Rev 17:4

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Alan Patterson
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Joined: September 3rd, 2011, 7:21 pm
Location: Emory University

Rev 17:4

Post by Alan Patterson »

καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἡ περιβεβλημένη πορφύρᾳ καὶ κόκκινῳ, καὶ κεχρυσωμένη χρυσῷ καὶ λίθῳ τιμίῳ καὶ μαργαρίταις ἔχουσα χρυσοῦν ποτήριον ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτῆς γέμον βδελυγμάτων καὶ ἀκάθαρτητος πορνείας αὐτῆς

I am sure this text has been discussed before but I would like to know about the word ἀκάθαρτητος. I've read where this word is unattested in ancient Greek literature. Is it a possible word or is it a mistake? I recall Paul occasionally inventing/creating new words; would this be an instance of John creating a new word or does the word make perfect sense the way it appears in the Textus Receptus?
χαρις υμιν και ειρηνη,
Alan Patterson
cwconrad
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Re: Rev 17:4

Post by cwconrad »

Alan Patterson wrote:καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἡ περιβεβλημένη πορφύρᾳ καὶ κόκκινῳ, καὶ κεχρυσωμένη χρυσῷ καὶ λίθῳ τιμίῳ καὶ μαργαρίταις ἔχουσα χρυσοῦν ποτήριον ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτῆς γέμον βδελυγμάτων καὶ ἀκάθαρτητος πορνείας αὐτῆς

I am sure this text has been discussed before but I would like to know about the word ἀκάθαρτητος. I've read where this word is unattested in ancient Greek literature. Is it a possible word or is it a mistake? I recall Paul occasionally inventing/creating new words; would this be an instance of John creating a new word or does the word make perfect sense the way it appears in the Textus Receptus?
I hesitated a bit before deciding to respond to this. It's true that the TR has what appears to be the genitive of a 3d-declension abstract noun ἀκαθάρτης in Rev 17:4. Curiously enough, that reading has support from only one MS (if I read the aparratus correctly) and may very well be a back translation into Greek from the Latin vulgate's immunditiae. But it is also true that the word doesn't seem attested elsewhere in Greek literature (ἐρευνᾶτε τὰς γραφάς, ὦ φίλοι!) -- and really has no reason to be. One might theoretically expect such an abstract noun to be ἀκαθαρότης (-τητος) based upon the adjectival stem kαθαρο-, but not on the stem of the verbal adjective ἀκάθαρτος. By contrast the word ἀκαθαρσία appears 10x in the GNT, and would work very well here if the author had intended a noun meaning "uncleanness."
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

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