Re: Revelation and Fourth Gospel

From: Otto Nordgreen (otto.nordgreen@iba-stud.uio.no)
Date: Sat Jun 21 1997 - 15:15:14 EDT


Dear Debbie,

You wrote:

>I'm creeping out of the shadows to ask the experts on here for an opinion.
> I have been looking at these two books and am inclined to agree with the
>opinion that the Greek used is pretty convincing evidence that the Revelation
>was not written by the Evangelist. Can anybody comment on the pros and cons
>of this position? I still find Greek difficult and have limited confidence
>that I have made a valid judgement.

I am most certainly no expert (alas!!), still I would like to share my
opinion (!) with you. I find it hard to believe that the same (wo)man wrote
both Rev and Joh; but that does not mean that the two works necessarily are
from two different sources! According to Irenaeus, Rev and Joh have the
same author. I think this might be the case; if we allow for a liberal
meaning of authorship... But there is no way of being certain. I do however
trust Irenaeus on the quetsion of the date of Rev; and I see no reason not
to trust him on the question of its authorship. I do, however, understand
those who reject any relation between Rev and John (see. E. Schuessler
Fiorenza).

It might be that John wrote Rev himself; he might have had some secretary /
-ies (that knew Greek better) when he 'wrote' (1-3) Joh. On this subject
you should at least consult the works by O. Boecher; he has quite recently
written (at least) two great essays on the thematic parallels between Rev
and Joh. Basically, I think John very well can be the mind behind both Joh
and Rev. And I think he actually wrote Rev. That could explain its bad (or
very special) Greek.

O. Boecher is a very fine Rev scholar!

Sincerely,

Otto Nordgreen
Student at Dept. of Germanic Studies,
University of Oslo, Norway



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