re MDDM 35 Christ and History

[jbor]

on 21/2/02 7:40 PM, Thomas Eckhardt at thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de wrote:

> If my English does not
> fail me, the "if" at the beginning of the relevant sentence implies that
> he is making a subjunctive statement, talking about a possibility, while
> the use of "is" instead of "was" implies that the statement is in the
> indicative,

Another (minor) correction: a correctly-expressed subjunctive verb phrase
would be "if it were" or "if it be". The past tense verb "was" is also
indicative (though, as the mood of the language has shifted, some
subjunctive constructions have come to adopt it,

eg. If I was to wash my car today it would no doubt rain.)

best