Good Friday and 3:00 p.m., page 3

reply to post by Sigismundus

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I see you are in the same car crash as Not Yours...

Would that be the same "car crash" you refused to address according to Jewish reckoning and two Sabbaths?

THAT "car crash"?

reply to post by CLPrime

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Apparently Sigi thinks he is the only person on the planet who can read common Greek.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

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His first clue should probably have been the Greek under my name over there.

Originally posted by CLPrime
reply to post by NOTurTypical

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His first clue should probably have been the Greek under my name over there.

LOL, perhaps he thinks the order of the words is significant??

reply to post by NOTurTypical

Actually no, it's just such a hoot to hear all the ignorance spouted forth from 'believers' who cannot deal with shall we say, 'uncomforable' linguistic facts about all the different writings that were cobbled together so much later than the times of their writing into what they call 'the new testament' - as if 1st century Messianic Jews had anything 'scriptural' besides their own hebrew writings !

And it was also opined (ignorantly, again) that it was the self-same person who wrote the Apocalypse of Yohanon (whoever he was) AND e.g. the 1st Epistle of John the Elder (whoever he was) - which is linguistically impossible.

If CL Prime's Koine is so good (and he has shown ABSOLUTELY no evidence that it is) he and other apologists like him would be able to spot immediately the fact that e.g. the Apocalypse ('of Yohanon') is written in impossibly BAD Koine Greek (it's obviously written by a 1st century zionist palestinian priestly-messianist (or a group of them, like the Dead Sea Scroll Zadokites) who lived during the middle of the 1st century, dealing with the failing/failed Jewish War against Rome (66-72 CE) - the author is thinking in terms of Aramaic and Hebrew poetical forms and vocabulary - the book is a hotchpotch of Hebraisms and Aramaisms which make no sense at all when 'literally' translated into Koine...and full of Hebrew Scriptural referents (including the Apocrypha and Pseudipigrapha too alla the Dead Sea Scrolls !) which are NOT the standard LXX Greek OT (in common use AFTER the Jewish War among Palestinian born Jews, specifically after CE 100) but the OT & other Hebrew textual referents are taken from the Aramaic Targum paraphrases not unlike the Greek translations of Symmachus and Theodotion and also Aquilla who used a Palestinian based Hebrew Vorlage textual underlay...

Whereas the anonymous 'John the Elder' (whoever he was) who is attached to the e.g. the 1st Epistle of John the Elder lived much later (c. 110-120 CE) and has a VASTLY different Weltanschauung and and far more impressive and fluid Koine Greek Style - it was penned by an individual who WAS THINKING IN GREEK and had not problem expressing himself in Greek at all (unlike the writer of the Apocalypse !!) - moreover, the writer of1 John used NO Aramaisms and only one OT referent taken from the later versions of the LXX Septuaginta - which shows that the author was a Diaspora Greek Speaking Jew (like Saul of Tarsus) who thought and wrote primarily in Greek and quoted the OT in the LXX Diaspora versions - unlike the author of the Apocalypse who was writing Hebrew and Aramaic Poetry with referents taken from the Hebrew & Aramaic Targums circulating in Palestine in the middle first century CE - which was then badly translated by an amateur.

The diffrences in style between the two writings cannot be over emphasised - it would be like confusing the modern American slang style of horror writer Stephen King with the plays attriibuted to Shakespeare - if one cannot tell the difference in style and content and phrase length and Weltanschauung, and theology, and diction, and syntax and word order and vocabulary ad 'pet phrases and words' etc. between Shakespeare's plays (say Hamlet and Lear) and the style of e.g. The Shining - then one would HAVE TO DOUBT that the individual thinking the same person wrote all of these did not have a very clear grasp of the American and English languages - he might not even know there WAS a difference say between British English of the late 16th century and American English horror writing of the late 20th century !

The fact that CL cannot spot the difference in the Koine Greek style of utterance and in Weltanschauung and in vocabulary and in actual contents and in theology etc. between the smooth Greek of 1 John (without Aramaisms) and the clunky baby-Greek of the writer of the Apocalypse (saturated in Aramaisms) shows me that he is not particualy conversant with Greek style - at least to any advanced degree...

Clear as mud?

Even a person who cannot even read Koine should be able to spot these differences EVEN IN BAD MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS !!!!

reply to post by Sigismundus

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Even if it were true that the Greek of Revelation is as bad as you say, you might want to blame the translator for that, not John. Like I said, considering John's audience (as stated, mid-first-century Christians in Asia Minor), it was likely that he wrote in Aramaic, which would explain the Aramaic and Hebrew references (which really aren't all that numerous - I can only think of 2). There are as many Greek references, so I'm not sure what the existence of Hebraisms is supposed to prove.

We could, on the other hand, explain it by saying that John's Epistles were written with forethought. John had enough time to sit down and write these letter. The Revelation, however, was written in haste - evidently, while John was experiencing the vision. You would probably write in messy English, yourself, if you were quickly jotting down such an epic set of events.

You're also not taking into account the differing contexts of Revelation and the Epistles with respect to their content and the use of Hebraisms. John's Epistles are straight-forward, with no cause to use such words, whereas Revelation is classic apocalyptic literature using grandiose imagery to symbolize coming events. It makes reference to other apocalyptic narratives - entirely from the Old Testament, which, of course, was written in Hebrew and Aramaic. If John wrote in Greek, he certainly made use of Hebraisms for their connection to specific prophecies, events, and characters in the Old Testament. Armageddon, for example, which would have no significance in Greek, but has a lot of significance when referenced in Hebrew. Again, note that John (or his translator) used Hellenisms in a similar way when it served him - specifically, in proclaiming that Jesus is the alpha and the omega.

And, on top of all of that, I still don't know what you think is so bad with John's Greek in Revelation. All I can think of is his tendency to switch between Perfect, Present, and Aorist tenses where no such switch seems called for, but that's it. It leaves a strictly literal English translation a little awkward, but nothing too out of the ordinary.
That's really all I can think of.
This is really only apparent in Revelation's dialogue ("they said," "and he says to me," etc.), so I'm not surprised that such inconsistencies don't appear in his Epistles. However, this does happen to appear in the dialogue of John's Gospel - in particular, the use of both Present and Aorist Indicative almost interchangeably.

reply to post by CLPrime
Hi CL

You Wrote:
QUOTE
“… I still don't know what you think is so bad with John's Greek in Revelation. All I can think of is his tendency to switch between Perfect, Present, and Aorist tenses where no such switch seems called for, but that's it. It leaves a strictly literal English translation a little awkward, but nothing too out of the ordinary. That's really all I can think of….”
UNQUOTE

Actually there is A LOT more if you look at the earliest Greek MSS - the only way you could miss the bad syntax is if you are ONLY looking at ‘cleaned up Greek text versions’ a la Aland & Nestle who deliberately hide the Greek textual mess from believers by sweeping them under their reconstructed 'text-carpet’ !

The main issue pertaining to the ‘stinky Greek’ of the Apocalypse of Yohanon (whoever he was) is what is known as the Solecism = a grammatico-syntactial disagreement in number, case & gender between e.g. a noun & its adjective or modifier – which in Koine Greek (as in Latin) must all match – Hebrew & Aramaic are less strict about it, especially the oral (i.e. spoken) varieties.

Here are a few ‘Greek Grammatical Howlers’ to look over in the mangled text copies (no two of which are alike) of the socalled Apocalypse– apparently the later scribes all tried in different ways to fix the author’s poor grasp of the language – unlike the author of the Johanine Epistles (1, 2 and 3 John) a Diaspora Jew whose native language reflected in the smooth Greek-thinking Epistles was clearly Koine Greek from birth, like Saul of Tarsus was.

‘Behold I have set before you an open door whom no one is able to close it…’ This is NOT the way Greeks wrote or spoke, but the Semitic construction works very well in Aramaic – we see it in the Targums all over the place, and the author of the Book of ‘Revelation’ quotes from (his own?) rough Greek translations of the Targumim more than he does the LXX Septuaginta.

‘And the lady ran into the Desert there where she had a home.’

Again, stinky Greek, but acceptable Aramaic. The author does not have a clear grasp on Greek syntax even to know that he is perpetrating syntactical errors that no native Greek speaker would ever use – certainly the author of the Epistles would not be so careless. Naturally later copies fix the error in different ways – but the earlier copies leave it as is…

Here is one in 2:20: “But I have against you that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, the one calling herself a prophetess and she teaches and deceives my servants—τὴν γυναῖκα Ἰεζάβελ ἡ λέγουσα ἑαυτὴν προφῆτιν καὶ διδάσκει καὶ πλανᾷ τοὺς ἐμοὺς δούλους.” = as found in א* A C 2053 2329 and (pauci = ‘a few’ others).

There are two problems grammatically: 1st: since γυναῖκαis feminine accusative, any inflectable modifiers have to be feminine accusative : ἡ λέγουσα isn’t. It IS a Solecism.

2nd: the sentence has a participle and two finite verbs: “the one who calling herself a prophetess and she teaches and she deceives.”

Only a few manuscripts have the original reading – most later scribes changed the text in their own way to avoid ‘the howlers’


See 7:4 – where the substantive in the genitive (possessive case) is modified by a participle in the nominative case – a grammatical howler which is impossible in Greek.

Also: 20:2 – where there is a dependent in the nominative case which is trying to modify a noun in the Accusative case – something any Greek speaking child would know not to do – but it is acceptable in oral Aramaic idiom.

1:4 has a bad one in Greek that is acceptable in Hebrew/Aramaic – literally, the Greek is impossible : it says
‘Grace to you and Peace from he who is and THE HE WAS and he who coming’ –

which is a little like a little Mexican boy trying to speak English, without knowing he is not doing a very good job of it (‘here come Teacher and he big share sit’ = meaning, ‘The teacher just came in and promptly sat down in his large chair’) etc.

One can guess what is trying to be said (e.g. ‘Grace and Peace to you from Him who Is and Him who Was and Him who is to Come…’ or ‘Grace & Peace to you from Him who is timeless from all Eternity’ etc.
but the author’s Greek is not up to snuff. ‘from the he-was’ is neither Greek nor even modern American slang !

The author of the Johanine Epistles writes like an old, crusty ordered, pedantic, (read: boring) adult Jewish-Greek rhetorician – whereas the author of ‘Revelation’ writes in a totally different style – with fast-paced action-packed sequences like a Hollywod screenwriter with ‘cliffhangers’ - with one scene quickly (& sloppily !) following on the heels of another even more colourful scene.

Computer analysis also show us the use of the word KAI ('and') which is different in the book of Revelation (used alot - in poetical form) to start a sentence phrase - the Epistles this is done very very rarely.

Want more? I got lots !

reply to post by Sigismundus

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At least you're finally giving me examples, rather than just prejudicially slandering the text without any sort of proof. That's what I wanted from the start.
I'll take some time (probably most of the day) and go over what you said.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by Sigismundus

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I see you are in the same car crash as Not Yours...

Would that be the same "car crash" you refused to address according to Jewish reckoning and two Sabbaths?

THAT "car crash"?

Here Sigi ^^^^


Recompute according to Jewish reckoning and two Sabbath days.

reply to post by CLPrime

Hi again CL:

You wrote: QUOTE

"At least you're finally giving me examples, rather than just prejudicially slandering the text without any sort of proof. That's what I wanted from the start. I'll take some time (probably most of the day) and go over what you said...."

UNQUOTE

The Grammatico-Syntactical Greek ‘howlers’ in the book of Revelation did not escape a 3rd Century Bishop of Alexandria called ‘Dionysius’ (Pope of Alexandria 248-265CE) , whose frank comments about this conundrum between the weird Greek style of the Apocalypse & the far more educated polished staid Greek style of 1 John (called The Epistle) &the 4th Gospel (attributed to the same writer or the group around John the Elder) were quoted by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History some 70 years later (See Hist Ecc 7.25)

QUOTE :

“Also, it can also be easily shown that the overall Diction of the Gospel and the Epistle of 1 John differs substantially from the Greek style of the Apocalypse – for the Gospel and Epistle were written quite free of any Greek grammatical errors – & were penned with a certain amount of grace and stylistic elegance, and also in their formal layouts and internal logic not like the Apocalypse at all

It is clear that in the Gospel and in the Epistle of 1 John these two writings, the author was very careful to avoid including any grammatical Solecisms (q.v.) or any other verbal barbarisms or expressions which tend towards vulgarity. It is clear that the writer of the Gospel and the Epistle had a certain Gift of literary Style and Expression, coupled with the Gift of Knowledge – for the Lord (ho Kurios) had bestowed upon him both of these things in great abundance.

Yet even though I can accept that the Other Writer of the Apocalypse saw a Revelation of sorts, and received there from a certain amount of mystical-Gnosis as well as Prophecy – yet, I must say that I can discern that his own peculiar Greek accent & his awkward handling of the language as a whole in his Book shows that he was not able to write Greek correctly--that is grammatically-speaking.

For it is clear that his writing is replete with shameful barbaric idioms & his work is strewn with Blatant Grammatical Solecisms all over the place.

I had hoped that it would have been quite un-necessary for me to have to point all of this out here – for I don’t wish to give the impression that I spoke in a spirit of Derogation – my only purpose in raising this issue is simply to point out as clearly as possible the blatant differences that exist between these 2 sets of Writings…”

Also the same Dionysius stated that there were two Christian leaders named John & 2 Tombs in Ephesus that bear the name John, both revered by Christians.

Eusebius, also in his Ecclesiastical History, quotes the early Bishop Papias, writing c. CE 125:

“And if any man happened to come who had actually been a follower of the Elders, I would enquire as to the discourses of these Elders.

That is to say, I would enquire into exactly what Andrew or what Peter had preached, or all the words attributed to Philip, or what Thomas or James, or what the Apostle John or Matathiah or any of the Disciples of the Lord had preached - and also the things which Aristion and John the Elder, both of whom were also disciples of the Lord, had said... “

Papias is distinguishing the ‘Apostolos’ John from ‘John the Elder’ and even mentions ARISTION (!!!) as a Disciple of ho Iesous – possibly the Elder & Aristion were of the ‘70’ i.e. minor apostoloi (i.e. ‘sent ones’ - marked off ’ two by two’ to announce the arrival of the Teacher…as sort of an advance press release)

And since you actually seem to be serious about looking at all this in detail here are some more grammatical ‘howlers’ for you to take a closer look at in the Book of Revelation – all of which show quite another mind altogether at work (we’ll discuss the actual CONTENT-THEOLOGICAL differences between 1 John and 'Revelation' later - & there are many ! ) :

Rev 1:4 HO WN HO HN KAI HO ERXOMENOS – which last word is in the Nominative Case when it strictly requires a Genitive (ERXOMENOU).

And Rev 1:5 APO IHSOU XRISTOU – (the first half of the sentence correctly placed into the Genitive Case) but followed by a string of impossible Nominatives that SHOULD be ALL Genetives following APO = (HO MARTUS, HO PISTOS, HO PROTOKOS) as if the writer is making up Greek as he goes along – but (again) it is permissible in Hebrew & Aramaic poetry.

Here are some other textual facts : unlike the rest of the NT, there are very few ancient copies among the Greek MSS for 'Revelation' - & no 2 copies exactly alike (there is a version of the book found each in : Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph) Codex Ephraemi Palimpsest [C] and Codex Alexandrinus and some papyri e.g. p18, p24, p47, p85, p98, p115 etc. but is totally missing from Codex B, D, W and CM.

reply to post by Sigismundus

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Alrighty...for the sake of full disclosure, I just got back from speaking with a good friend of mine who, admittedly, has much more experience with Greek than I do (though only because he's about 30 years older). Though, that also means his Greek is a little rusty...so my Greek may, in fact, be better than his at this point. But I never like doing anything of this nature without secondary input. So, he and I went over your examples. Of the ones you cited earlier, we only had a real issue with one of them...

In the relevant section of Revelation 1:4, the Alexandrian Greek (Codex Sinaiticus) reads:

εἰρήνη ἀπὸ ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος

Literally, this says, "Peace from the one existing and the one existed and the one coming." Or, alternatively (and less literally), it could be translated, "Peace from he who is and he who was and he who is coming," which happens to be how I translated it in the original translation of mine I mentioned before.

This, of course, doesn't match how you say it reads. Do you have access to an older manuscript that reads differently?

The rest, of course, are legitimate. I knew they were as soon as you listed them, I just had to make sure they were actually present in the Greek - sorry, but I don't trust you enough to trust that you won't lie about what's there in the Greek.


Now, I want you to actually consider for a moment the differing contexts of John's Gospel and Epistles and the Revelation.

John's Epistles - written either before or after the Revelation (that certainly narrows it down; anywhere from ca. AD 65-95, probably nearer the AD 65-80 range) both in and to Ephesus.
John's Gospel - written probably after the Revelation (so, ca. AD 70-80) both in and to Ephesus.
Revelation - written at some point during the reign of Vespasian (ca. AD 69-79, probably nearer AD 70, not long after the destruction of Jerusalem) on the island of Patmos.

John's original language was Aramaic. This is evident even in the Gospel of John, which has many indications of having been written by someone born Aramaic and recently-accustomed to Greek.
John's Epistles, however (as you say), show a very fluent knowledge of Greek. This would indicate either one of two things: 1) either the Epistles were written later, once John had become much more fluent in Greek; 2) or they were written early and, because of this, John used a Greek ghost writer to pen his letters. (It doesn't matter which we choose, they both fit and neither has any doctrinal significance.)

That leaves us with a perfectly valid conclusion as far as Revelation is concerned: writing to seven Greek-speaking churches in Asia Minor while he was still very unaccustomed to the language, John wrote hastily while experiencing the vision and, consequently, made many grammatical mistakes.

This fits perfectly with what we know of the apostle John and his (five) works.
But, of course, your convoluted theories of authorship are possible, too. It's just a matter of God's divinely inspired Word versus a heap of pointless trash. But you interpret it as you wish.


ETA:

And by the way...in my own translation, I translated Revelation 12:6 as, "And the woman ran away to the wilderness, where she has, there, a place prepared away from God, that they fatten her there a thousand two-hundred sixty days."
So, I did notice the redundancy.

reply to post by CLPrime

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One issue friend:

Revelation - written at some point during the reign of Vespasian (ca. AD 69-79, probably nearer AD 70, not long after the destruction of Jerusalem) on the island of Patmos.

Irenaeus says John received the vision of the Apocalypse at the end on Domitian's reign, and there was no church at Laodecia until about 85 AD.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

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Irenaeus says John was seen at the end of Domitian's reign. The subject of Irenaeus' previous statements is John, therefore the subject of the statement in question is also John, not the vision (which is the object of his previous statement).


Paul mentions the church at Laodicea in his letter to the Colossians, which he wrote ca. AD 58. Obviously, it was around then. It was destroyed by the earthquake in the early 60s, but it was soon rebuilt using the church's own wealth (which would have been the reason Jesus told them, in Revelation 3:17, "For you say, ‘Because I am rich and prosperous, I need nothing,’ but you don’t know that you are the miserable, and pitiful, and poor, and blind, and naked"). The church at Laodicea would certainly have existed between AD 69 and 79; and, regardless, just because their building was destroyed, that doesn't mean they stopped gathering as a church (the church is definitely not the building).

reply to post by NOTurTypical


Hi NOT

You wrote: QUOTE

"Irenaeus says John received the vision of the Apocalypse at the end on Domitian's reign, and there was no church at Laodecia until about 85 AD. "

UNQUOTE

On what are you basing the assumption that Laodaecia did not possess a Jewish Diaspora Synagogue until 85 CE ...?" Hear-say? Did not the 'circulatory' Epistle attributed to Saul of Tarsus (or his circle of Paulinists c. 60 CE) in a rewritten document (sometimes called 'Ephesians') circulate in the 60's under the title 'Paul to the Laodeceans' ?

Laodikeia epi Luceon (upon Lyceos) = Diospolis (Zeupolis = City of Zeus Piter) founded 261-253 BCE by the ‘divine god-ruler’ (Syro-Greek) Antiochus II ho Theos of Syria after the name of his wife Laodike and was a major banking center - later ruled by the Kingdom of Pergamon – and in 133 BCE passed to the Romans and the orator Cicero (c. 50 BCE) served as Governor there where he polished up his Greek rhetorical training – destroyed by an earthquake in 60 CE, and rebuilt entirely from their central banking coffers without outside help. (Tacitus : Annals 14:27)

Because of its lying on the major trade-routes (the source of its banking wealth was its location along this trade-route) naturally Judaeans (no strangers to banking) began settling into the area and building Greek speaking Diaspora Synagogues for worship as early as 200 BCE - with approximately 2,000 Syrian &-Jewish-Diaspora families (many Laodeceans were actually circumcised goyim converts to Judaeism and goyim-uncircumcised godfearers (or gentiles intermarried with Jews) attending their synagogues)..

So I’m not sure where you are getting this fanciful idea that there were ‘no-Jews’ (i.e. to convert to Pauline Christianity) in Zeupolis-Laodikeia before 80 CE from -

Certainly Saul of Tarsus preached in many of the Asia Minor Diaspora Synagogues, and all of them had a contingent of Apocalyptic Messianic Hopers (if not this Messiah, that one) for a restoration of the Davvids in Palestine and the conquoring of the Roman Occupiers then all the goyim worldwide....and they were all fairly well connected in Asia minor by the outbreak of the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome (66-72 CE) which started at the 70th anniversary of the death of Herod ('the great') in 4 BCE.

The Apocalypse shows every trace of being originally compiled (possibly from an older Jewish apocalypse) during a break in the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome (69 CE) following the death of Nero and before Titus and Vespasian began their nasty work of extermination - the Book still rings loudly the clarion call of 'kill all the sinful goyim occupiers in the Land of Eretz Yisro'el !' - as if there were still hope of exterminating the gentiles and dragging them into a New Jerusalem ruled by righteous end of days zionists !

reply to post by Sigismundus

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On what are you basing the assumption that Laodaecia did not possess a Jewish Diaspora Synagogue until 85 CE ...?

The earthquake that leveled the city around 60 AD. And it taking them many years to rebuild.

The place often suffered from earthquakes, especially from the great shock in the reign of Nero (60 AD), in which it was completely destroyed.

Laodecia on the Lycus

Sorry, I'm an Occam's razor type, saves countless hours of scholastic indoctrination. The displaced Laodecians were at the nearby church at Ephesus when their city was destroyed. Later, when John wrote revelation they were back in Laodecia and had a "church" to write to.

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