Notes on the New Testament, Explanatory and Practical: Revelation — John Shaqi
Notes on the New Testament, Explanatory and Practical: RevelationBarnes, Albert
Religion
Notes on the New Testament, Explanatory and Practical: Revelation
Barnes, Albert
Bible. New Testament -- Commentaries; Bible. Revelation -- Commentaries
“The book is deficient in words and turns of expression purely Greek,
such as πάντοτε, πώποτε, οὐδέποτε; compound verbs, as ἀναγγέλλειν,
παραλαμβάνειν, ἐπιβάλλειν; the double negation; the genitive absolute;
the attraction of the relative pronoun; the regular construction of
the neuter plural with the verb singular (except chap. viii. 3; ix. 20;
xiv. 13; xviii. 24; xix. 14; xxi. 12); ἀκούειν with the genitive.
Favourite expressions, such as occur in the Gospel and Epistles, are
seldom found, as θεάομαι, θεωρέω, ἐργάζομαι, ῥήματα, πάλιν, φωνεῖν,
μένειν, καθώς, ὡς (an adverb of time), οὖν, μέν, μέντοι, κόσμος, φῶς,
σκοτία, δοξάζεσθαι, ὑψοῦσθαι, ζωὴ αἰώνιος, ἀπόλλυσθαι, οὗτος (τοῦτο)
ἵνα; the historic present. There are also favourite expressions of the
writer of the book, such as do not occur in John’s authentic writings:
οἰκουμένη, ὑπομονή, κρατεῖν τὸ ὄνομα, τὴν διδαχήν, παντοκράτωρ, θεὸς
καὶ πατήρ, δύναμις, κράτος, ἰσχύς, τιμή, πρωτότοκος τῶν νεκρῶν, ἡ ἀρχή
τῆς κτίσεως τοῦ θεοῦ, ὁ ἄρχων τῶν βασιλέων τῆς γῆς, ὧδε in the beginning
of a sentence. The conjunction εἰ, so common in the Gospel, does not
occur in the Apocalypse; but only εἰ μή, εἰ δὲ μή, and εἴ τις. The
frequent joining of a substantive with μέγας, as φωνὴ μεγάλη, θλίψις
μεγάλη, φόβος μέγας, σεισμὸς μέγας, rather reminds one of Luke than
John; μείζων, so frequent in the Gospel, is not found in the Revelation;
and, on the contrary, ἰσχυρός, which occurs seven times in the
Apocalypse, is foreign to the Gospel.
“The following discrepancies between the language of the Gospel and
that of the Epistles have been noticed: ἀληθινός is used of God both
in the Gospel and the Apocalypse, but in different senses; so also
κύριος, and ἐργάζομαι; instead of ἴδε the Apocalypse has only ἰδού;
instead of Ἱεροσόλυμα only Ἱερουσαλήμ; instead of ἐάν τις, as in the
Gospel, εἴ τις; περί, so often used by John, occurs only once in the
Apocalypse, and that too in relation to place; ὄχλος is {xlii} used in
the plural. Words denoting _seeing_ are differently used in the Gospel
and Apocalypse; thus, for the present we find in the latter βλέπειν,
θεωρεῖν, ὁρᾶν; for the aorist of the active εἶδον, βλέπειν, and
θεωρεῖν; for the future ὄπτεσθαι, and for the aorist of the passive
also ὄπτεσθαι; μένειν has a different meaning from that which it bears
in the Gospel; instead of ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου, and ὁ πονηρός, we find
ὁ σατανᾶς, ὁ διάβολος, ὁ δράκων ὁ μέγας.
“Such is a summary statement of an argument drawn out at great length
by Lücke, De Wette, Ewald, and Credner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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