[B-Greek] Revelation 14:4--PARQENOI GAR EISIN
Leonard Jayawardena
leonardj at live.com
Fri Sep 5 06:10:48 EDT 2008
Revelation 14:4: hOUTOI EISIN hOI META GUNAIKWN OUK EMOLUNQHSAN, PARQENOI GAR EISIN, hOUTOI hOI AKOLOUQOUNTES TW ARNIW....
An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon based on the seventh edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon has the following under PARQENOS: "... as masc., [PARQENOS, hO], an unmarried man, N.T. (Deriv. unknown.)."
This part of the dictionary entry must be based on the use of this word in Revelation 14:4 as the word unambiguously refers to females in the rest of the NT. Actually, the use of PARQENOI in the above verse is metaphorical, being based on the NT teaching that the NT church, represented by the 144,000, is the "bride" and "wife" of Christ. Paul writes, ZHLW GAR hUMAS QEOU ZHLW hHRMOSUNHN GAR hUMAS hENI ANDRI PARQENON hAGNHN PARASTHSAI TWi CRISTWi. In Revelation itself the church is called the lamb's NUMFH and GUNH (19:7;21:9). This itself is based on the similar relationship between God and Israel of the OT. PARQENOS as used of the church in Rev. 14:4, which is the heavenly city of Jerusalem (Rev. 21:9ff; Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 12:22), is the antonym of the PORNH of Rev. 17, who represents the earthly city (of imperial Rome, as I understand).
The use of the plural PARQENOI in Rev. 14:4 implies that each member of the church is also a virgin spiritually. This is analogous to the church being called the temple of God when her members are viewed as working as a team towards the goal of building a habitation for God in the spirit (Ephesians 2:19ff) , while each individual member is also the temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19), the latter of which in fact is the ultimate reality.
In view of the foregoing, the meaning of PARQENOS as an "unmarried man" in the above-mentioned dictionary entry is based on a wrong interpretation of Rev. 14:4. I'd like to know whether PARQENOS is ever used in ancient Greek literature in reference to unmarried males. Leonard JayawardenaSri Lanka
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