Tuesday, March 17, 2020

"Coming down out of heaven from God" (Research Revelation 21:2)--In Progress

Revelation 21:2 (WH 1881): καὶ τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἁγίαν Ἰερουσαλὴμ καινὴν εἶδον καταβαίνουσαν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἡτοιμασμένην ὡς νύμφην κεκοσμημένην τῷ ἀνδρὶ αὐτῆς.

SBLGNT: καὶ τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἁγίαν Ἰερουσαλὴμ καινὴν εἶδον καταβαίνουσαν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἡτοιμασμένην ὡς νύμφην κεκοσμημένην τῷ ἀνδρὶ αὐτῆς.

ESV: "And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

NWT 2013: "I also saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

NET Bible: "And I saw the holy city—the new Jerusalem—descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband."

I primarily want to focus on καταβαίνουσαν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ

Compare Revelation 3:12; 21:10b. David Aune thinks that "heaven" is a circumlocution for God, and considers ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ to be "superfluous" (Revelation 17-22, Volume 52C in World Biblical Commentary Series).





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3 comments:

  1. Duncan5:10 AM

    From OCR:-

    The adjectival participle --------------------- is a nominative in opposition to the indeclinable ----------------- a genitive of content that has the definite article because it is well known to the readers. The phrase ''from God'' is redundant, but it does make it clear that ''heaven'' is a circumlocution for the name of God (see 1 Macc 3:18-19, 50, 60; 4:10; Dan 4:23; Mark 11:30-31 = Matt 21:25 = Luke 20:4-5; Luke 15:18, 21; John 3:27; Hecataeus of Abdera apud Diodonis 40.3.4 [where he misunderstands the Jewish use of ------------- as divine]; see Bietenhard, Die himmlische Welt, 80-82; on ''heaven'' as a circumlocution for God, see Houtman, HimmeI, 107-10). Nowhere in Revelation, however, is the term ''heaven'' alone used as a circumlocution for God.

    Greek replaced by dashes.

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  2. Duncan5:37 AM

    https://lists.h-net.org/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-judaic&month=0912&week=b&msg=CPm/lIbu0hN7GaHJ83Yxaw&user=&pw=

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  3. Edgar Foster11:58 AM

    Thanks, Duncan: these posts are helpful. It would be interesting to test the statement made above concerning "heaven" being circumoloction for God in Revelation.

    I quickly checked every instance of "heaven" in Revelation. The only case that might be a circumloction besides 21:2, 10 is Rev. 20:1, 9. The other cases seem to be less than viable candidates.

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