Floyd O. Parker, «‘Our Lord and God’ in Rev 4,11: Evidence for the Late Date of Revelation?», Vol. 82 (2001) 207-231

This article challenges a commonly-held belief that the title ‘our Lord and God’ (Rev 4,11) served as a Christian counter-blast to the claim of the emperor Domitian to be dominus et deus noster. Despite the claims of several scholars that the title ‘our Lord and God’ does not appear in the OT, the data collected favors the view that the title in Rev 4,11 does indeed have its origin in the divine title ‘Lord and God’ found in the LXX and other Jewish sources. Consequently, the title is of no use in helping to determine the date of the book of Revelation.

(17,14) or basileu_j basile/wn kai_ ku/rioj kuri/wn (19,16)⁶⁸; and, (14) o( a/sth_r o( lampro_j o( prwi>no/j (22,16; cf. 2,28)⁶⁹. Since, as most scholars agree, these titles have their origin in the OT, even though they are not identical to any OT title, the absence of an ‘exact parallel’ for ‘Lord and God’ in the OT should not seem odd. Scholars working with other titles in Revelation have been content to locate an ‘approximate parallel’ in the place of an ‘exact parallel’. To demand a perfect match may be asking too much of most titular formulae.

        Second, divine titles in Revelation are not always static. The fact that some of these titles vary slightly in form (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 12 and 13 above) should caution one about being too demanding of a parallel. The flexibility of such formulations is evident in the various ways in which ‘Lord’ and ‘God’ are combined in these examples from Revelation: (1) ku/rioj o( qeo/j (1,8; 4,8; 18,8; 19,6?; 21,22; 22,5); 2) ku/rie o( qeo/j (11,17; 15,3; 16,7); (3) o( ku/rioj kai_ o( qeo_j h(mw=n (4,11); (4) o( ku/rioj o( qeo/j (22,5.6); and, perhaps (5) ku/rioj o( qeo_j [h(mw=n] (19,6)⁷⁰. The word ‘Lord’ may (i.e. 3, 4) or may not be preceded by the definite article (i.e. 1, 2, 5). ‘Lord’ may appear in the nominative case (i.e. 1, 3, 4, 5) or in the vocative (i.e. 2). A personal pronoun may be attached to the entire title (i.e. 3, 5?). A conjunction may be inserted between ‘Lord’ and ‘God’ (i.e. 3). It would be difficult to select one of these examples to serve as the representative for the entire group, even though it is apparent that all of these examples are variations of the same title.

        Third, and perhaps most significant, the title ‘lord and god’ used of Domitian is not uniform in the sources. Beasley-Murray, Mowry, and others have accepted the title dominus et deus noster used by Suetonius as normative, when, indeed, several versions of this title exist. The first variation, dominus et deus noster, which was