Fwd: Re: Rev 5:8-9 Who sang the new song?
Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Tue, 12 May 1998 08:36:37 -0400
At 7:52 AM -0400 5/12/98, John M. Sweigart wrote:
>Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>>
>> I don't see any other antecedent of ADOUSIN in 9 than TA 4 ZWA KAI hOI 24
>> PRESBUTEROI. "Beasts" is probably unfortunate here as a survival of 16th
>> century English, since it has a negative connotation today which it didn't
>> then; modern versions tend to use "living creatures" for ZWA. Bear in mind
>> (a) that it is they (in 4:8) who sing "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty
>> ...", (b) that the customary interpretation of the "beasts" is that they
>> are symbolic representations of the four evangelists. As for "redeemed
>> us," it would appear that the singers sing not only of their own redemption
>> but of people of "every kindred, tongue, and nation." They sing, therefore,
>> as representatives of all the redeemed. Or so I think.
>>
>Carl;
>Cannot the term ZWA also be a technical term for the signs of the ZODIAC
>possibly being used for polemic purposes? Also I like the four
>evangelists interpretation since there seems to be strong evidence to
>suggest that the 24 elders are a corporate symbol representing some
>group of redeemed humanity but then how do the 4 ZWA fit in? The only
>problem for the four evangelists interpretation of the symbol is that I
>have not seen any evidence to support it. Any internal, comparative, or
>historical evidence would be appreciated.
>--
Yes, of course, the interpretation of the ZWA as the evangelists has to be
considerably later than the composition of Revelation, whatever date we
assign for that. The four ZWA appear, of course, already in Ezekiel 1.
Whether they are Zodiac figures, I don't know, as they are only four, and I
think only the Lion is one of the traditional Zodiac figures; there may
well be Chaldean astrological symbolism underlying it all, but I think
almost any interpretation of exactly what they point to must be somewhat
speculative--perhaps the four compass points? Certainly they seem to
represent something positive about God's created world, but exactly what is
hard to figure.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/