Am I even right in my formulation of the difference between a 3rd person
imperative and a jussive subjunctive? Or has that distinction become really
negligible in NT usage?
At any rate, here's the tentative response I offered. What might others think?
>At 7:24 AM -0400 8/13/97, Andy Sharples wrote:
>>Carl,
>>
>>Thank you very much for your assistance on my question regarding the 3rd
>>imptv. I'll be looking up the grammars you pointed out.
>>
>>I'm afraid I've done a poor job of communicating my core question,
>>though. It is this: what is the *meaning* of 3rd imptv? In English, it
>>seems to be expressed more as a wish (optative), or even subjunctive.
>>How does 3rd imperative compare to these? In particular, in Lu 11:2, the
>>KJV has "Hallowed be thy name," where "hallowed be" translates the 3rd
>>imptv. Is this merely a wish?
>
>That actually is a good question, but as you say, it wasn't clear to me
>that was what you were wanting to know. The problem with the third-person
>imperative is that there is no exact equivalent of it in English. But
>maybe this will help; let's take the verb ERCOMAI, "come" and consider
>subjunctive, optative, ;and imperative forms.
>
>ERCHTAI (pres. subjunctive m/p 3 sg.) This may be translated (and usually
>is) as an English subjunctive following "let": "Let him/her come!" It
>would be a bit more precise to say that it means "(I want that) he come"
>The classical term for this is JUSSSIVE SUBJUNCTIVE, and "jussive" means
>"commanding"--
>
>But of course "imperative" means "commanding" also--and the 3d person
>imperative form ERCETW could also be translated (and usually is
>translated), "Let him/her come!" Is there a difference or even a nuance of
>difference between the subjunctive and the imperative? Not a whole lot, if
>any. Properly speaking, I think that the subjunctive expresses what the
>SPEAKER of the verb WANTS the subject to do, whereas the imperative
>doesn't depend so much upon the will of the speaker--it is somewhat more
>objective. So ERCETW could be translated "He/she MUST come!" or "He/she is
>to COME!"
>
>The optative 3d sg. ERCOITO (which is hardly to be found any more in the
>Koine of the NT period, although it may be found in well-educated formal
>writers of Greek of the time) more precisely expresses a WISH on the part
>of the speaker: so ERCOITO would mean "May he/she come" or "I wish that
>he/she would come." It's a little bit more remote than either the
>subjunctive or imperative.
>
>Summing up:
> ERCHTAI (subj.) "let him/her come" -- implicitly "I want he/she
>should come!
> ERCETW (imptv.) "let him/her come" --implictly "he/she MUST come"
> ERCOITO (optative) "may he/she come" --implicitly, "I wish he/she
>would come."
>
>And yes, the petitions in the LP (Mt 6:9-10) at the outset are 3d person
>imperatives. The classical translation of them in English is as
>subjunctives--that's what the "BE" in "hallowed be" is. I think there's
>some question, however, about the three verbs here and why they should be
>in the 3d person imperative. The question is what form an Aramaic original
>may have been (presuming that Jesus spoke Aramaic rather than Greek and
>that what we have is a translation of the Aramaic original into Greek).
>The question is whether a petition in a prayer can be anything more than a
>fervent wish if it is a real petition. If the imperative force is taken
>deadly seriously in the Greek, however, the urgency of these three verbs
>is overwhelming. I'd make it then something like this:
>
> "Your name MUST be kept holy;
> Your reign MUST come!
> Your will MUST come to fulfilment!
>
>Looked at that way, it may be that we should understand these opening
>imperatives of the LP not so much as "petitions" but rather as underlying
>(eschatological) ASSUMPTIONS governing the petitions which in vss. 11-13
>are expressed as 2nd person imperatives (DOS, AFES) and in the aorist
>subjunctive with MH (MH EISENEGKHiS).
>
>Does that make sense?
>
>Regards, cwc
>
>
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(704) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/