Re: Rev 20:4-5

Jonathan Robie (jwrobie@mindspring.com)
Mon, 20 Oct 1997 07:22:59 -0400

At 10:55 PM 10/18/97 EDT, Paul S. Dixon wrote:

>Yes, but if we broaden it a bit, I think the difficulty with the
>ingressive aorist becomes more evident. John says he saw TAS YUCAS ...
>KAI EZHSAN KAI BASILEUSAN META TOU CRISTOU CILIA ETH. Just how is it
>that these YUCAS come alive? If we take YUCAS as "souls" (so most [all?]
>translations), then how is it that these souls, which are certainly
>already alive, come to life?

I do not know that these souls "are certainly already alive". Look at Rev
20:5: hOI LOIPOI TWN NEKRWN OUK EZHSAN ACRI TELESQHi TA CILIA ETH. The rest
of them did not "come to life" until the thousand years were finished, and
this group includes Christians. Before the thousand years were finished,
they did not live.

I don't know what souls do between the time of death and the final
resurrection, but the structure of Rev 20:4-5 is KAI EZHSAN..CILIA ETH / hOI
LOIPOI TWN NEKRWN OUK EZHSAN ACRI TELESQHi TA CILIA ETH. It must be clear
that the second group was not alive before this, so I can see no reason to
object to the possibility that the first group wasn't either, and that
EZHSAN means the same thing both times. There seems to be a notion that the
souls wait until their resurrection.

Jonathan

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