45 An Explanation for the Anacolutha in the Book of Revelation 5. Semitisms A Semitism is ‘…an aberration of language or style which suggests in- fluence, direct or indirect, of Aramaic or Hebrew upon the Greek’63. The OT influences Revelation and many times an OT (LXX and MT) accent can be detected. There are occasions when καί bears the semantics of the Hebrew w , but rarely. Although these OT accents are present often, yet they seem to rarely result in an anacoluthon. In fact the idea of anaco- luthon becomes subjective, because it depends on whether one is reading the text from a Greek or Hebrew perspective.64 11:11 uses the phrase εἰσῆλθεν ἐν (when Greeks would normally say εἰσῆλθεν εἰς), which is probably based on the MT (rather than LXX). 7:4 adopts the form of the LXX version of Numbers 1:17-44. The infinitive in ὁ Μιχαὴλ καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ τοῦ πολεμῆσαι, 12:7 is problematic, articular infinitives barely appear in Revelation. Aune argues that τοῦ πολεμῆσαι is a Hebra- ism, bearing imperatival or jussive force (as found with l + inf.), ‘they had to fight’65. Another option is that John is referring to Daniel 10:20-21 (Th.), ‘20 … καὶ νῦν ἐπιστρέψω τοῦ πολεμῆσαι μετὰ ἄρχοντος Περσῶν… …καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν εἷς ἀντεχόμενος μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ περὶ τούτων ἀλλ᾿ ἢ Μιχαηλ 21 ὁ ἄρχων ὑμῶν…’ If this is the situation, then the Revelation text could be translated, ‘Michael and his angels [were with me (that is, the man in linen, cf. 1:13-16)] to fight the dragon’. 6. Syntactic Precedence Many of the anacolutha that have been mentioned so far have been relatively simple, but John is not satisfied with such simplicity! In adopting various forms of simple anacolutha, he lays the foundation to extrapolate into more complex and challenging forms of language. John may some- times impose a previous syntactic construct on a later phrase so as to es- tablish a relationship with the antecedent. We have already seen this with ὁ ὢν acting as the template, but this is not the only template that John M. Wilcox, ‘Semiticisms in the NT’ in N. Freedman, ed. The Anchor Bible Diction- 63 ary vol. 5 (New York 1992) 1081. For further discussion on Semitisms, see D. Schmidt, Semitisms and Septuagintalisms in the book of Revelation. NTS 37 (1991) 592-603; D. A. Black, Bible Translator 39 (1988) 215-23; M. Wilcox, Semitisms in the New Testament. Principat 25, (Berlin, Germany 1984) 978-1029. One can compare this to phrases in English like ‘God of glory’ or ‘Prince of peace’, 64 which, although sound English, actually are not English but Greek/Hebrew constructs. The English reader rarely perceives that this is an anacoluthon. Aune, Revelation, vol. 2, 654; Charles, A Critical, vol. 1, 321-22. 65