John 20:25

John 20:25 Nail Print
Stephen Hughes wrote:
What logic or syntactic knowledge could / should be applied here to determine whether οὐ μὴ πιστεύσω is aorist subjunctive or future?

John 20:25 wrote:ἐὰν μὴ ἴδω ἐν ταῖς χερσὶν αὐτοῦ τὸν τύπον τῶν ἥλων, καὶ βάλω τὸν δάκτυλόν μου εἰς τὸν τύπον τῶν ἥλων, καὶ βάλω τὴν χεῖρά μου εἰς τὴν πλευρὰν αὐτοῦ, οὐ μὴ πιστεύσω.

If, as I assume (perhaps wrongly) that you’re asking about how usage may be changing in Hellenistic Greek of the period in which this was composed, it’s an interesting question. We know that the future indicative was used in the LXX formulation of the commandments of the Decalogue, where older Greek might have used μή or οὐ μή with a subjunctive. In the 1st sg. forms we don’t know if the -ω is indicative or subjunctive. I don’t have access to Muraoka, but I wonder what he has to say about forms such as these. Another question is whether this author (or other NT authors) have learned their Greek in a school or where and how they have learned it. Do the ancient grammarians like Apollonius Dyscolus have anything useful to say on an issue like this? If an author did not learn to speak and write Greek in a school but reproduces what he has seen and heard spoken, how would he understand the grammar of it?

Statistics: Posted by cwconrad — December 15th, 2016, 9:33 am


Luke 8:12

New Testament • Re: Luke 8:12 ἵνα μὴ
Wes Wood wrote:
Thank you for your reply. Is it safe to say that ἵνα μὴ only negates a main verb? I cannot think of a time when I have heard/seen ‘lest’ where it did not link to a main verb. What I am not sure of is whether Greek works the same way. I am trying to determine what a good English equivalent for this phrase would be, if such a thing exists.

Also, I cannot find a parallel usage except for the one listed in LSJ. The words used appear to be too common for a Perseus search. If anyone would be willing to provide some examples of this phrase being used in other passages (Koine or otherwise), I would greatly appreciate it.

Well, you now have the listing of ἵνα μή clauses in the GNT. I’m not sure what you’re indicating in your comment. I think that “lest” is more or less archaic English: although I grew up with it, practically the only place I ever saw it was in grammar explanations of Latin ne or Greek ἵνα μή clauses. Certainly the ἵνα μή clauses are subordinate to a main verb, as here where the main verb is αἴρει in αἴρει τὸν λόγον ἀπὸ τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν. We could raise the question whether the ἵνα μή indicates purpose or result, since ­ἵνα + subj. is being used in the Koine that way: “The devil makes them forget the word so that …” or “The devil comes along and makes them forget, the result being that they … “

Statistics: Posted by cwconrad — December 3rd, 2016, 9:22 am