The grammar and style of Rev. are notoriously difficult because they are full of solecisms and semitisms, repetitions and logical breaks. Nevertheless scholars have not accepted the thesis that Rev. is a rather deficient translation from Hebrew or Ararnaic nor that John's language is a ghetto language due to his inability to write Greek, since the text is not interspersed with Aramaic expressions or inconsistent in its linguistic offenses. Lancelotti's study of the author's syntax has substantiated Charles's dictum that while John "writes in Greek, he thinks in Hebrew! However, the bilingualism of the author needs much more careful study before a socio-linguistic evaluation can be attempted.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that John was at least bilingual. But why was his mastery of Greek so imperfect? Charles's theory is not persuasive. If a man of John's creative intelligence was unable to master Greek because of personal circumstances, one would expect him to have sought and received assistance. It is more likely that John wrote a peculiar, contemporarily Semitizing Greek on purpose. Such an act may have been a kind of protest against the higher forms of Hellenistic culture. It would have been an act of cultural pride of a Jewish Semite. Such an act fits well with the type of message expressed in Revelation, as we shall see. It is analogous to the refusal of some American blacks to "talk right."