Subject: Re: Possible Nomina Sacra in Rev 1:4?

From: "Mr. Helge Evensen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 21:50:56 -0700

[email-masked] wrote (in part):

>
> Mussies postulates a Tetragrammaton removal in Rev 1:4 as an answer to the
> "missing genitive" in APO <missing word?> hO WN."
>

I know that this may be regarded as somewhat "unscholarly", but I say it
anyway: This is not a very big problem if you depend on the sources
behind the Byzantine text and the TR, which has the genitive THEOU and
TOU respectively.
This may be seen as scribal additions in order to solve the problem.
But it can also be seen as a scribal *omission* caused by scribes who
found reasons to regard the case as "a nominative of apposition", as many
modern scholars do.

-- 
- Mr. Helge Evensen

---

From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:50:15 -0400 (EDT)

On Wed, 20 Aug 1997, lakr wrote:

> 1. Of the five usages of 'O WN ...' only Rev 1:4  has nothing in
> aposition to the phrase.  The rest all have 'Lord God' (1:8),
> 'Almighty God` (4:8), 'Lord Almighty God' (11:17), with 16:5 having
> the pronoun 'EI'.

Also, Larry Hurtado wrote:

> But, going by the principle that the reading that explains the
> variants is to be preferred, such a "difficult" reading might well be
> preferred here.

> Two additonal points:  (1) the expression "ho on, kai ho en, kai ho
> erchomenos" seems to have been for the author of Rev a formula, so he
> might well have wanted to preserve it in "ungrammatical" construction
> with the "apo" to avoid altering the sacred (liturgical?) formula;

Regarding the variant unit in Apoc. 1:4, I note there that a portion of
the Byzantine MSS (ca. 50%) read APO QEOU O WN while another portion (ca. 
40%) of the Byzantine MSS read APO O WN along with the old uncial/Egyptian
text and the Nestle/UBS editions.  The TR reads the artificial APO TOU O
WN with minimal support, and likely stems from an phonetic error of
misreading/mispronouncing the _nomen sacrum_ QU for QEOU.  Further, the
construction found in the TR reading (APO TOU + nominative expression) is
not only artificial and ungrammatical, but has no parallel anywhere else
in the entire NT.

So the variant question really revolves around APO QEOU O WN and APO O 
WN respectively, and it is perhaps significant that the Byzantine-era
MSS are divided on this point.

I suspect that it is probably not the use of O WN which should be the
issue, but the use of APO within the Apocalypse which should be of
primary concern. That usage (at least in my resultant Byzantine/
Majority text) breaks down as follows, if my count (made rapidly) is
correct:

APO + anarthrous genitive = 16x
APO + arthrous genitive   = 19x

  (APO TOU + genitive = 10x)
  (APO TWN + genitive =  6x)
  (APO THS + genitive =  3x)

APO + adverb of location  =  3x

Pertinent to the expression in 1:4, there appear to be _no_ other
instances in the Apocalypse (or the NT for that matter) of APO O WN or
APO followed by _any_ nominative "technical term" or phrase as found in
the old uncial/Egyptian text of 1:4.

Yet, while the phrase APO TOU QEOU is found 4x in the text of the 
Apocalypse (whether Byzantine or old uncial/Egyptian), the _anarthrous_ 
Byz-pt phrase APO QEOU in 1:4 is similarly found nowhere else in the 
Apocalypse (note that in the LXX, APO TOU QEOU and APO QEOU each occur 
6x; neither phrase is frequent in the LXX by any means).  However, in 
the NT outside of the Apocalypse, while APO TOU QEOU only occurs 3x, 
the anarthrous APO QEOU occurs 23x (Byzantine text), which does set 
some sort of precedent for the expression encountered in the Byz-pt 
text of Apoc.1:4.

Within the Apocalypse proper, however, APO + an anarthrous genitive 
(not QEOU) _is_ found in about 50% of the occurrences of APO within 
that book.  My own decision thus was to go with the portion of the 
Byzantine data which included QEOU, since, albeit being anarthrous, it 
still reflects a known and reasonable stylistic trait of both the NT 
and the Apocalypse itself. On the other hand, the APO O WN expression
found in the remaining portion of the Byzantine MSS as well as in the
old uncial/Egyptian MSS seems to have _no_ parallel whatsoever in the 
biblical literature.

Based on the style of the Apocalypse as shown, it certainly seems that 
a noun or article + noun in the genitive should be required in 1:4 
following APO; this seems to be a given, even granting that the
Apocalypse has a "grammar of non-grammar" in relation to the remainder
of the NT.

As regards the "more difficult" reading, I myself am not surprised to 
find a localized group of old uncial/Egyptian MSS and their relatively 
few descendants omitting a necessary genitive noun or article, whether 
by archetypical error or deliberate choice. I do not feel compelled to 
adopt a non-grammatical reading as original merely because of the 
grammatical difficulty created by such an expression, especially when 
the omission of single words is a frequent characteristic of the very 
old uncials cited in support of such a reading.  On the contrary, had 
the Apocalypse demonstrated even a moderate use of APO followed by
non-genitive nominal expressions such as in the old uncial text of 1:4, 
I would probably hold the opposite opinion, since the Byzantine text is 
clearly divided in regard to this variant unit, and external evidence 
does not seriously sway the situation.

Since O WN is a characteristic Johannine phrase in the gospel (though 
not used in the Apocalypse sense as a title of Christ), I am not 
surprised to find the same phrase used characteristically in the 
Apocalypse as a technical term, regardless of the question of
authorship of that book.  I do not think, however, that its use as a 
title for deity would otherwise require suspension of the grammatical 
rules which normally apply within that book, especially when there is 
no other instance paralleling that phenomenon within that book.

As a final aside, I note that I do concur with Hurtado regarding the
unlikelihood of the "emendation hypothesis" (his point #2), for the
same reasons as he stated.

_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
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