Stephen Hughes wrote:and the second person singular aorist subjunctive actI've.
Barry Hofstetter wrote:Isn't μυοθηρεύσῃ third person singular?
Yes, now that you mention it, the "he, she, it, they (x3)"
is third person. Sorry for my low IQ.
Barry Hofstetter wrote:I just realized that the η is 8
I should make that clear by writing it as η', then.
Barry Hofstetter wrote:P. Oxy. 299, lines 3-4 wrote:καλῶς ποιήσεις πέμψεις
I'm also puzzled by πέμψεις, which looks like 2nd sing. future. I would have written πέμψας... Would that be a spelling variant for the aorist participle, or is it simply an ungrammatical (by even NT Koine standards) use of another main verb form where we would expect something subordinate? Or a spelling error for the future infinitive?
Picky, picky. The grammar teacher's eye.
It is a common enough and wide-spread construction for a polite or softened command in personal letters at that time in the first century CE. The καλῶς ποιήσεις functions as a stylised "Please". It is regularly followed by the second person (I've checked that number!) future indicative that you see here. If there was only one instance of this formulaic expression and this letter was being copied by scribes of a later age, when this idiom was no longer used, then they would probably have corrected it in one of the ways you are suggesting...
It's a bit off the topic of finding a way to teach proffesions to improve core Koine vocabulary, but the relevant New Testament verse is
3 John 6(b) wrote:οὓς καλῶς ποιήσεις προπέμψας ἀξίως τοῦ θεοῦ.
If it were re-regularised according to the contemporary letter writing conventions, it would read οὓς καλῶς ποιήσεις προπέμψ
εις ἀξίως τοῦ θεοῦ. If the papyrus letters of that time were standardised according to the greater Greek language across time and scribal transmission, then I should have standardised the grammar of P. Oxy. 299 as καλῶς ποιήσεις πέμψας along with the spelling changes I made for students' convenience.
In keeping with the idea that formal grammar is a subset of the possible grammar of the language, I decided not to change / regularise that. Are you suggesting I should?
Personally, despite the evidence from 3 John 6 about how the construction should be (was) changed into standard literary Greek by copyists unfamiliar with the phraseology, I was thinking of just supplying an ει "if" between the two verbs in brackets. Or perhaps just explaining that an "if" feeling is understood. What's your take on it?
Barry Hofstetter wrote:I was working as a janitor at Honeywell
What sort of company requires their cleaning staff to have doctorates in classics?