1 John 1:9

Mary L B Pendergraft pender at wfu.edu
Mon Nov 30 16:04:07 EST 1998


At 10:09 AM 11/30/98 -0700, cjgag at imap4.asu.edu wrote:
>I recently read comments by a certain author on 1 John 1:9.  He said that in
>light of the Greek in the passage, it should be translated, "If we confess
our
>sins, he is faithful and just to have forgiven us our sins and to have
>purified us from all unrighteousness."  Are the verbs "to forgive" and "to
>purify" really supposed to be understood as past tense?
>
>							Casey Gagnon
>							Tempe, AZ

Your intuition is correct:  The verbs that show up in English as
infinitives are subjunctives in Greek, and so not past time.
The question I felt about this verse was how we should understand the hINA
clause:  They're usually (90% of the time?) clauses of purpose, but that
didn't ring true in this context.  Sure enough, BAG  (sv. hINA II.1.2) cite
this as an ex. of a result clause:  "..God is faithful and just, with the
result that he forgives our sins....."

Mary


Mary Pendergraft
Associate Professor of Classical Languages
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem  NC  27109-7343
336-758-5331 (NOTE:  this is a new number)	 pender at wfu.edu



More information about the B-Greek mailing list