[B-Greek] him which is, and which was, and which is to come
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at juno.com
Wed Nov 23 11:08:59 EST 2005
On Wed, 23 Nov 2005 07:21:38 -0800 (PST) Cirk Bejnar
<eluchil404 at yahoo.com> writes:
> --- Glendon Gross <gross at clones.net> wrote:
> > Maybe I missed something... but is it really true
> > that John is believed
> > to have written the Apocalypse in Hebrew or Aramaic
> > originally?
> > My impression was that some have concluded this on
> > the basis of the
> > large number of Hebrew idioms contained in the Greek
> > text of Revelation.
> > Nevertheless, I am not aware of any Hebrew text that
> > uses the
> > Tetragrammaton in place of this verse. If such a
> > manuscript really does
> > exist, please enlighten me as to where I can find
> > it. I was under the
> > impression that such ideas are purely conjecture,
> > and that we have no
> > textual evidence of such if it is true.
>
> Without straying beyond the bounds of tyhe list I
> think that it is safe to say that the Apocalypse was
> not necessarily written in Hebrew. Other theories are
> current and, I understand, more popular. As for the
> rest, I think the claim was that the phrase hO WN etc.
> was a notional translation of the sacred
> tetragrammaton as it appears in the OT--perhaps
> influenced by (or taken from?) the LXX. Not that the
> sacred tetragrammaton ever appeared in the text of the
> Apocalypse itself.
>
> As Carl has pointed out, the Greek is not decisive in
> this case and brining in other evidences quickly
> passes the list bounds so a full debate of the issue
> really belongs in another forum.
>
> Cirk R. Bejnar
______________
There are only two occurances (unless I missed some) of hO WN in the LXX.
One has nothing to do with the divine name whatsoever (1 Kg 16.22). The
other also does not involve the direct use of the tetragrammaton but
rather the response which was to be given to the question regarding who
had sent Moses (Ex 3.14). The response "I am who I am" or "I shall be
whom I shall be" is similar to the tetragrammaton and has raised
questions regarding the relationship of the tetragrammaton to the verb
"to be" which the LXX rightly uses to translate the Hebrew. In no case
is there a direct equation between hO WN and the tetragrammaton.
george
gfsomsel
___________
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