Not that I want to vaunt my own perfect record, because I don't have one, but do you notice anything curious about this article?
Two things I notice is that 666 does not appear in Revelation 13:17, but in 13:18; secondly, there is no Revelation 15:12. I liked Larry Hurtado and not trying to bash him, but I found it interesting that no one caught these typos before the article went to print. However, we all stumble in speech many times (James 3:2ff).
Monday, April 04, 2022
Nomina Sacra Article Typo? (Larry Hurtado)
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8 comments:
Anytime someone points out a typo in someone elses writing I get a minor panic attack!
I wonder if he meant Rev 19:16.
"King of kings, Lord of lords" in Aramaic (leaving out the "and") equals 777
Duncan: I'm not sure that is what he meant since I don't see anything contextually that indicates he had Revelation 19:16 in mind. Besides, how does one confuse Revelation 15:12 with 19:16? I think it's also evident that he meant Rev. 13:18 instead of 13:17.
Roman: I resemble that remark.
He is citing two "examples" of gematria, so I was looking for another possibility in revelation although is could be 15:12 in another place altogether?
"A second kind of gematria replaces letters with different letters, following a set scheme. The commonest is known as atbash, effectively reversing the order of the letters: hence the first letter (aleph) is replaced by the last (tav), the second (beth) with the penultimate letter (shin), etc. There is a rare example of atbash in the Hebrew Bible. Jer 25:26 and Jer 51:41 both contain a puzzling reference to “Sheshach.” Using the atbash system, Sheshach is explicable as a substitute for Babel (= Babylon). But such usage is unusual among the biblical authors (it may also be found at Jer 51:1 and 1Kgs 9:13)." But no 15:12.
I understand better what you're saying now: too bad I never got around to asking Hurtado just what he meant. But thanks for providing some input.
"Isopsephy was taken up by ancient Jews, and the Jewish practice is called “gematria” (from the Greek word “geometria“), and it is interesting that among our earliest literary examples are instances in NT writings that likely stem from Jewish-Christian authors: the best-known one Revelation 13:18 and also (more subtly) Matthew 1:17 (alluding to the numerical value of “David” in Hebrew characters). Roughly contemporary are instances in 3 Baruch and Sibylline Oracles 5, lines 12-51. The second-century Christian text, Epistle of Barnabas, uses the technique in expounding the meaning of the 318 servants of Abraham (Gen 14:14) as the cross of Jesus (318 written as the Greek letters TIH, the T = cross/crucifixion, and the IH the first two letters of Jesus’ name). For a helpful introduction, see the entry on “Gematria” by Gideon Bohak in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, eds. J. J. Collins & D. C. Harlow (Grand Rapds: Eerdmans, 2010), 661."
https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/the-earliest-christian-graffito/
Thanks, Duncan. This sheds more light on what Hurtado probably meant to say.
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