Description
GRAMMAR OF THE APOCALYPSE
Exodus 4:10-17 contains the remarkable dialogue between the LORD God and Moses concerning Moses’ calling to lead God’s people out of their bondage in Egypt. Moses is a reluctant Prophet pleading his unwillingness to lead with the words
Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.
to which the Lord responds
Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say.
Despite the LORD’s assurance to Moses that He will enable him to speak, Moses is still averse to accepting the LORD’s Calling and request of God,
Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.
The LORD does not change His mind and gives to Moses his brother Aaron as his spokesman.
The reason for bringing the narrative from Exodus 4:10-17 to your attention in dealing with the Grammar of the Apocalypse is that Exodus 4:10-17 is relevant to the Grammar of every language. The LORD God, the Almighty claims Man’s Language as His creation, Exodus 4:11. I recognize that such a claim is disputed by men. I will enter into a discussion of these disputations in Volume 8, Fascicle D, but my assumption for this presentation on the Grammar of the Apocalypse is that Language is a gift from Man’s Creator. This assumption does not remove the necessity of research into Language and Koine Greek in particular, but this assumption guides the research as discussed in Volume 8D.
If language is God’s gift to Man, what then is Man? The answer to this question is addressed in Genesis 2 and Psalm 8. Man is the Image-bearer of God, the Vice Regent of all Creation and unique. Man’s uniqueness is explained that there is no other creation like Man and each Man (male and female) is unique in his own right. Every man, woman and child has a unique fingerprint, a unique footprint, a unique voice print, a unique eye configuration, a unique brain structure and, with the exception of twins, a unique DNA (which further research may reveal as unique as well). Based upon my own research, I am prepared to add to the list of those things which are unique to the individual, that every user of his mother tongue is a unique user of the language of that mother tongue. This conclusion of uniqueness extrapolated to the language of the Apocalypse means that Grammar of the Apocalypse will show language usage and laws that are unique to John the Apostle, which will raise many questions and objections, among them being the following:
How can there be uniqueness in the use of the Koine Greek of the Apocalypse when Koine Greek is the common corpus of Koine Greek speakers? Also, if John was bi-lingual or tri-lingual (Hebrew, Greek and Latin), would there not be some interference evident in the writing of these languages due to the differences in the Grammars of these several languages?
The issues raised by these questions are addressed in Volume 8, Fascicle D and although there are deep and profound questions about Language that are still elusive, I am prepared to argue that every user of a natural language is a unique user of that language, and that uniqueness can be detected in the Grammar of the Apocalypse. It is the same type of uniqueness that demonstrates that there is not Q-Document in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and that there are no Hymnic Elements in the Greek New Testament. The discussions pertaining to Q-Document and Hymnic Elements are in Volume 8, Fascicle C, Appendices A and B.
