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.

        These examples from Philo’s writings may shed some light on how the author of Revelation came to use the title ‘Lord and God’. In Philo’s case, ‘Lord and God’ was considered a variant of ‘Lord God’ and was formed by inserting kai/ between the two titles⁷⁶. So, like Philo, John may have supplied a conjunction to a title that did not originally have one (from ‘Lord God’ in Rev 4,8 to ‘Lord and God’ in Rev 4,11). Alternatively, he may have been influenced by a title in the MT or LXX in which the conjunction already stood between the two titles (e.g. Dan 2,47 and Ps 35,23). Either way, John would not have been out of step with Jewish usage of divine nomenclature by using ‘Lord and God’ in Rev 4,11.

        Within this section, we have demonstrated that ‘[our] Lord and God’ is a traditional title for God in the LXX and in Judaism in general (e.g. Philo) prior to the time of Domitian. Six ‘approximate parallels’ were located, thus demonstrating the possibility of an origin for the title ‘Lord and God’, used in Rev 4,11, in the LXX. The final discovery was that, contrary to what some claimed, Jewish authors sometimes actually inserted kai/ between ‘Lord God’ and seemed to regard ‘Lord God’ and ‘Lord and God’ as interchangeable titles.

3. Usage of ‘Our Lord and God’ in the New Testament

        The quest for a parallel to ‘Lord and God’ in the New Testament is similar to that encountered in the LXX. The precise phrase o( ku/rioj kai_ o( qeo_j h(mw=n only appears in Rev 4,11 in the NT. However, two similar constructions do appear. The first ‘approximate parallel’ is found in Thomas’ address to the risen Christ in John 20,28 (o( ku/rioj mou kai_ o( qeo/j mou). Several commentators have noted the similarity of this title to the language used of Domitian⁷⁷,