The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Last Word of the Bible?

I’m not trying to prove a big point here, but for me it would be really cool if the final verse of the Bible really says: The grace of the Lord Jesus be with ALL. as the NASB and ESV have it, or …EVERYONE as the GNB has it. Most of the other English translations have ALL OF YOU, or GOD’S PEOPLE, or ALL THE SAINTS… which seem relatively lame to a convinced universalist like me! :sunglasses: But which is correct?

It seems our Bible translators are making a choice between different manuscripts, some of which end with panton (all), and some of which end with hagios (the saints).

The Nestle-Aland Greek NT (27th edition) goes for panton. But does anyone know which ending has the best manuscript evidence?

I have an NASB and it ends in “all” with a footnote saying that some of the ancient manuscripts add the saints. The NASB tries to go with the majority view (I know it’s not always that simple) so that would tell me that the greater majority of manuscripts have “all” while just a few, but some of them older have “saints”. As a result, the NASB chooses “all” as the preferred text.

My Aland, Aland et al fourth edition (2001 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft / UBS) has panton as the last word in the text, but then it has a footnote to many variations of either “panton” or “hagion”. The fact that it has panton in the text means that they think it’s the best attestation, though, right? :wink:

Nice find RevDrew! Isn’t it amazing how often we find support for EU, like this, that we had previously overlooked :sunglasses:

Good call revdrew, my very basic understanding of the verse would definitely have Pantos as the better fit for the author. As far as I can see a lot of the major translations concur with your reading.

Panton, in it’s various forms, occurs four times in Revelation, once in the context of ‘all saints’ 8:3 but the other three times much more in the universal (with a small ‘u’!) sense. Particularly see 18:24 where the author distinguishes between the blood of the prophets and the saints - and all others who have been killed. An important distinction. There are 105 other references to Pantos in the NT.

By comparison Hagion is taken to mean ‘Holy’ and is the word used in the beautiful refrain ‘Holy Holy Holy’. The author only ever uses this word (23 times) with reference to Saints and the sacred.

I would say it fits better with the author’s use of the two words to go with Pantos but I can see why Hagion would be a valid use. The ASV, KJV, GNB, and the Vulgate all stick with Pantos.

That’s a little of the textual criticism, but I don’t know about the manuscript evidence, can anyone enlighten us?

Good catch Drew!

ETA: -

Just a further thought - that since we know the author had both words in his limited Greek vocabulary his choice of words here might actually be quite important…

How about in Chapter 21:

1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’** or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

In verse 3, is it Panton or Hagios?**