[B-Greek] 1John 2:27 - Indicative or Imperative

Elizabeth Kline kline-dekooning at earthlink.net
Fri Sep 23 00:17:05 EDT 2005


On Sep 22, 2005, at 6:03 PM, Gary & Lynn O'Neal wrote:

>
> Thanks for the reply. Let me see if I am understanding you  
> correctly. Because the construction KAQWS + [indicative verb] +  
> [imperative verb] is rare, does this make you lean toward seeing  
> MENETE as an indicative?
>
> Doesn't Phil. 2:12 fit the pattern on KAQWS + [indicative verb] +  
> [imperative verb]?
>
> hWSTE, AGAPHTOI MOU, KAQWS PANTOTE hUPHKOUSATE, MH hWS EN THi  
> PAROUSIAi MOU MONON ALLA NUN POLLWi MALLON EN THi APOUSIAi MOU,  
> META FOBOU KAI TROMOU THN hEAUTWN SWTHRIAN KATERGAZESQE.

Gary,

I wasn't drawing any conclusions about this. I made an error in my  
search criteria for the GNT. I initially limited the scope to 1John  
and forgot to switch back to the entire GNT. That explains why I  
wasn't finding any examples. Working with the entire GNT produced a  
number of hits for KAQWS + [indicative verb] + [imperative verb] and  
after weeding the hits Phil. 2:12 stands out as fitting the pattern  
found in 1John 2:27. There may be others (weeding is time consuming!).

The evidence from the GNT and LXX demonstrates that the both the  
imperative and indicative are possible. The indicative may be more  
probable but probability doesn't carry much weight in arguments about  
syntax.

Elizabeth Kline







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