| Home | Our Hope | |
| Article |
|
September 16, 2018 |
| Starting on the Correct Foot | ||
It's important to understand what the book of Revelation is, as a document. Unlike other Bible books we are fortunate that it tells us. This makes it unique and that alone is important because it leads us to another good question - why are we told that. I won't deal with that here though.
The description is contained in the first two verses.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, 2 who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. (Revelation 1:1-2 NASB)
This means that almost the entire book of Revelation was generated by God, who gave it to Jesus, who gave it to an angel, who revealed it to John, who wrote it down for us. Verse 2 authenticates the author as being that John who previously testified about the word of God ("in the beginning was the word") and who testified about Jesus (the gospel of John).
This message delivered by the angel begins at 1:4 and ends with 22:7. Given the words in 22:8-10, it seems most likely that the angel had "downloaded" the message to John, who was somewhat overwhelmed by it. After that John had a short discussion with the angel. Then John begins to commit the message to paper beginning with his own words from 1:1-3. Then 22:21 and perhaps the last half of 22:20 are John's closing salutations.
So when verse 4 says "John to the seven churches that are in Asia", those words are part of the message that was brought by the angel. When John refers to himself that is part of the message. The message is not only in the letters to the churches and the visions he describes.
The next thing of note about the opening three verses is the different translations of a particular section. We saw that section above as:
[…] and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John (NASB)
But there are wildly different translations of this:
He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John (NIV)
And He signified it through having sent His angel to His servant, John (BLB)
and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John (KJV)
He sent it and signified it through His angel to His slave John (HCSB)
and he symbolized it when he sent by his Angel to his servant Yohannan (ANT)
and he did signify it, having sent through his messenger to his servant John (YLT)
There is a word in this verse that many translations are throwing away, as the NASB and NIV do. Those that include the word are mostly translating it as "signify" - to make a sign, to make significant. Even in that group there is no agreement. BLB says that it is the use of an angel that makes the message significant.
The others show God doing something unseen to the message to make it significant. But a message can't be seen as significant by humans if the significance can't be seen. At least the BLB understands that there must be something visible or audible to make some thing significant. They think it is the angel. If it needed to be made significant wouldn't Jesus send it in person?
The ANT is alone here in its use of "symbolized" instead of "signify", but it is probably the better word. It makes clear that the word is describing a process that was applied to the message. The problem is that Greek, Aramaic and English are struggling to describe a process that is almost unique in literature and so no exact word exists. Only Daniel is similarly symbolized but the symbolization process isn't discussed there.
The Greek is trying to say that it was converted to signs, the root word for signify. The Aramaic is trying to say it was converted to symbols.
The take-aways from this analysis are that: