[B-Greek] Is ECWN a solecism in Revelation 21:14?

Dr. Don Wilkins drdwilkins at verizon.net
Fri Aug 22 16:21:05 EDT 2008


When I responded to Carl's comment about the unsupervised use of an  
amanuensis, I said that it would always provide an easier explanation  
to any argument that I (or anyone else, including Leonard) could  
possibly offer to justify a solecism. But that does open a Pandora's  
box which probably goes far beyond the constraints of b-greek. For  
example, we might infer that the autograph is not really so in the  
truest sense of the term, but is just a fallible transcript of what  
the author has said, and ought to have "dictated but not read" at the  
bottom. In the case of Revelation, we might conclude that John picked  
a rather poor amanuensis, and our job in part is to reconstruct the  
book, which was already done to some degree in late manuscripts. Then  
again we would not really know whether a solecism was the fault of  
the amanuensis, or the actual dictation of the author. In many cases,  
as suggested below, we would also have to factor in aural confusion  
over vowels (e.g. O/W) and anything else susceptible to  
misunderstanding. True, we do that in textual criticism, but the goal  
there always is to reconstruct the autograph. If the autograph is a  
fallible transcript, then we might not have any reason to be  
meticulous in its reconstruction. Indeed, some scholars have said  
that we really do not know what has happened in the copying  
processes, so we should simply change the text to what makes the most  
sense.

I don't want to exaggerate the situation; even if the autographs are  
unreviewed transcripts, the great majority of the time there is  
really no doubt as to what the author is saying, provided that we are  
talking about actual dictation. Some scholars have gone so far as to  
suggest that the NT authors told their amanuenses, "I want to say  
such-and-such, now you go write it down and I'll sign it," meaning  
that the actual words really are the amanuensis's and not those of  
the author. If that were the case, then it might lower the finer  
points we discuss in b-greek to the level of trivia, though we would  
still enjoy them for love of the language.

It seems to come down in large part to what we assume about the  
author's attitude toward his own work. As Carl said, if the author is  
dashing off something like a quick email, then the solecisms are most  
likely errors on his part; i.e. we should use our good friend Occam's  
razor. In the case of Revelation, absent supernatural aid to John's  
memory, we can easily imagine him writing down the visions as fast as  
he can so as not to lose or miss anything. Then if we assume that he  
did not bother to review his work, it follows that any solecism is  
most likely an error due to haste. His use of an amanuensis would  
further complicate the situation. Thankfully in b-greek we do  
analysis for the sheer love of the language, so we don't have to  
worry about such issues.

I'll close with apologies to Carl for responding again when I told  
him privately that I was willing to consider the thread closed. Also  
I want to compliment him for the work of art he provided to b-greek  
as a response to my previous arguments, and I'm glad that a glitch in  
my email system compelled him to post it publicly. Also, I confess to  
him that no, I have not as yet read the work of Phrynichos of  
Bithynia, but I have greatly enjoyed the way Aristophanes plays with  
the language, and based on Carl's recommendation I will put  
Phrynichos on my agenda. I would also encourage everyone else to look  
at the works Carl has listed if at all possible, and take advantage  
of his expertise whenever he feels compelled, as in this case, to  
pull out all the stops and treat us to some of the wealth of his  
knowledge and experience.

Don Wilkins

On Aug 22, 2008, at 4:17 AM, Carl Conrad wrote:

>
> On Aug 22, 2008, at 2:29 AM, Leonard Jayawardena wrote:
>
>>
>> In chapter X, under "The Sentence," page 412, Robertson discusses
>> several examples of construction KATA SUNESIN involving participles
>> and remarks, "But in Rev. 21:14 [TO TEICOS ECWN] seems a mere slip."
>> Apparently, he would have considered ECON to be the correct
>> participle here to agree with the neuter noun TEICOS.
>>
>> TO TEICOS forms part of the holy city, new Jerusalem, in which, it
>> is said, God will tabernacle with his people (21:2ff).  The city is
>> said to be the lamb's wife (v. 9) with the twelve apostles being the
>> twelve foundation stones of the wall (TEICOS) of the city (v. 14).
>> From this and other details in the book and comparing with the rest
>> of the NT, we can conclude that the city represents the (NT) church.
>> Like the church the city is built by and made up of the believers,
>> with various parts of it representing the believers (cf. Rev. 3:12,
>> where Christ promises the church of Philadelphia that those who
>> overcome will be made a "pillar" in the temple of God).  If you
>> accept this much, then cannot ECWN, too, be explained in terms of
>> construction KATA SUNESIN (or constructio ad sensum)?
>>
>> Compare 21:14 with the following:
>>
>> 1. Rev. 4:7--TO TRITON ZWON ECWN.... Rev. 4:8--TO TESSARA ZWA, hEN
>> KAQ hEN AUTWN ECWN ... KAI ANAPAUSIN OUK ECOUSIN ... LEGONTES....
>> Rev. 6--LEGONTOS occurs in relation to the four living creatures in
>> vv. 1, 3, 5 and 7.  In all these cases masculine participles follow
>> neuter nouns. Here the four beasts represent the new creation (cf.
>> Galatians 6:15: KAINH KTISIS), which again is composed of the
>> believers.
>>
>> 2. Rev. 5:6--ARNION ... ECWN. ARNION represents Christ.
>>
>> 3. The first QHRION of Rev. 13 represents a man (cf. v. 18). AUTON
>> is used in v. 8 in reference to the beast. ECWN is used in relation
>> to the second beast in v. 14, which also represents a man.
>>
>> I am aware that some may have different interpretations for at least
>> some of the passages cited above but what I wish to know is that,
>> granting that the above interpretations are correct, would that not
>> provide a sufficient basis to clear up the alleged solecism in Rev.
>> 21:14?
>>
>> I'd like to know others' thoughts on this.
>
> I don't really know. I had an off-list response yesterday from Don
> Wilkins; for one thing, he picked up on one of the items from my
> lengthy message on solecisms yesterday: I'd said that I would guess
> that the author dictated to an amanuensis who originally put down what
> he was dictated on a wax tablet or papyrus, the assumption being that
> the completed text of the Apocalypse never went through a careful
> review and correction process at the hands of the original writer. I
> don't know whether that's true or not, but the state of the text seems
> (to me, at least) to be consistent with such an assumption. I had
> suggested that what appears, at least superficially, to be an
> unrevised original text is comparable to some of our longer e-mail
> messages that we are perhaps too eager to dispatch and must shake our
> heads at when we see them cited back at us in a response.
>
> Some of these instances cited do appear to be instances of constructio
> ad sensum or KATA SUNESIN: especially the use of a masculine form of
> the participle or pronooun for a neuter noun referring to a person. On
> the other hand, it seems to me that in a couple instances the author
> or amanuensis might have written ECWN for ECON simply because there
> was no difference in the sound of W and O in this era. The editors of
> the critical text evidently believed that the masculine participle
> ECWN stood in the original; I note that TR and MT both have ECON; that
> is to say, if the masculine form was original, subsequent scribes
> emended it to the neuter form.
>
> It's nice to have a searchable digitized text of ATR (Robertson's big
> grammar). While checking out what ATR has to say on "solecisms," I
> came across this characterization of "Johannine" style in Revelation.
> While ATR seems inclined to accept single authorship of gospel,
> letters, and apocalypse, I find more interesting the characterization
> of the Greek usage in Revelation: the final sentence of the paragraph
> below (cited by Robertson from Ramsay's Letters to the Seven Churches)
> strikes me as very nice, “... St. John had to choose between a more
> artificial kind of Greek, as perpetuated from past teaching, and the
> common vulgar speech, often emancipated from strict grammatical rules,
> but nervous and vigorous, a true living speech.”
>
>
> ATR, pp. 136-7 (from Chapter 4, "The Place of the Vernacular in the
> Koine"):	
> "The accusative, as in the vernacular κοινή KOINH (cf. modern
> Greek) has encroached upon other cases as with κατηγορεῖν
> (12:10). The participle is used freely and often absolutely in the
> nominative as ὁνικῶν (2:26). Most of the variations in case  
> are
> with the participle or in apposition, as ὁ μάρτυς hO MARTUS
> after Χριστοῦ CRISTOU (1:5). Moulton1 has called attention to
> the numerous examples of nominative apposition in the papyri,
> especially of the less educated kind. The old explanation of these
> grammatical variations was that they were Hebraisms, but Winer long
> ago showed the absurdity of that idea. It is the frequency of these
> phenomena that calls for remark, not any isolated solecism in the
> Apocalypse. Moulton denies that the Apocalypse has any Hebraisms. That
> is possibly going too far the other way, for the book is saturated
> with the apocalyptic images and phrases of Ezekiel and Daniel and is
> very much like the other Jewish apocalypses. It is not so much
> particular Hebraisms that meet us in the Apocalypse as the flavour of
> the LXX whose words are interwoven in the text at every turn. It is
> possible that in the Apocalypse we have the early style of John before
> he had lived in Ephesus, if the Apocalypse was written early. On the
> other hand the Apocalypse, as Bigg holds true [Page 137] of 2 Peter,
> may represent John’s real style, while the Gospel and Epistles may
> have been revised as to Greek idioms by a friend or friends of John in
> Ephesus (cf. Jo. 21:24). With this theory compare Josephus’ War and
> Antiquities. One is slow (despite Moffatt’s positiveness in the Exp.
> Gk. Test.), in the light of Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, to say that
> John could not have written the Apocalypse, though it be the last of
> his books. Besides what has been said one must recall that the
> Apocalypse was composed on the Isle of Patmos, in some excitement, and
> possibly without careful revision, while the Gospel and First Epistle
> probably had care and the assistance of cultured friends. At any rate
> the vernacular κοινή KOINH is far more in evidence in the
> Apocalypse than in the Gospel and Epistles. “As Dante had the choice
> between the accepted language of education, Latin, and the vulgar
> tongue, so St. John had to choose between a more artificial kind of
> Greek, as perpetuated from past teaching, and the common vulgar
> speech, often emancipated from strict grammatical rules, but nervous
> and vigorous, a true living speech.”
>
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
>
>
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