[B-Greek] Mt 6:15 AFHTE vs. AFIETE

Alastair Haines afhaines at tpg.com.au
Thu Mar 24 15:58:28 EDT 2011


Friends,

perhaps both English and Greek here are proving Professor Conrad's theory
that less ambiguous human languages might reduce human conflicts.

Context and conditionals are relevant here as already noted.
The aorist subjunctive in the protasis (AFHTE) contrasts with
an future indicative in the apodosis (AFHSEI).

I take it that the subjunctive is sufficiently explained by the conditional,
but how do we explain the aorist? Why not simple gnomic usage?
IF you all are forgiving [by nature], THEN your heavenly Father will forgive 
you.

Gnomic verbal ideas contrast with episodic verbal ideas, so we can forget 
time.
Pulling back from imagining episodes where individuals forgive or fail to 
forgive,
frees things up from reading Matthew as saying "forgive or be damned."

The gnomic idea can be expressed in English, as a so-called first 
conditional.
If you forgive, then God will forgive.
But that is ambiguous in English, at least in my variety of it.
So I would be inclined to translate (if someone forced me to translate)
the gnomic of the Greek in some way.

Note also, Matthew 6:12:
"Forgive (AFES) us ... as (hWS) we forgive (AFHKAMEN)".
Kappa aorist, not perfect, gnomic interpretation.
Forgive as we forgive, not forgive because we have forgiven.

Matthew 6:12 really needs to be gnomic,
and coming before 14-15 as it does, makes reading them easier.

I do hope this reading is correct,
you'd all jolly well be sure to forgive me if I'm wrong though. ;)

alastair


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "George F Somsel" <gfsomsel at yahoo.com>
To: "Oun Kwon" <kwonbbl at gmail.com>
Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 2:17 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Mt 6:15 AFHTE vs. AFIETE


> Perhaps you don't understand English any more than you understand Greek. 
> "If
> you don't forgive men, neither will your Father forgive your 
> transgressions."
> george
> gfsomsel
>
>
> … search for truth, hear truth,
> learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
> defend the truth till death.
>
>
> - Jan Hus
> _________
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Oun Kwon <kwonbbl at gmail.com>
> To: George F Somsel <gfsomsel at yahoo.com>
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Sent: Thu, March 24, 2011 8:09:27 AM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Mt 6:15 AFHTE vs. AFIETE
>
> Superficially so.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 1:14 AM, George F Somsel <gfsomsel at yahoo.com> 
> wrote:
>> It must be understood -- wait for it. IN ITS CONTEXT. The context is that
>> of teaching the disciples (and therefore the Church) to pray:
>>
>
>>
>> hOUTWS OUN PROSEUXESQE hUMEIS:
>> ...
>> KAI AFES hHMIN TA OFELHMATA hHMWN,
>> hWS KAI hHMEIS AFHKAMEN TOIS OFEILETAIS hHMWN.
>>
>> Thus the context is that of whenever they pray indicating a general
>> condition. "If you do not forgive, neither will your father ..."
>>
>> george
>
>
> Superifically so. However, ...
>
> If I am correct, what I get from the text in question is that our
> forgiving is to be consequent of God's forgiveness. In such context,
> if we say that God forgives us when we forgive others and He will not
> if we don't, we do have not a small problem to solve. It makes God's
> forgiveness to be very conditional to our forgiveness.
>
> Oun Kwon.
>
>
>
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
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> 




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