Auxiliary Information

Χαρις ὑμιν,

There are a couple of things I wanted to mention that aren’t in the Lesson notes.

Firstly, Colleen noticed that there were two spellings for John in Greek:

Ἰωαννης and Ἰωανης

Both of these spellings are correct. In fact, there is a note to this affect on pg 199 of the Wenham textbook scans.

The reason there are two is, I believe, due to the syllabification of Hebrew. There are many instances in Hebrew where a single consonant is used in two adjacent syllables; ending one then beginning the next one. When translating Hebrew into another language, this dual consonantal role is indicated by duplicating the consonant. For example the word Sabbath (שבת), which in Hebrew has only one letter for the B-sound (ב—the letter bet), but when translated into English (and Greek: σαββατον), it is given two. When it came time to write the Hebrew form of the name John, יוחנן (Yochanan), into Greek, there was some uncertainty as to whether the penultimate N was playing this dual role, so some writers duplicated it and others didn’t.

Secondly, Lesson 13 deals with the future tense. In English we use the auxiliaries “will” and “shall” to form the future tense. For simplicity’s sake, we are only going to use “will” in our class translations, but you will encounter both “shall” and “will” when reading the various English translations of the NT. For that reason, I think it will be helpful if I explain the proper, Oxbridge (combination of Oxford & Cambridge) usage of the two.

“Shall” is meant to be used in the first person singular and plural; “will” is meant to be used in the second and third person singular and plural. For example:

Singular: I shall see him tomorrow. You will see him tonight. She will see him next week.
Plural: We shall see him tomorrow. They will see him tonight.

However, if the sentences are emphatic, then the auxiliaries are reversed:

Singular: I most certainly will see him tomorrow! You shall indeed see him tonight!
Plural: We definitely will see him tomorrow! They shall certainly see him tonight!

These same rules of use apply to “should” and “would”.

Outside of British academia, these distinctions have largely disappeared from modern English, where “will” is used exclusively. Any future emphatic forms needed are indicated by special formatting (bold, capitalization or italicization) or punctuation (exclamation point).

Isn’t language a blast!

God bless,
Ἰακωβος