Gal 4:4 EXAPESTEILEN

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jul 12 21:16:21 EDT 2002


At 5:47 PM -0700 7/12/02, Glen L Naftaniel wrote:
>Dear B-Greeker's, I have a question regarding the order of events in Gal 4:4.
>
>The verse is: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth
>his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, (Gal 4:4 KJV)
>
>hOTE DE HLQEN TO PLHRWMA TOU CRONOU EXAPESTEILEN O QEOS TON hUION AUTOU
>GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS, GENOMENON hPO NOMON (Gal 4:4 N-A)
>
>Now, my question is does "EXAPESTEILEN" occur prior to "GENOMENON"? Also,
>how do we know?

Generally a temporal clause preceding and defining the time of an event
indicated by a main verb is going to indicate what happens prior to the
event referred to in the main verb. In this instance, even in the
Elizabethan (Jacobean?) English of KJV, "was come" is pluperfect, while
modern English would make it "had come." While it doesn't necessarily
ALWAYS work, it's generally the case that the tense of a temporal clause
signals how it relates to the time of a main clause: if PRESENT tense, the
action is roughly contemporaneous with that of the main verb; if AORIST
tense, the action is prior to that of the main verb; if FUTURE tense, the
action is posterior to that of the main verb. English equivalents:

(a) When it rains, it pours (e.g. hOTAN hUHi, EKCEI); (b) When he had thus
spoken, he departed (hOUTWS EIPWN APHLQEN = hOTE TAUTA EIPEN, APHLQEN); (c)
When he is going to come, he will give no warning (EKEINOS ELEUSOMENOS OU
MH hUPODEIXHi hUMIN).
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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