"Only then will All Israel be Saved": A Short Note on the Meaning of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in Romans 11:26 (CRITICAL NOTES‪)‬

The problem of the meaning and translation of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in Rom 11:26 has been a matter of debate ever since the beginning of modern scholarship. The well-known question is whether this expression should be taken in a modal sense ("and so [or "thus"] all Israel will be saved"), which is the most current translation, or in a temporal sense ("and then [or "only then" or "thereafter"] all Israel will be saved"), which is a much less common interpretation but one that is nevertheless defended by a handful of commentators and translators. In this short contribution to the debate I hope to prove that the temporal sense is more widespread than is commonly assumed and therefore a much more serious alternative to the modal meaning than most translations and commentaries would have us believe. (1) It is quite understandable that most translators and commentators take [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in the modal sense since it is the most current and usual meaning of the word; the temporal sense is less usual, or at least so much less frequent that several dictionaries do not even mention it. For instance, Bauer's Griechisch-deutsches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament does not mention this semantic aspect of the word, and neither do Louw and Nida in their Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament According to Semantic Domains. Liddell and Scott do register this meaning in their Greek-English Lexicon, but in such a veiled way that it is very hard to notice, since s.v. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] I 7 they say only that [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] is frequently used in an apodosis after a protasis, without indicating that in several of the instances listed by them the meaning of the word is "(only) then" (moreover they deal only with cases from classical Greek). So it makes sense to present a selected number of instances which clearly indicate that [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] can indeed have this meaning.