John 6:29

Jim West jwest at highland.net
Sun Oct 10 16:42:53 EDT 1999


At 03:29 PM 10/10/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Jn 6:29b
>hINA PISTEUHTE EIS hON APESTEILEN EKEINOS
>
>I'm translating the conjunction and the Present Active Subjunctive
>functionally as 'to believe'. 

I would differ and take the phrase as a purpose clause... i.e., "so that you
might believe... etc".

>My questions are: Is there not a continuous
>sense in this phrase...

What do you mean by "continuous sense"?

>and if so, how can we bring that out without being
>awkward in the translation??  Doesn't it seem that the english tends to
>lose that continuous state connotation? How can we adjust for that?

Continuous?  Please explain.

>
>Could it be translated "to always believe" or something like this? 

No, because it is a subjunctive the element of possibility has to be
included- otherwise it looks like you are merely rendering an indicative.

best,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
email- jwest at highland.net
web page-  http://web.infoave.net/~jwest

'Mythology is what never was but always is.' Stephen of Byzantium




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