From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Jul 16 1998 - 05:56:07 EDT
At 7:10 AM +0800 7/16/98, Paul R. Zellmer wrote:
>Carl wrote:
>
>> In the original question Zerwick was cited as saying this (OU MH + aorist
>> subj.) is the strongest possible Greek form of stating the imperative
>> notion. A Latin equivalent is NE + perfect subjunctive with the sense, like
>> that of the Greek construction, "Don't ever xxxx ..." or "You are not ever
>> to xxxx ..." Now archaic English would have put it: "You SHALL not xxxx ..."
>
>Carl, I can see the possibility of this interpretation in Gal. 5:16,
>EPIQUMIAN SARKOS OU MH TELESTHTE. But take one of the examples that I
>referred to, Luke 6:37 KAI MH KRINETE, KAI OU MH KRIQHTE: KAI MH
>KATADIKAZETE, KAI OU MH KATADIKASQHTE. APOLUETE, KAI APOLUQHSESQE: Here
>the OU MH terms are combined with forms that could either be aorist
>subjunctive passives or aorist imperative passives, right? (At least
>I'm not seeing any augment, which is required by the indicative,
>correct?) These two negative forms are paralleled in the usage of a
>positive future indicative passive. If the subjunctive interpretation
>were intended here, would not Luke have used APOLUSHSQE or at least
>APOLUHTE? It appears the second part of the third clause is simple
>future. Would it not also be logical to interpret the second parts of
>the the first two clauses like simple futures?
>
>Robertson quotes page 78 of Burton's _Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of
>the New Testament_ with exactly the same phrase that Justin said Zerwick
>used, "the aorist subjunctive is used with OU MH in the sense of an
>emphatic future indicative." This is not a "don't ever" or "thou shalt
>not." That would be a strong prohibition, an imperatival use, correct?
>
>Part of what appears to be clouding the issue is that the examples cited
>so far are 2nd person. I feel this issue comes clearer when we look at
>the numerous cases of third person aorist subjunctives used with OU MH.
>Look, for example, at John 4:14, John 6:37, and John 10:28. We would
>translate these as simple future indicatives, right?
>
>Anyway, that's what it looks like to me.
Paul, you are ABSOLUTELY right on this and I stand (sit, at any rate)
corrected! I was thinking strictly in terms of classical Attic usage of OU
MH + aorist subjunctive in the 2nd person as the most emphatic of
imperatives; this usage, however, is a different one (I've just checked
BDF#365), and yes indeed, these instances you cite, as well as the one that
ticked off the whole discussion, should indeed be understood as emphatic
future assertions, not imperatives. An ironic twist to this is that this
usage of subjunctive, and particularly of the aorist subjunctive--I don't
mean with OU MH but more generally--, is particularly common in Homer,
where a subjunctive expressing futurity emphatically is perhaps more common
than a future tense--and this is the reason why it used to be held that the
future tense derived originally from a short-vowel subjunctive of the
aorist (but that no longer is an accepted explanation of the origin of the
future tense).
Thanks very much for getting me squared on this one, Paul.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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