EclipseEventSigns
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The Book of Revelation has a lot of singing in it. Have you ever noticed that before? Singing usually means rhyme and meter. Poetry follows certain rules.
If you've done much research into the language used in the Book of Revelation, you've most likely come across the issue that the Greek is a mess. Full of grammatical errors. It's always surprised me that God would make Scripture full of embarrassing mistakes like that. It just was very hard to accept. Scholars and expert linguists have tried to explain why.
If you've done much research into the language used in the Book of Revelation, you've most likely come across the issue that the Greek is a mess. Full of grammatical errors. It's always surprised me that God would make Scripture full of embarrassing mistakes like that. It just was very hard to accept. Scholars and expert linguists have tried to explain why.
There are many grammatical errors in the original text. These have been corrected in the translations. An easy explanation is that John was writing in a foreign language and under stress. He had no time to consider the niceties of grammar, which he would do if he were writing under favorable conditions.
Arthur E Bloomfield, "The Key to Understanding Revelation" p 11
But according to C. C. Torrey:According to Charles, the language of John was that of someone who thought in Hebrew but wrote in Greek.
"R. H. Charles and Modern Biblical Studies" James VanderKam p 11
For the Apocalyptist, the language of the New Dispensation, of the Christian church, was Aramaic only. It is most significant that the numerous hymns and doxologies sung or recited by the saints and angels in heaven, in chapter after chapter of the book, are composed in Aramaic (wherever it is possible to decide), not in Hebrew, though the writer could have used either language.
The Language and Date of the Apocalypse "Documents of the Primitive Church" p151
A very striking feature of the Apocalypse is the amount of lyric verse which it contains. In chapter after chapter, and often more than once in a single chapter, the vision pauses for a brief chorus sung by angels or other heavenly beings, by the army of martyrs (15:3), or again by all created things (5 :i3). These doxologies and little songs of triumph are all in strict metrical form. They are generally not printed as poetry in our texts and translations, and thus the reader loses some of the impression which they could create. A large part of the Apocalypse is in rhythmical form, after the manner of the O. T. prophecies; to what extent the rhythm is in a definite literary mode, or occasionally becomes truly metrical, it may some day be possible to determine. The lyrical outbursts, however, are not patterned on Hebrew prophecy, but are a new feature. We seem to have here a bit of the early Church hymnology, that of the Jewish- Christian congregations.
The meters employed in the songs are the same which are used in the Hebrew scriptures, but the language here is Aramaic, not Hebrew. Easily recognized are both the line of 3 + 3 metric accents and that of 3 + 2, and the manner of their use has in it nothing new.
The Language and Date of the Apocalypse "Documents of the Primitive Church" p155