Answer to BOL #306 above:
Alpha and Omega and the speaker confusion trick (from earlier post in this thread)
To use the “speaker confusion trick” to “prove” that John is the Lord Almighty we would point to the fact that John was definitely speaking at Rev. 1:7, and then (by using our own punctuation or the KJV’s lack of quotation marks) we merely say that John continued speaking in Rev. 1:8 and identified himself as “the Lord,” “Alpha and Omega,” and “the Almighty”!! Finally we would point to Rev. 1:9 and say that John continues speaking and positively identifies himself as “John, also” or, in other words, “John, in addition to [his titles of Rev. 1:8]”!!
So if modern Bible translators belonged to (or at least worked for) churches that taught that John was equally God (“Johnitarians”?), they would simply have punctuated this scripture in a way that showed that. For example they might put quotation marks starting at verse 8 and ending after verse 9.
There is another thing that helps show the intended meaning here. Although it is very common that the words of one speaker slide right into those of another speaker (e.g., Is. 10:4, 7), it also happens that sometimes the writer identifies the new speaker. As we see in Daniel, for example, Daniel nearly always identifies himself as the new speaker when he uses the words “I, Daniel” whenever it might be confusing to the reader (especially after a different person has been speaking) - Dan. 7:15, 28; 8:15, 27; 12:5. If we then examine Revelation (which is recognized as being similar to, patterned after, and frequently referring to, the Book of Daniel), we find that John also uses this technique. “I, John” identifies a new speaker in every instance John uses it: Rev. 1:9; 22:8. So Rev. 1:9 is merely the statement of a new speaker.
Is Jesus ‘Alpha and Omega’ in Rev. 22?
Now look again at Rev. 22:8-16. (The SC trick doesn’t work nearly as well here, but some trinitarians insist on using it anyway.) John is identified as the speaker in 22:8. The angel speaks in verse 9). The angel apparently continues speaking in 10). The angel may be still speaking in 11) --- or it could be John or even someone else (as implied in verse 10 in the NAB,1970 ed.).
Now is the angel still speaking in 12) or is it God, or is it Jesus, or even John? There is simply no way of telling who the speaker is from any of the early Bible manuscripts. It’s entirely a matter of translator’s choice. Some translators have decided it is the angel who continues to speak, and they punctuate it accordingly. So the JB, and NJB use quotation marks to show that these are all words spoken by the angel.
However, the RSV, NRSV, NASB, NEB, REB, NKJV, NAB (1991 ed.), ESV, ISV, NLT, 21st Century King James Version, Third Millenium Bible, and TEV show by their use of quotation marks that someone else is now speaking in verse 12. Most Bibles indicate that the person who spoke verse 12 (whether God, angel, Jesus, or John) also spoke verse 13 (“I am Alpha and Omega”).
Now the big question is: Is it clear that the speaker(s) of verses 12 and 13 continues to speak? Some Bibles indicate this. But other respected trinitarian translations do not!
The RSV, NRSV, NASB, NEB, REB, NKJV, NAB (1991 ed.), ESV, ISV, NLT, 21st Century King James Version, Third Millennium Bible, and TEV show (by quotation marks and indenting) that Rev. 22:14 and 15 are not the words of the speaker of verses 12 and 13 but are John’s words.
(The Jerusalem Bible and the NJB show us that the angel spoke all the words from verse 10 through verse 15.) Then they show Jesus as a new speaker beginning to speak in verse 16.
So, if you insist that the person speaking just before verse 16 is the same person who is speaking in verse 16, then, according to the trinitarian RSV, NRSV, NASB, NEB, REB, NKJV, NAB (1991 ed.), ESV, ISV, NLT, 21st Century King James Version, Third Millennium Bible, and TEV, you are saying John is Jesus!!! (According to the JB and NJB you would be insisting that the angel is Jesus!)
And, just as the use of “I, John” indicated a new speaker in Revelation, so does the only other such usage in that same book. Yes, Rev. 22:16 - “I, Jesus” also introduces a new speaker. This means, of course, that the previous statement (“I am the Alpha and Omega”) was made by someone else!
Even the KJV translators have shown by their use of the word “his” in verse 14 that they didn’t mean that Jesus was the same speaker as the Alpha and Omega. The speaker of verse 13 is Almighty God. The comment in verse 14 of these Bibles (as literally translated from the Received Text) explains the importance of doing “His Commandments” (not “My Commandments”)! Therefore the speaker of verse 14 is obviously not God as clearly stated by those Bibles which were translated from the Received Text, e.g., KJV; NKJV; KJIIV; MKJV; Young’s Literal Translation; Webster Bible (by Noah Webster); and Revised Webster Bible. Lamsa’s translation (Holy Bible From the Ancient Eastern Text) also uses “him.“
So we can easily see that there is no reason to say Jesus spoke the words recorded at Rev. 22:13 (or the above-named trinitarian Bibles would surely have so translated it!) and, in fact, the context really identifies the speaker as being the same person who spoke at Rev. 1:8, God Almighty, Jehovah, the Father.
