[B-Greek] Future tense in Mt. 22.37,39
Barbara D. Colt
babc2 at comcast.net
Thu Oct 20 14:05:28 EDT 2005
On 20 Oct 2005 at 10:04, Richard Greene wrote:
> Almost all the translations have "Thou shalt. . ." or "You shall." This
> seems to me to have a strong sense of "You must. . .," or "You are to. . ."
>
> But the verbs are future indicative, aren't they? (AGAPHSEIS)
> _
> Wouldn't "You will. . ." be the most natural translation?
>
In modern American English the answer is "Yes." Most Americans nowadays
don't distinguish properly between shall and will and tend to use "shall"
just as an occasional variant. But back in the early days of WWII when I
was first in the Army, I used to be quite disturbed by the bulletin board
instructions, "Enlisted women will . . . " Obviously (to anyone who had
had my English teacher) it ought to have been "shall."
Barbara D. Colt, mailto:babc2 at comcast.net
St John the Evangelist, San Francisco
>From envy, hatred, and malice and all uncharitableness
Good Lord, deliver us.
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