Ian Boxall: Hebrew and Greek Textual Traditions in the Book of Revelation

Ian K. Boxall, “Israel’s Scriptures in the Revelation of John,” in Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings: The Use of the Old Testament in the New, edited by Matthias Henze and David Lincicum (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2023), 572-573.

For many recent scholars, the complex evidence supports John’s use of both Hebrew and Greek textual traditions. We have already noted evidence for John’s knowledge of a Hebrew text of Ezekiel (e.g., Rev 1:15; 18:1 = Ezek 43:2), and there are multiple other examples that are either clearly derived from the Hebrew (e.g., Rev 22:2, where the leaves of the tree are for healing, dependent on the Hebrew of Ezek 47:12) or could come either from the Hebrew or the Greek. But influence from the Greek seems stronger in a small number of cases (e.g., Rev 11:11 = Ezek 37:5, 10 LXX). The allusion to Isa 22:22 at Rev 3:7 appears to be dependent on either the Hebrew or a Theodotion-type text since “key of the house of David” is absent from Isa 22:22 LXX (which reads τὴν δόξαν Δαυιδ and lacks the reference to opening and shutting). John’s description of the colors of the four horses at Rev 6:1-8 (especially χλωρός in v. 8) also seems dependent on a Hebrew textual tradition for Zechariah. Yet NA²⁸ finds multiple correspondences between Revelation and Theodotion’s Greek text of Daniel (at Rev 1:1, 7, 17, 19; 4:1, 9; 10:4; 20:4, 11). Evidence that John knew the Wisdom of Solomon, a text composed in Greek, further underscores his capacity to work with texts in different languages (Rev 2:12 = Wis 18:16; Rev 4:11 = Wis 1:14; Rev 8:1 = Wis 18:14; Rev 9:3 = Wis 16:9; Rev 19:11-16 = Wis 18:14-16). John of Patmos emerges as a skillful reader and hearer of Scripture, sometimes quoting, more often alluding to multiple texts simultaneously, perhaps at times from memory, at times through sophisticated exegesis of written texts.