
>117:26 EULOGHMENOS hO ERCOMENOS EN ONOMATI KURIOU.
>
> > 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.
>
>Well, I'd be curious to learn if there's any such usage to be found
>in the papyri, but I won't hold my breath waiting for it. For the
>expression found in Rev 1:4 and 1:8 APO hO WN KAI hO HN KAI hO
>ERCOMENOS we would expect in standard Greek APO TOU ONTOS KAI EKEINOU
>hOS HN KAI TOU ERCOMENOU. What we have is a perfectly intelligible
>expression that is ungrammatical, something comparable, say, to an
>English "This letter was sent by I": it is a solecism, and it is NOT
>the only solecism in the text of this author.
>
>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/
>
>---
>B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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