St John’s Grammar
“…when one is confronted with the language of Revelation it is no mere difference of style which makes one gasp, but crudities, grammatical errors and a quite extraordinary juxtaposition of words. So wholly different is the book in its word-usage and composition from the Fourth Gospel that many scholars find themselves unable to believe that both could be written by the same person. The Fourth Gospel is written, within its limited vocabulary, smoothly and correctly and would probably have caused no literary qualms in a contemporary Greek reader. But Revelation piles word upon word remorselessly, mixes cases and tenses without apparent scruple, and shows at times a complete disregard for normal syntax and grammar…
…the tumultuous assault of words is not without its effect upon the mind, although I must confess I find it very difficult to believe that such a surprising attack could have been deliberately engineered. The inspired words seem to me to pour forth in a stream both uninhibited and uncorrected, and I therefore find it impossible to agree with those who say that this work is either a revision of an earlier one or a combination of several such works. The writer’s mind is plainly steeped in the spirit and in the knowledge of Jewish apocalyptic. There is hardly a single direct quotation from the Old Testament but there are scores of parallels, echoes and recollections of it. John’s words give the strong impressions of one whose thoughts and thought-forms are Hebrew, and yet it is a puzzle to understand why such a keen and intelligent mind could not readily have mastered the simple usages of New Testament Greek. I make therefore this bold suggestion: that the writer, who had a genuine ecstatic experience, wrote down what he saw during the visions…”
From the Translator’s Preface to The Book of Revelation by J. B. Phillips
Read Translators’ Impressions:
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/pdf_bestill/037BeStill.pdf
