[B-Greek] Syntax of Rev 21:3e

Stephen Carlson stemmatic at gmail.com
Mon Mar 14 15:39:41 EDT 2011


I'll be going over Rev 21:1-7 in my Greek class on Thursday, and I've
found a syntactically confusing passage I'd appreciate your thoughts
on.  The sentence is the fifth clause of Rev 21:3, which reads as
follows:

καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ θεὸς μετ᾽ αὐτῶν ἔσται [αὐτῶν θεός],

KAI AUTOS hO QEOS MET' AUTWN ESTAI [AUTWN QEOS].

If we delete the bracketed portion, as do many manuscripts, the clause
seems fairly straight-forward: "and God himself will be with them."

With the bracketed portion, the syntax confuses me.  Many translations
add an "and": "and be their God," but I think this is cheating.  Other
possibilities are to take the bracketed portion as an appositive: "and
God himself will be with them, their God."

The commentaries I have consulted have not been too helpful.  Charles
(ICC) discussed various textual variants only to obelize the entire
clause (i.e., to mark it as corrupt).

What say the denizens of B-Greek?

Stephen
--
Stephen C. Carlson
Graduate Program in Religion
Duke University



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