Monday with Mounce

I saw an atheists’ website that listed one of their favorite “contradictions.” God says he will punish “the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation” (Exod 20:54; cf. Deut 5:9). However, in Ezekiel 18:4 God says, “The person who sins is the one who will die.” So which is it? Are children punished for the sins of their parents, or does the parents’ punishment end with them?

As we all know, some information from Greek is often left out of an English translation. Usually, it is just nuances, but the information is a little more important in this passage.

Romans 13:9 provides several interesting points of discussion. Here is the verse with its critical apparatus.

Every once in a while, you have to guess as to what words have been omitted from a Greek sentence in order to explain the form of those that were included. Sentences are often abbreviated, and I have lost count of how many times I was stuck, trying to understand the form of a word, and the answer was that some word (or words) was assumed.

There is a lot of flexibility in the significance of subjunctive. Once you move a statement out of fact (indicative) into possibility or probability, lots of nuances can be present.