[B-Greek] Solecisms in the book of Revelation
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Aug 18 14:58:56 EDT 2008
On Aug 18, 2008, at 8:23 AM, Vasile Stancu wrote:
> 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...)
The other instances of hO WN in Revelation (1:8, 4:8, 11:17, 16:5) are
all places where a nominative is expected. DAUID of course is
indeclinable. I readily concede that hO WN may have been deemed a
proper name -- that this is "not entirely impossible." Suffice it to
say that copyists interpreting hO WN as a proper name evidently
thought that APO hO WN was a solecism; TR has APO TOU hO WN, and
Majority Text has APO QEOU hO WN.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
> -----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.
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