[B-Greek] The two hOTAN clauses in 1 Cor 15.24

moon at sogang.ac.kr moon at sogang.ac.kr
Sun Oct 22 13:29:16 EDT 2006


[George]:

I don't know what you refer to as "other factors" to solve the problem. 
 There are no other factors -- that is all we have.

[Moon] => I am sorry. I was not clear. The problem is to choose which 
structure for 1 Cor 15:24. 

The two potential structures are:

(A)
1. EITA TO TELOS . . . 
a.  hOTAN PARADIDWi . . . 
b.  hOTAN KATARGHSHi . . . 

and  

(B)
1. EITA TO TELOS. . . 
a.  hOTAN PARADIDWi 
      1) hOTAN KATARGHSHi . . .
 
My point was:
 (1) The subjunctive moods of the hotan clauses mean that the events
     described are potential
 (2) The potential event of KATARGHSHi precedes the potential event of
     PARADIDWi
 (3) The fact (2) does NOT mean that we can choose structure (B).
     We need to consider other factors to reach the decision. 

The fact is that the temporal clause 

 hOTAN PARADIDWi ... hOTAN KATARGHSHi

sounds akward. If I use an English example, the temporal clause

 "when he arrives home when he has finished school"

 sounds strange.

But "when he arrives home after he has finished school" or
"when he arrives after finishing school" sounds OK

Note that NIV, which takes the second hotan clause to be subordinate
to the first hotan clause, translates the second hOTAN as "after".

The reason why "when he arrives home after he has finished school"
sounds OK is not hard to see. The time defined by "after
he has finished school" is unspecific enough so that it can be
further refined by "when he arrives home". But the time defined by
"when he has finished school" is specific enough
 so that it is not easy to refine it further by 
"when he arrives home". I believe that a similar 
logic can be applied to Greek hOTAN clauses.

Moon Jung
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea



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