From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 14 1998 - 06:28:51 EST
At 11:56 PM -0600 1/13/98, Andrew Kulikovsky wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jim West [SMTP:jwest@Highland.Net]
>> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 1998 1:54 PM
>> To: Andrew Kulikovsky
>> Cc: b-greek@virginia.edu
>> Subject: Re: Romans 8:13
>>
>> At 01:37 PM 1/14/98 +1030, you wrote:
>> >Filoi,
>> >
>> >Romans 8:13 says (NIV): "If you live according to the flesh, you will
>> >die."
>> >
>> >Now, the "you will die" is MELLETE APOQNHSKEIN, which is literally
>> "you
>> >are about to die". I think Paul is saying that people who live an
>> >ungodly lifestyle are on their way to self destruction and will soon
>> die
>> >(physically and spiritually).
>
> I feel that MELLETE has a sence of imminency to it, which is why
>I used "surely" and "very soon".
>
> "very soon" is still a relative term - it makes no definite
>statement about the exact time of death, just that it will happen
>relatively soon.
>
> Do you agree?
I'd have to go with Jim on this one. I don't think there is any imminency
in MELLETE at all, and I think you're misreading the sense of MELLW. While
there was a distinction in classical Attic between MELLW with future
infinitive as an alternative future indicative and MELLW with present
infinitive with a sense of "intend" or even "postpone doing what one
intends" (because of the imperfect aspect: "keep intending"), that
distinction has generally vanished in the Koine and MELLW is regularly used
with a present infinitive as an auxiliary verb.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:38:54 EDT