Concatenated Dependent Clauses

Mark Wilson emory2oo2 at hotmail.com
Fri Dec 15 11:14:58 EST 2000





In the midst of reading about Dependent Clauses (Purpose and Result), I came 
across this text:

John 10:38

TOIS ERGOIS PISTEUETE hINA GNWTE KAI GINWSKHTE

"believe the works, so that you might know and you might know" (Porter).

Porter's translation seemed a bit awkward, so I looked at the other 
dependent
clauses for clues. I realize that Purpose and Result Clauses are often
difficult to distinguish, but I observed the following in the passages that
contained a concatenation of dependent clauses.
[  We might call this Mark Wilson's Observation :o )   ]

Here are some of those passages first:

1 Cor. 7:5; Eph. 6:21,21; 2 Cor. 13:7; 1 Cor. 1:27-29; John 3:16; Rom 5:20, 
21

Observation:

There seems to be a tendency for the last clause in a series to be a Result 
Clause (not a Purpose Clause).
(I wonder if there might be a "linguistic" rationale for this.)

I guess distinguishing Purpose from Result Clauses, when syntactically 
either
is an option, is a somewhat subjective task; perhaps one's "theology" plays 
a
decisive role in how they are ultimately and subjectively distinguished.

However, if my observation above holds, then I wonder if I might
understand and translate John 10: 38 in this manner:

TOIS ERGOIS PISTEUETE hINA GNWTE KAI [hINA] GINWSKHTE

"believe the works, so that (purpose) you might know
and that (result) you might know"


Thank you,

Mark Wilson

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