John 5:46 - Yet Another Conditionals Question

Jonathan Robie jonathan at texcel.no
Wed Dec 23 19:55:00 EST 1998


A rather long time ago, Carl Conrad wrote:

>BUT--the imperfect (indicative) retains one function in Koine that it had
>in Classical Attic: it is used in both protasis and apodosis of present
>counterfactual conditions. I've never been able to figure out a good reason
>why the indicative should function in Greek for a counterfactual
>condition--but of course the aorist indicative does so in past
>counterfactual conditions also.

Are imperfects in the protasis and apodosis always *present* counterfactual
conditions? Consider the following:

Matt 23:30

EI HMEQA EN TAIS hHMERAIS TWN PATERWN hHMWN, OUK AN HMEQA AUTWN KOINWNOI EN
TWi hAIMATI TWN PROFHTWN

Jonathan
 
jonathan at texcel.no
Texcel Research
http://www.texcel.no



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