Originally Posted by
Seika
While we're on a Four Horsemen digression, picked up something a bit confusing. So, apparently some of the thing about Pestilence is meant to be from Rev. 6:8, where Death and Haides (or all the Horsemen, because it jumps into a 'they' without specifying) get to rule over a fourth of the earth and to kill 'by sword, famine, plague, and by the wild beasts of the Earth'.
Now, I was looking at the Greek to see what was going on with the horsemen, dropped down to this passage out of curiosity, and went, "Um ... that's not what it says."
ἀποκτεῖναι ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ καὶ ἐν λιμῷ καὶ ἐν θανάτῳ καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων τῆς γῆς.
To kill with sword and with famine and with death and by the wild beasts of the earth.
Hm, so even that doesn't back it up. Then I checked, and 'plague' is what a lot of modern translations, supposedly respectable, have settled on - the NIV and all sorts of others. Very peculiar, especially since they all translate exactly the same word in the very same verse as 'Death', when it's the name of the rider himself: ὄνομα αὐτῷ ὁ Θάνατος.
Alright, I think, maybe it's a 'traditional' holdover from the KJV or something. Nope, even that very stylised translation says "to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."
I am baffled and need to find a Biblical scholar.