[b-greek] RE: Rev 22:1-2

From: Iver Larsen (alice-iver_larsen@wycliffe.org)
Date: Sun Jan 21 2001 - 16:38:34 EST


> Dear Iver,
> What do you mean that the *only reasonable suggestion* is a conjoining of
> two sentences? What is wrong with the conjoining of "of its street" and "of
> the river."

You are right, that was an overstatement and quite unnecessary. I'd like to
withdraw it.

> >a full stop at the end of v. 2, but I do not know their arguments for such an
> >interpretation. As I said above almost all translations, including UBS ones,
> >disagree.)
>
> Do you mean at the end of verse 1? Earlier you were talking about the break
> between verse 1 and verse 2

Yes, a typo.

It is certainly a difficult verse with some awkward constructions, but I still
think the evidence for the interpretation which is followed by the majority of
translations is most likely to be correct. Let me give the reasons as I see
them:
(1) In v. 1 the angel shows John a river (or stream) of life-giving water. The
topic is this special river and the imagery has much in common with Ezekiel 47,
especially v. 1 and 12. This river is described by several appositions, first,
it is bright as crystal, second its course is described by one or probably two
prepositional phrases: (a) its origin is the throne and (b) its course is the
middle of the wide street. The KAI and the fronted TOU POTAMOU brings the reader
back to the topic, the river, and it is further described as having a life-tree
on this and that side which produces twelve (kinds or crops) of fruit, renewed
every month.
(2) If there were a sentence break at the end of v. 1, the next sentence would
start with a prepositional phrase without any other sentence connector. This may
not be impossible, but seems very unusual in the light of normal Greek structure
and the style of Revelation. There is no apparent reason why the prepositional
phrase should be fronted to focus position and the lack of a sentence connector
is strange. It is not just a matter of looking at the beginning of sentences,
but looking at the whole structure of the sentences and the flow.
(3) The word MESOS does not seem to have the meaning "between", at least not in
its NT occurrences. BAG translates the phrase here as "through the middle of the
street", although they cite a passage from Lucian to indicate that the word may
possibly mean "between" with two genitives. According to L&N the normal word for
"between" is METAXU and they give the following meaning for MESOS: "a position
in the middle of an area (either an object in the midst of other objects or an
area in the middle of a larger area) - ‘in the middle, in the midst.’" In Rev
5:6 there is a similar expression with EN MESWi followed by two genitives and
then another EN MESWi followed by one genitive. One could imagine that the first
of these meant "between the throne and the four living creatures" as indeed some
translations render it. The problem with this is that Rev 4:6 describes the four
living creatures as being around the (center of) the throne and it is difficult
to imagine a space between a point and four points encircling it. It is more
likely that "the throne and the four living beings" is here considered as a
unit. That is why NIV translates it as "in the center of the throne, encircled
by the four living creatures."
(4) If we take the interpretation "between" and say "between its wide street and
the river from here and from there" I cannot make sense of "from here and from
there." Maybe you can suggest how to handle this? (The newest Danish translation
from 1992 has taken your position, but I must admit that the result is a
sentence that does not make sense in Danish. They say: "In the middle, with the
street on one side and the river on the other, stands the tree of life." But it
does not make sense to say "in the middle" without specifying an object.)
(5) I would like to see support for the hypothesis that the anarthrous XYLON
ZWHS can be understood and translated as "the tree of life" rather than "a tree
of life." I admit that the other occurrences of "the tree of life", all with the
article, seem to support that there was only one tree. However, in Ezekiel there
were many trees. It seems to be not in focus whether there was one or many, but
that it was a life-giving tree that all people would have access to. If that
access necessitated a number of trees, so be it. I don't think the text is clear
on whether there is one or more trees, although I consider it most likely from
the Greek of v. 2 that there was one on each side.
(6) I would think the expression ENTEUQEN KAI EKEIQEN (from here and from there)
is different from ENTEUQEN KAI ENTEUQEN in John 19:18. The near and far
perspective makes sense to me in the context of the near and far side of a river
in relation to the speaker.

As with other difficult passages, we can probably not come to any conclusion. It
is good place to put one interpretation in the text and the other in a footnote.

Thanks for listening,
Iver Larsen
Kolding, Denmark
alice-iver_larsen@wycliffe.org


---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu




This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:36:48 EDT