Jonathan Robie wrote: I suspect that's also what the King James is trying to accomplish with the future and the conditional in "if they shall fall away", distinguish the "good times" from the time of falling away.
I don't think the "shall" in the KJV would be regarded as future, but as modal = "they certainly will". It was common usage in earlier English, and is still common in formal usage, such as in legal documents.
grogers wrote:Point taken. I supposed I should have said a conditional aorist. This is how Wallace regards it, "This participle implies a condition on which the fulfillment of the idea indicated by the main verb depends. Its force can be introduced by if in translation. This usage is fairly common." DBW. But every example he offered was in a present participle with the exception of one perfect and one aorist - Jn 9:25. Have I misunderstood Wallace?
I don't think you need Wallace to tell you how to say something in English, though!. As has already been said, the Greek passage describes an outcome for a group of people who have experienced certain blessings and then followed a certain course of behaviour. There are many different ways to describe that in English. Again,
as has already been said pretty clearly, the translator's task is to try to reflect the essential meaning of the Greek, and
this task will actually be impeded if you get too hung up on trying to produce a one-to-one word parallel between the two languages.
Perhaps it would be useful to ask yourself exactly what you understand the Greek text of this passage to be saying, and then sit down and see how many different ways you can express this idea in English
accurately . It will most likely take you quite a while to exhaust the possibilities. From your list, you could then select what YOU think best reflects the Greek - but that doesn't mean it is the ONLY way or the MOST PRECISE way or the BEST way - or even the MOST ATTRACTIVE way to say it in English. Such an exercise, if you did it a few times for different passages, would demonstrate to you the
'art' of translating a passage faithfully.