[B-Greek] Hina with future indicative
Randy Leedy
Rleedy at bju.edu
Wed Sep 3 15:25:14 EDT 2003
Yes, as Carlton says, much more common in Revelation. (A Bibleworks
search for hINA followed by a future indicative with no more than 5
intervening words finds about half a dozen occurrences outside
Revelation (actually 8, but in 2 or 3 of them hINA governs an
intervening subjuntive rather than the indicative), and 10x in
Revelation). And apparently it was troublesome to the early copyists,
because the Byzantine mss with a great degree of regularity have the
aorist subjunctive instead of the future indicative (so in 9 of the 10
instances cited above as well as all but 1 or 2 of the instances outside
Rev.).
These facts leave one with the impression that it's NOT the case that
both constructions were in use with a recognized difference in nuance.
It looks for all the world like this is a good example of how the
Byzantine copyists were trying to "clean up" what they took as awkward
grammar, esp. in Revelation. It's sure hard to make any sense out of the
idea that the Alexandrian scribes had some tendency to change the text
to the future indicative in Revelation (where it appears in
approximately equal proportion to the aorist subjunctive) when elsewhere
the subjunctive so dominantly rules in those mss (the proportion
elsewhere is on the order of 50:1 in favor of the subjunctive).
My vote is that the constructions are not distinguishable in meaning,
though to be completely fair one would have to take up the individual
occurrences to see whether a consistent usage might after all emerge.
Blessings in Christ (Acts 3:26),
Randy Leedy
Bob Jones University Seminary
Greenville, SC
RLeedy at bju.edu
In a message dated 9/2/03 11:05:51 AM, ronpt at comcast.net writes:
>Am studying Revelation 6:4, and wondered if there is a substantial
>difference in emphasis when an author used Hina with the future
>indicative as opposed to Hina with the subjunctive to express
purpose.
>
The text is . . .EDOQH AUTWi LABEIN THN EIRHNHN EK THS GHS KAI hINA
ALLHLOUS SFAZOUSIN, . . .
I really do not see any difference in what seems to be said as opposed
to
the use of hINA with the subjunctive. Some commentaries have asserted
that the use of the future indicative gives a stronger degree of
certainty,
but some of the uses of the subjunctive are very strong indeed,
especially
in 1 John. I think there are more of these in the Revelation than
elsewhere.
Carlton Winbery
Louisiana College
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