[B-Greek] Solecisms in the book of Revelation

Dr. Don Wilkins drdwilkins at verizon.net
Mon Aug 18 14:52:09 EDT 2008


PERIBEBLHMENOUS is not so much a matter of middle vs. passive, which  
Carl has clarified; rather, the unexpected accusative forces the  
reader to think of the unexpressed actor who has dressed the  
multitude. To me, the effect is similar to one of attraction (which  
redirects the reader's attention elsewhere), though I don't think  
that there is any kind of attraction to STOLAS LEUKAS.

I would agree with Carl that Semitic idioms probably play a part  
here, though it does not seem necessary to explain the PANTOS  
construction. It is natural enough to assume that PANTOS is meant to  
cover everything; otherwise, you would need a string of PAS forms  
that would give the phrase a different nuance.  Carl's constructio ad  
sensum certainly explains the singular/plural mismatch. It also  
explains the AUTWN with FOINIKES. As for FOINIKES itself, unless I'm  
missing something, one needs only to add an understood HSAN to make  
FOINIKES the subject of its own clause.

If one really attributes all these constructions to the inexperience  
or ignorance of a non-native Greek speaker, then how does one explain  
John's overall fidelity to standard grammar and syntax? It seems to  
me that if these constructions are blunders, then we either have  
someone who is struggling with the basic demands of grammatical  
agreement etc.--in which case we should expect the book to be overrun  
with similar blunders--or we have the work of an old man who is just  
getting careless. The latter may seem reasonable, but in that case I  
would still expect to see a lot more of the same.

Don Wilkins

On Aug 18, 2008, at 9:39 AM, Carl Conrad wrote:

>
> 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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