[B-Greek] Solecisms in the book of Revelation

Vasile Stancu stancu at mail.dnttm.ro
Mon Aug 18 08:23:53 EDT 2008


Just imagine that a text like this (Ex. 3:14):

Οὕτως ἐρεῖς τοῖς υἱοῖς Ισραηλ Ὁ ὢν ἀπέσταλκέν με πρὸς ὑμᾶς
ΟΥΤΩΣ ΕΡΕΙΣ ΤΟΙΣ ΥΙΟΙ ΙΣΡΑΗΛ Ο ΩΝ ΑΠΕΣΤΑΛΚΕΝ ΜΕ ΠΡΟΣ ΥΜΑΣ

had been read and commented so many times (or had become so common) that the phrase Ὁ ὢν Ο ΩΝ may have soon became something unflexionable; employing ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄντος APO TOU ONTOS would generate the need for further information ("... who are you referring to?") For the writer of Revelation, a phrase like ἀπὸ ὁ ὣν APO O WN could very well be as functional as ἀπὸ Δαυίδ ΑΠΟ ΔΑΥΙΔ. (At least, I believe this is not entirely impossible...)

Vasile STANCU

-----Original Message-----
From: Carl Conrad [mailto:cwconrad2 at mac.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 1:40 AM
To: Vasile Stancu
Cc: 'Leonard Jayawardena'; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Solecisms in the book of Revelation


On Aug 18, 2008, at 4:28 AM, Vasile Stancu wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Leonard  
> Jayawardena
> Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 9:05 PM
> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [B-Greek] Solecisms in the book of Revelation
>
> Leonard Jayawardena wrote:
>
> ... there seems to be a genuine grammatical error in Revelation 7:9:  
> The
> participle "clothed" (PERIBEBLHMENOUS) is accusative plural, whereas  
> we
> would expect it to be nominative plural (PERIBEBLHMENOI) to agree  
> with the
> noun phrase 'great multitude' like the participle  
> 'standing' (hESTWTES).
> Again, hESTWTES and PERIBEBLHMENOUS are plural in spite of the subject
> OCHLOS being singular because of notional concordance (?), but the  
> relative
> pronoun following the same subject in v. 9 is hON, whereas  
> consistency would
> demand that it be hOUS.
>
> A solecism can be regarded as deliberate if there is any discernible
> intention behind it but what conceivable purpose could there have  
> been, for
> example, for the first-mentioned irregularity mentioned in the  
> preceding
> paragraph, i.e., why is "clothed" in the accusative instead of in the
> nominative?
> -----------------------------------
>
> Could it be that the accusative is used here in order to emphasise  
> more
> strongly the idea of (passively) "being clothed by somebody else" as
> compared to the middle voice action of "just having clothed  
> themselves"?
>
> Vasile STANCU

Rev. 7:9 	Μετὰ ταῦτα εἶδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ  
ὄχλος πολύς, ὃν ἀριθμῆσαι αὐτὸν  
οὐδεὶς ἐδύνατο, ἐκ παντὸς ἔθνους  
καὶ φυλῶν καὶ λαῶν καὶ γλωσσῶν  
ἑστῶτες ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου καὶ  
ἐνώπιον τοῦ ἀρνίου περιβεβλημένους  
στολὰς λευκὰς καὶ φοίνικες ἐν ταῖς  
χερσὶν αὐτῶν,

META TAUTA EIDON, KAI IDOU OCLOS POLUS, hON ARIQMHSAI AUTON OUDEIS  
EDUNATO, EK PANTOS EQNOUS KAI FULWN KAI LAWN KAI GLWSSWN hESTWTES  
ENWPION TOU QRONOU KAI ENWPION TOU ARNIOU PERIBEBLHMENOUS STOLAS  
LEUKAS KAI FOINIKES EN TAIS CERSIN AUTWN.

No, I don't think so. For one thing PERIBALLW (active) does mean  
"clothe (someone)" but PERIBALLOMAI (middle) is standard for "put on,"  
"clothe oneself (with)" -- with an accusative of what is worn or EN +  
dative. Cf. BDAG §2. It's conceivable that the accusative  
PERIBEBLHMENOUS is "attracted" into the case of STOLAS LEUKAS. The new  
white garment is, I think, what the initiate puts on after passing  
through initiation and becoming a new person.

This verse is interesting syntactically as a whole. Note also the  
superfluous AUTON in the hON clause -- explicable from Semitic usage  
but questionably added deliberately. The sequence EK PANTOS EQNOUS KAI  
FULWN KAI LAWN KAI GLWSSWN is somewhat odd, where we'd expect a PANTWN  
before the genitive plurals -- this too is explicable if one thinks in  
terms of the "undeclined"  Heb. KOL for "every/all." Then too there's  
not just the odd PERIBEBLHMENOUS phrase following the OCLOS POLUS ...  
hESTWTES -- which one might explain as "constructio ad sensum"-- but  
the final FOINIKES EN TAIS CERSIN AUTWN is "out of whack" with the  
initial construction which is concerned with the "great throng" -- now  
we have a nominative FOINIKES and the AUTWN referring to the people  
constituting the OCLOS. I think this sequence is hardly explicable in  
terms of deliberate violation of norms of Greek syntax for some sort  
of emphasis; it is explained better by supposing that the author was  
not a native Greek-speaker/writer.

BDF §136" (5) More Serious Incongruencies (Solecisms)" notes,  
"Revelation exhibits a quantity of striking solecisms which are based  
especially on inattention to agreement (a rough style), in contrast to  
the rest of the NT and to the other writings ascribed to John ... "

I can readily believe that the marvelous sequence, hO WN KAI hO HN KAI  
hO ERCOMENOS (Rev 1:4, cf. 11:17, 16:5, ) may be deliberate -- but I'm  
not so ready to concede that APO hO WN here in Rev 1:4 is deliberate.



Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)








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