[B-Greek] Revelation 14:4--PARQENOI GAR EISIN

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Sep 5 06:37:10 EDT 2008


On Sep 5, 2008, at 6:10 AM, Leonard Jayawardena wrote:

>
> 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

BDAG s.v. PARQENOS (B) notes several instances of usage of the noun  
for men:
======
	b. male virgin ὁ παρθένος [hO PARAQENOS] virgin, chaste man  
(CIG IV, 8784b; JosAs 8:1 uses π. of Joseph; Pel.-Leg. 27, 1 uses it  
of Abel; Suda of Abel and Melchizedek; Nonnus of the apostle John, who  
is also called ‘virgo’ in the Monarchian Prologues [Kl. T. 12 1908,  
p. 13, 13]) Rv 14:4 (on topical relation to 1 En 15:2–7 al., s.  
DOlson, CBQ 59, ’97, 492–510).—JFord, The Mng. of ‘Virgin’,  
NTS 12, ’66, 293–99.—B. 90. New Docs 4, 224–27. DELG. M-M.  
EDNT. TW. Spicq. Sv.
======

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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