Textual approach to Revelation 1:1

[Revelation Man]

22 hours ago, euggio said:

Hi, Revelation has been the most daunting biblical read with the most controversial interpretations for centuries. That alone is a sufficient reason for manifesting vigilance, discernment, and open-mindedness. For that matter, the analysis below is my own view, which means that it is as much arguable as all other views out there including the critiques that will be deigned to it. Let's not be inflammatory.

Premises: 1) Approaches to the book (short reference to the Book of Revelation) with bias, that is, previous Bible knowledge (namely personal or denominational beliefs, knowledge of the OT and NT) and/or specific interpretive systems (such as preterism, historicism, etc.) are considered highly risky, owing to the fact a bias may contradict another. Christians are invited to read the book afresh first and then relate what they understand to their previous views.

2) Translation is the translator's word. The question is whether it is faithful to the source text or not. Once Bible readers admit this simple fact, they will wonder whether their confusion is not the result of a wrong translation or that of an implicit disagreement with the translators.

Personal view: Based on its allegorical nature, the book, which is internally called the revelation of Jesus Christ coincidentally or not, is somehow similar to Jesus Christ's parables. Now, let's consider the prophecy at Ps. 78:2, which is fulfilled in Jesus's speaking in parables to the crowd (cf. Matt. 13:34, 35) and also in proverbs to his disciples (cf. John 16:25, 29). In comparison, Christians and non-Christians have been reading the same Revelation text. This suggests that that prophecy might still be being fulfilled, that "fulfilled" does not mean "finished," "abolished" (a nod here to Matt. 5:17), that the book is not Christian-centric. I mean by that that it has been up for reading by Christians and non-Christians in the same format (as confirmed by Rev. 1:1 and Rev. 10:11).

Let's consider again the prophecy at Is. 6:9, 10, which Jesus said is a reason for his speaking in parables in Matt. 13:10—15. Nonfollowers, those whose hearts were insensitive and who did not hear with their ears or listen and who closed their eyes, were predisposed to disbelieving and ignoring his message. Even some followers misunderstood and disbelieved a parabolic teaching by Jesus Christ (cf. John 6:53—71). In comparison, non-Christians are prone to reject the message in the book while Christians are confused. While Jesus Christ would privately explain parables to his disciples (cf. Mark 4:34), there is at least an instance where nonfollowers, namely the chief priest and the Pharisees, understood what he meant (cf. Matt. 21:45). Parables do not have an obscurant and esoteric nature and in that case only reflect people's long prophesied indifference to spiritual matters (proactivity). You would not be able to discern them unless you pay attention to them. Is that significantly different from what is known about the Book of Revelation? I conclude that the message in that book is only buried under the load of Christian and non-Christian confusion, that discernment is required, and that as Christians, we need to ask for it when in lack according to James 1:5.

The premises may be augmented and the introductory view improved. Critiques are welcome, starting from those. I will just start with one phrase in Rev. 1:1, because this is already too long for my liking. My view is presented in an unformalized form.

I disagree with the translators here in only one point or maybe two. In the Ancient Greek text (AG, for short; and I used Scrivener 1894), the subject "God" is inverted and is syntactically close to "to shew." It governs both the verb "gave" and the infinitive "to shew." In others words, God is the giver, the intender, and the intended shower. A single English sentence like this only presents God as the giver and the intender. Based on the subject inversion in Greek, the antecedent of the determiner "his" is syntactically clear and points to God while in English it is not that clear. Non-Christians are still asking whether servants are God's or Jesus Christ's. Christians are also confused because one group assume that Jesus is the right antecedent, based on its previous Bible knowledge. So far, the KJV translators have skipped a subtle, yet important, meaning from the source text and been unclear in their rendering of it.

In AG, saying that "revelation" is the antecedent of "which" and "Jesus Christ" that of "him" may be a no-brainer, but I've given the English version to read by a non-Christian and he asked me who the "him" was and thought that the revelation of Jesus Christ was given to an unspecified male. All that to say technically, as a side note, that I think the whole verse must be updated (as it is a 17th-century text maintained in subsequent versions) and presented as a lexical entry with "revelation of Jesus Christ" as a definiendum (a phrase to be defined) in other to prevent readings that we Christians just assume to be unlikely but are nonetheless plausible.

Tell me what you think.

P.S.: I forgot to indicate something important. From the preceding, Rev. 1:1 indicates that God gave a revelation to Jesus Christ for the purpose of showing imminent inevitable events to his [God's] servants and that God was to show those events. Notice the semantic relation between the verb "to show" and the verb "to reveal," from which derives the word "revelation." I would say that "to reveal" is a hypernym of "to show." In this case, that the revelation was given for the purpose to show imminent inevitable events to servants of God makes it a device appropriate for that purpose, a device to show imminent inevitable events.

As a result, to show imminent inevitable events to his servants is God's purpose when to show imminent inevitable events is the revelation's function. That God gave something for a purpose similar to the thing's function is no tautology, it is a classical case of what is called a "synecdoche," where "God" also stands for the revelation that he gave. In that case, the revelation is a part of God's, such that its performance, operated by Jesus Christ who was given the device, is considered as good as God's. In clear, the revelation is actually the shower (or the direct shower); God is the shower by synecdoche (indirectly).

I think God gave this to Jesus who is God, but only the Father knows when He is going to send Jesus, so likewise maybe Jesus has no concept of the future else he would know when he is to return. 

In other words if you knew the future on everything, but I was supposed to send you at a future point in time to a certain place, without you knowing the date, wouldn't I have to also block you seeing the future, else you would know the date I am sending you back ? 

The most important mistake via translation in Rev. 1:1 is the fact that many people say Jesus states he will be coming back shortly and thus they derive an Eschatology that is off kilter because they actually believe that is what Jesus stated, even though intuitively we are supposed to know that only the Father knows the time of Jesus' return. So this needed further study. I thus found that the word SHORTLY was derived from 2 Greek words as per the translation.

One Greek word was EN and basically means "at a fixed point in time" the other Greek word was TACHOS and means "speedily/swiftly or in haste".  I say all that to say this, it matters how we interpret or translate the words from the bible. Now instead of this saying Jesus will come shortly, what it actually says is this, "At a fixed point in time, Jesus will come speedily" in other words, Jesus is saying, at a future point in time, unknown by me, the Father will send me and I will come in haste.