The Evangelical Universalist Forum

The "nations" in Revelation 21:24. Alternate translations

In most translations, the verse reads: 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.

But in others, such as Young’s it reads: and the nations of the saved in its light shall walk, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it

Could this do damage to the thought that the “nations” spoke of in this verse are the nations that were outside of Christ and are now being brought into the city? I could see a counter-argument being presented in the form of, “the nations being spoken of here are only those that were already saved, which is why it says ‘nations of the saved’ instead of the more general term of ‘nations.’”

Thoughts?

The different translations are due to a discrepancy in the Greek texts. The KJV and Young’s Literal are translated from the Textus Receptus, while others are translated from the Wescott-Hort.

I personally don’t see the Textus Receptus version as troublesome to my belief in UR, but yes, the argument you propose could be made.

Sonia

isn’t it drawing a contrast there

the nations of the saved walk in its light…well clearly, that refers to nations of saved people, whatever that means. the argument could be made that ALL are saved then, but it does sound like it’s a subset of humanity, rather than all.

however, the kings of the earth are being listed as a separate group, and they are bringing their glory into the city. it sounds like it’s saying that the saved are already inside, but the kings of the earth are not excluded…they are seen as coming in.

i think this is actually further evidence that all will be well with them too…the already saved walk in its light now, but the other nations will come in too.

More specifically, at the time when the TR was compiled the editor (Erasmus) had no Greek texts of RevJohn at hand, and being in a rush to complete his work before his competitor he just borrowed a very late Latin text to translate back into Greek.

The alternate text in the TR is so late that none of my apparatuses even acknowledge its existence (although my copy of Nestle-Aland does acknowledge a small set of variances later in the verse across eight texts and families including the Vulgate Latin generally in one case and the late Greek Orthodox Koine in the other, neither of which have anything to do with this variation–both are about adding a {tên timên} or “the honor/value” to “the glory of them” in a couple of different ways, the Vulgate version of which is unsurprisingly retained in the TR, too).

The structure of the sentence in actual Greek copies (and apparently in all surviving language copies until well after the 11th century) is quite different from the TR.

TR v.24:
kai ta ethnê tôn sôzomenôn en t(i)ô phôti autês peripatêsousi
and the nations of the saved in the light of her/it [the city] shall be walking (the lack of an ‘n’ at the end of the verb in Green’s TR is probably a typo)

All actual RevJohn texts (including the Vulgate translations not incidentally) up until they’re too late to be feasible witnesses to a possible original phraseology v.24:
kai peripatêsousin ta ethnê dia tou phôtos autês
and shall be walking the nations through/by the light of her/it

Unless there has been some kind of conspiracy to eliminate reference to this discrepancy in the pre-medieval texts both Western and Eastern (and I can’t figure out why there would be such a conspiracy), I am not remotely worried that the TR is a reconstruction of the original text at verse 24. Erasmus translated back into Greek from a very late Latin text he had at hand, and made a guess as to how it ran, and included a phrase not even found in the official post-schism Koine sets.

Ah, so the Textus Receptus version is based on an addition made at a much later date. Makes sense; thanks.