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

moon at sogang.ac.kr moon at sogang.ac.kr
Mon Oct 23 10:52:46 EDT 2006


[George]: 
Moon,
 
I was never advocating structure (B) -- or structure (A) for that matter. 
 I was simply presenting the possibilities.  Whether (B) sounds strange in English
 is really not to the point since it isn't English with which we are dealing. 
 If structure (B) were to be accepted as correct (probably doubtful) then perhaps 
it is our English translation which is at fault.  At the moment though those are
 the possibilities and we must decide which we find more convincing.

[Moon]=> 
  Understood. Is there a native Greek (Modern) speaker out there
  who can help us here? I hope (?) that he or she says:

   (1) Sentence PARADIDWi ... hOTAN KATARGHSHi is OK
   (2) But the temporal clause made out of it, that is, 
       hOTAN PARADIDWi ... hOTAN KATARGHSHi sounds strange.

      
  My hypothesis is: the temporal conjunction hOTAN
  (and its equivalents in other languages) have the property
  that the hOTAN clause cannot have another hOTAN clause nested in it.
  In English, this is so. In Korean (my native tongue) this is so, too.

Moon Jung
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea

------------------------------   
[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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