verbless conditional Gal. 3:18 what mood?

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Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: verbless conditional Gal. 3:18 what mood?

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

cwconrad wrote: No, I would say that neither Gal 3:19 nor 1 Cor 15:13, 16 is counter-factual. By definition counter-factual constructions are imaginary and hypothetical ...
This discussion has taken an interesting turn. I have a follow on question. How do we identify contrary to fact conditionals in Koine? Do we do it based surface structural , i.e. formal characteristics?
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: verbless conditional Gal. 3:18 what mood?

Post by cwconrad »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
cwconrad wrote: No, I would say that neither Gal 3:19 nor 1 Cor 15:13, 16 is counter-factual. By definition counter-factual constructions are imaginary and hypothetical ...
This discussion has taken an interesting turn. I have a follow on question. How do we identify contrary to fact conditionals in Koine? Do we do it based surface structural , i.e. formal characteristics?
You're probably looking for a response from a linguistic perspective. I can only say that the patterns I learned to recognize in earlier Greek certainly seem to hold in NT Koine, i.e. present counterfactuals with imperfect in both protasis and apodosis, past counterfactuals with aorist in both protasis and apodosis, ἄν in the apodosis in both present and past counterfactuals. Here are a few examples of that pattern from different strata of the GNT:

Matt 11:23 … εἰ ἐν Σοδόμοις ἐγενήθησαν αἱ δυνάμεις αἱ γενόμεναι ἐν σοί, ἔμεινεν ἂν μέχρι τῆς σήμερον.

Mark 13:20 καὶ εἰ μὴ ἐκολόβωσεν κύριος τὰς ἡμέρας, οὐκ ἂν ἐσώθη πᾶσα σάρξ·

Luke 7:39 ...οὗτος εἰ ἦν προφήτης, ἐγίνωσκεν ἂν τίς καὶ ποταπὴ ἡ γυνὴ ἥτις ἅπτεται αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἁμαρτωλός ἐστιν.

Luke 12:39 …ι εἰ ᾔδει ὁ οἰκοδεσπότης ποίᾳ ὥρᾳ ὁ κλέπτης ἔρχεται, οὐκ ἂν ἀφῆκεν διορυχθῆναι τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ.

John 5:46 εἰ γὰρ ἐπιστεύετε Μωϋσεῖ, ἐπιστεύετε ἂν ἐμοί· περὶ γὰρ ἐμοῦ ἐκεῖνος ἔγραψεν.

Gal 1:10 ... εἰ ἔτι ἀνθρώποις ἤρεσκον, Χριστοῦ δοῦλος οὐκ ἂν ἤμην.

1 Cor 11:31 εἰ δὲ ἑαυτοὺς διεκρίνομεν, οὐκ ἂν ἐκρινόμεθα·
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: verbless conditional Gal. 3:18 what mood?

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

cwconrad wrote:
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
cwconrad wrote: No, I would say that neither Gal 3:19 nor 1 Cor 15:13, 16 is counter-factual. By definition counter-factual constructions are imaginary and hypothetical ...
This discussion has taken an interesting turn. I have a follow on question. How do we identify contrary to fact conditionals in Koine? Do we do it based surface structural , i.e. formal characteristics?
You're probably looking for a response from a linguistic perspective. I can only say that the patterns I learned to recognize in earlier Greek certainly seem to hold in NT Koine, i.e. present counterfactuals with imperfect in both protasis and apodosis, past counterfactuals with aorist in both protasis and apodosis, ἄν in the apodosis in both present and past counterfactuals. Here are a few examples of that pattern from different strata of the GNT:

Matt 11:23 … εἰ ἐν Σοδόμοις ἐγενήθησαν αἱ δυνάμεις αἱ γενόμεναι ἐν σοί, ἔμεινεν ἂν μέχρι τῆς σήμερον.

Mark 13:20 καὶ εἰ μὴ ἐκολόβωσεν κύριος τὰς ἡμέρας, οὐκ ἂν ἐσώθη πᾶσα σάρξ·

Luke 7:39 ...οὗτος εἰ ἦν προφήτης, ἐγίνωσκεν ἂν τίς καὶ ποταπὴ ἡ γυνὴ ἥτις ἅπτεται αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἁμαρτωλός ἐστιν.

Luke 12:39 …ι εἰ ᾔδει ὁ οἰκοδεσπότης ποίᾳ ὥρᾳ ὁ κλέπτης ἔρχεται, οὐκ ἂν ἀφῆκεν διορυχθῆναι τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ.

John 5:46 εἰ γὰρ ἐπιστεύετε Μωϋσεῖ, ἐπιστεύετε ἂν ἐμοί· περὶ γὰρ ἐμοῦ ἐκεῖνος ἔγραψεν.

Gal 1:10 ... εἰ ἔτι ἀνθρώποις ἤρεσκον, Χριστοῦ δοῦλος οὐκ ἂν ἤμην.

1 Cor 11:31 εἰ δὲ ἑαυτοὺς διεκρίνομεν, οὐκ ἂν ἐκρινόμεθα·
So it appears that we identify by formal characteristics supported by the inability to come up with counter examples. I wasn't able to find any. I just looked through 41 examples in Accordance based on εἰ + indicative ἂν + indicative and they all appeared to be contrafactual. What are the implications of John 14:28b:
John 14:28 ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐγὼ εἶπον ὑμῖν· ὑπάγω καὶ ἔρχομαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς. εἰ ἠγαπᾶτέ με ἐχάρητε ἂν ὅτι πορεύομαι πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ μείζων μού ἐστιν.

εἰ ἠγαπᾶτέ με is contrafactual, who is He addressing here?
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: verbless conditional Gal. 3:18 what mood?

Post by Eeli Kaikkonen »

It's very important to know what we are talking about when we talk about "counterfactual conditions". Does it mean linguistically counterfactual or real-world counterfactual? Real-world counterfactuality doesn't necessitate linuguistic counterfactuality, as David demonstrated. If the writer uses linguistic counterfactuality, he wants to make his opinion explicit and wants the reader to share it as a presupposition. But rhetorically the basic linguistic if-then-condition can be more effecient if the writer wants to show it's actually real-world counterfactual. "If it is so..." forces the reader to consider the condition as a fact. When the apodosis is also given as a fact, but at the same time is revealed to be impossible for the reader to accept, it's more powerful than a linguistic counterfactuality would have been.

So, real-world counterfactuality doesn't mean that linguistic counterfactuality must be used, or vice versa. I also think that the ellipsis should be filled with the easiest possible construction. Therefore I give my vote to indicative.

But, but... ellipsis isn't necessarily meant to be filled by any one word/phrase/construction. The ellipsis of pure ειμι is usually clear, but I believe that if the ellipsis is more complicated and there are several possibilities, filling should be done only for the sake of translation, not for the sake of understanding. The speaker/writer made it vague on purpose, because the part left out isn't important. Therefore we shouldn't say that the original sentence "should" be in a certain mood – it was made moodless by the writer. If we have e.g. two possible corresponding sentences with two different moods, we actually have here the third real option – no mood at all.
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