Re: Grammatical errors in Revelation?

From: Jim West (jwest@Highland.Net)
Date: Sun May 16 1999 - 22:47:46 EDT


At 06:43 PM 5/16/99 -0700, you wrote:

>
>(2) I'm not so sure that the author of Revelation writes "bad Greek."

I disagree. If we, for a moment, forget that the book is found in the canon
of scripture, and grade it simply on its merits as a greek document, we can
surely agree that it does not measure up very highly as a competent
construction. It is only ideology which keeps us from such an assertion.
In this case, it is the ideology, spoken or not, that since it is a biblical
document it must be good.

>For years, some have claimed that the Gospel of Mark contains "bad
>Greek." Recent research has shown otherwise.

Please give examples. I would like to check this supposition out.

>While it is true that
>there are apparent anacolutha in Revelation, its quite possible that
>the seemingly "bad Greek" is nothing more than natural and good
>Hebraism.

Whether or not hebraisms or semiticisms are involved has no bearing on the
fact that the greek is poor. This seems to me to be an effort to excuse the
author for poor work rather than an explanation of it.

>Linguists can either be descriptive or prescriptive in their
>analysis of language. If one takes a descriptive approach to Biblical
>Greek, then its quite possible that the so-called "bad Greek" of
>Revelation is simply la parole. Or, from a sociolinguistic viewpoint,
>it could be just good old Hebraism (Cf. Rev. 1:4. Consult Gen. 15:1, 4
>LXX).

Again, such an effort to explain away really does not explain why someone
writing Greek writes it so poorly. Perhaps the writer is a semite. Well
and good. And suppose he is doing his best- again, well and good. But the
fact remains, attempts to ameliorate notwithstanding, that the greek is bad.

Best,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
email- jwest@highland.net
web page- http://web.infoave.net/~jwest

---
B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:40:27 EDT