[B-Greek] John 14:16

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Mar 29 08:01:33 EST 2007


On Thursday, March 29, 2007, at 08:26AM, "Carl Unger" <carlunger at gmail.com> wrote:
>Just a short simple one.
>
>John 14:16 - And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another
>Comforter, that he may be with you for ever,
>
>My main focus is on the "that he may" which seems to mean that the purpose
>of the prayer is so the Holy Spirit might be with us forever, which means
>it's not definite. However, in the GWT they translate it as "he will"
>meaning the Holy Spirit will be with us forever, definantly.
>
>Which one is correct?

This would appear to be a question about translation(s) more than a question
about understanding the Greek text, but I'm only going to deal with understanding
the Greek text.

Text (it really helps to have this infront of respondents):

14:16 KAGW ERWTHSW TON PATERA KAI ALLON PARAKLHTON 
DWSEI hUMIN hINA MEQ hUMWN EIS TON AIWNA Hi

the key verb is the "Hi" at the end of the clause and passage in question. 
it is pres. sg. subj. in a hINA purpose clause; the hINA clause is dependent upon 
DWSEI; what this means is that the ongoing everlasting presence of the
Comforter is the purpose of the Father's giving of the Comforter.

With regard to the translation, I would just note that "that he may be with you
forever" is archaic English, although I think most find it intelligible enough.
In current English I think an infinitive would do just fine. I would English the
above as: "And I'll ask the Father and he'll give you another Helper to be
with you forever."

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (ret)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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