Before Jerusalem Fell

210 BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL
a major section entitled “A Short Grammar of the Apocalypse.”
Section 10 of this “Grammar” is entitled “The Hebraic Style of the
Apocalypse.”73 There Charles well notes that “while [John] writes in
Greek, he thinks in Hebrezo.”74 As Sweet puts it: “The probability is that
the writer, thinking in Hebrew or Aramaic, consciously or unconsciously
carried over semitic idioms into his Greek, and that his
‘howlers’ are deliberate attempts to reproduce the grammar of classical
Hebrew at certain points. “7 5
Indeed, its very frequent Jewish
sound is a major factor – although unnecessarily so – in the form
critical analyses of the book (as per Moffatt and Charles).
What is more, other names in Revelation are, as a matter of fact,
very Hebraic. For instance, the words “Abaddon” (Rev. 9:11) and
“Armageddon” (Rev. 16: 16) are carefully given Greek equivalents;
“Satan” is said to be “the devil” (Rev. 12:9).76 How natural, it would
seem, to adopt a Hebraic spelling for the basis of the cryptogram.
Furthermore, there are a number of examples in the New Testament
of the Greek spelling of Hebrew names. For example, an
illustration from Mark might prove helpful. Mark is generally considered
to be a Gentile gospel, by conservatives and liberals. Some even
suggest Mark’s readers dwelt in Rome. 77 Nevertheless, in Mark 3:18
Simon “the Kananaios” (or Zealot) has a name that would be
dificult to interpret by Gentiles. The dificulty is interesting: “Now,
as we have seen, the word kananaios is a Greek transliteration of the
Aramaic qan’ana’, meaning ‘Zealot’.”78 This shifting back and forth
73. Charles, Reudation, 1: cxvii, cxlii. BeckWith agreed that John was “a writer, whose
mode of thought and native speech are Hebraic” (Ishon T. BeckWith, 77u Apocu@e oj
John: Studirs in Introduction [Grand Rapids: Baker, (1917) 1967], p. 355).
74. Charles, Redation, p. cxliii.
75. Sweet, Revelation, p. 16.
76. Other Hebrew words appear, as well: “amen” is said to mean “truthfully” (Rev.
3:14) and the Hebrew “hallelujah” is not even translated into a Greek equivalent (Rev.
19:1,3,4, 6).
77. Guthrie, Introduction, p. 59. See also S. G. F. Brandon, Ttw Fall of Jerwakm and t/u
Chrartian Church: A StuajI of ttu Ef@ct.r of the Jewish Overthrow of A.D. 70 on Chri.rtimi~
(London: SPCK, 1957), chap. 10; S. G. F. Brandon, Jesu.r ad the Zealo.k A Stiy of the
Political Factor in Primitive Christianip (New York Scribners, 1967), pp. 242tZ; Vincent
Taylor, 7?u Gospel Acwrding to St. Mark. Macmillan New Testament Commentaries
(London Macmillan, 1953), pp. 32ff., 335; Robert H. Gundry, A Su~ of the New
Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), pp. 81ff.; H. G. Wood, Jesus in th Twentidh
Century (London: 1960), pp. 25tT Kiimmel disagrees with the Roman destination, but
accepts the fact of its Gentile audience (Kiimmel, Introduction, p. 98).
78. Brandon, Jew and tb Z%rM.r, p. 244. In support of his view he cites E. Kloster-