Right Reading of Revelation 20:5

Revelation 20:5  •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 10
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Question: Revelation 20:55But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. (Revelation 20:5) (3).—In the late W. Kelly’s “Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews” appears the following sentence in a footnote on page 129, “Compare the absurd reading of the excellent Alex. MS. in Revelation 20:55But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. (Revelation 20:5).” Will you please enlighten me as to what the reading is, and why it is absurd? G. P. B.
Answer: Ver. 5 in the passage referred to is a misprint for ver. 3, where the Alexandrian Codex stands alone (so far as I know) in reading ἐσφἀγισεν ἐμμἐνως αὐτὀν— “and sealed him abidingly” (!). If only (as the verse shows) sealed for a limited period, is it not false as well as absurd to add the word “abidingly”?