Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Third Person Imperative in NT Greek
From Porter’s Idioms of the Greek New Testament (p.55):
Whereas the second person is similar to the English form when translated, the third person imperative requires what has sometimes been labeled a permissive sense (let…). However, any permissive sense is a phenomenon of English translation, not Greek. The third person Greek imperative is as strongly directive as the second person. ...
Rom 6.12: [Mê oun basileuetô hê hamartia en tôi thnêtôi humôn sômati] (therefore, sin is not to rule in your mortal body), with the third person imperative.
Luke 16:29 [akousatôsan autôn] (they are to hear them), with the third person plural imperative, which only appears approximately 34 times in the NT, compared to about 200 third person singular forms.
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