The first example smack at the beginning of Genesis:
καὶ ἤγαγεν αὐτὰ πρὸς τὸν Αδαμ ἰδεῖν, τί καλέσει αὐτά, καὶ πᾶν, ὃ ἐὰν ἐκάλεσεν αὐτὸ Αδαμ ψυχὴν ζῶσαν, τοῦτο ὄνομα αὐτοῦ.
"whatever Adam called it, the living soul, this was its name"
[notice the indicative]
A little later in Genesis:
τὸ δὲ ἔθνος, ᾧ ἐὰν δουλεύσωσιν, κρινῶ ἐγώ
"And whichever race they shall slave for, I will judge"
[subjunctive that time, though it could easily be indicative]
The NT does it too, especially when quoting the Septuagint. In fact, the other three occurrences of ὅς + ἐάν/ἄν in Acts are at 2:21, 7:3, 7:7, all quotes from the Septuagint, with Acts 7:7 being the second verse from Genesis that I quote.
The Gospels especially like this for sayings of Jesus. I wonder if in the first century, it may have been about equivalent to using "thy" and "thou" nowadays to sound Biblical.
Statistics: Posted by jeidsath — Sun Sep 29, 2024 11:57 pm