Perhaps "focus" is a way of expressing a movable middle in English, "He stood up into focus.", or more wordily expressed, "He stood up for to make himself the centre of everyone's attention." Statistics: Posted by Stephen Hughes — February 1st, 2017, 3:31 amStephen Hughes wrote: εἰς τὸ μέσον means "and become the middle", "so everybody can see you", i.e. there is a reorientation of direction of the people looking on, a new middle
How was the Revelation seen by John? Or in literary terms, how is the narrator themself of a vision or dream characterised or portrayed in the vision or dream? The first self-referential description given is:Stephen Hughes wrote: Perhaps also;with ἐνώπιον being a short distance the foreground, ἐν μέσῳ being "at a middle distance (in the scene) (from the throne)" (beyond the glass), and ἐν κύκλῳ describing the shape of the arrangement.Revelation 4:6 wrote:καὶ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου ὡς θάλασσα ὑαλίνη, ὁμοία κρυστάλλῳ. Καὶ ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ θρόνου καὶ κύκλῳ τοῦ θρόνου τέσσαρα ζῷα γέμοντα ὀφθαλμῶν ἔμπροσθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν.
In the third person, ἐπέστρεψεν βλέπειν** "he turned his head to see", would of course be a case of John reporting what he saw somebody else doing, but in the first person in a dream or vision, is he describing what he did, what he saw himself doing, or what we should imagine that if we had seen it then that is what we would have seen? It doesn't seem to matter much, because this is being seen in big picture regardless, but I'm wondering if he is seeing the stuff in 4:6 and thereabouts from the distant vantage point, or he is seeing himself seeing these things, with the near, the middle, then his own location as an observer. Of the other options; μεταξὺ (in its prepositional use) seems to be looking at something specific then refering to what is either (of two) side of it, while ἐν μέσῳ as a prepositional phrase used with multiple directions, ἀνὰ μέσον (as a prepositional phrase) (as might be expected) seems to have no directionality, and εἰς τὸ μέσον means "and become the middle", "so everybody can see you", i.e. there is a reorientation of direction of the people looking on, a new middle (so too ἐκ μέσου no longer the centre of attention or relevent), but on the other hand διὰ μέσου seems big picture. **I think that there are two meanings for ἐπιστρέφειν - with a verb of seeing, it means "to turn the head" (changing the body's direction being more στρέφειν), and otherwise it means, "to turn around and come / go back". [In terms of BDAG, that means (2) is a specific meaning of the head, (1) and (3) are divided into transitive (mono-) and intransitive (bi-valent) according to the needs of English language users, and (4) is metaphorical.] Statistics: Posted by Stephen Hughes — January 31st, 2017, 9:07 pmRevelations 1:12, 13 wrote: Καὶ ἐκεῖ ἐπέστρεψα βλέπειν τὴν φωνὴν ἥτις ἐλάλει μετ’ ἐμοῦ. Καὶ ἐπιστρέψας εἶδον ἑπτὰ λυχνίας χρυσᾶς, καὶ ἐν μέσῳ τῶν ἑπτὰ λυχνιῶν ὅμοιον υἱῷ ἀνθρώπου, ἐνδεδυμένον ποδήρη, καὶ περιεζωσμένον πρὸς τοῖς μαστοῖς ζώνην χρυσῆν.
How about this?
In terms of battlefield deployment, seen from an overview observer's point of view, the middle section of a company of soldiers consisted of the light troops. The troops in the central section, were not the heavily armed frontline troops, nor the slingers or archers. They were a little distant from the front line.Asclepiodotus, Tactica, 1.3 wrote: ἔστι γὰρ αὐτῆς εἴδη τρία, τὸ μὲν τὸ ἐγγύθεν μαχόμενον, τὸ δὲ πόρρωθεν, τὸ δὲ μέσον.
When used in terms of specifying distance, rather than that something is surrounded - the phrases οἱ ἐν τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ and οἱ ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῆς (Ἰουδαίας) seem to be differentiated and in what coukd be a sequence of increasing distance from Ἰουδαία. Perhaps also;Luke 21:21 wrote: Τότε οἱ ἐν τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ φευγέτωσαν εἰς τὰ ὄρη· καὶ οἱ ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῆς ἐκχωρείτωσαν· καὶ οἱ ἐν ταῖς χώραις μὴ εἰσερχέσθωσαν εἰς αὐτήν.
with ἐνώπιον being a short distance the foreground, ἐν μέσῳ being "at a middle distance (in the scene) (from the throne)" (beyond the glass), and ἐν κύκλῳ describing the shape of the arrangement. Statistics: Posted by Stephen Hughes — January 27th, 2017, 3:37 amRevelation 4:6 wrote: καὶ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου ὡς θάλασσα ὑαλίνη, ὁμοία κρυστάλλῳ. Καὶ ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ θρόνου καὶ κύκλῳ τοῦ θρόνου τέσσαρα ζῷα γέμοντα ὀφθαλμῶν ἔμπροσθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν.