by Scott Lawson » April 11th, 2012, 1:37 am
I guess I haven’t yet answered my question, whether the author chooses the time/tense of the verb of what is to be said before he chooses the form of the Imperative he will use or vice versa.
It seems to me that when giving a command, whether positive or negative, one first has in mind the action demanded of the recipient. And even in English we are more focused on the type of action we want to see occur. Also, with English we are obviously more limited in our choice of imperatives unlike Greek. I like what Robertson says about the difference between English uniformity and Greek variety:
“(κ) Variations in the Use of Tenses. Where so much variety is possible, great freedom is to be expected. In modern English we make a point of uniformity of tense in narrative. The Greeks almost made a point of the opposite. It is jejune, to say no more, to plane down into a dead level the Greek spontaneous variety. Cf…. "When they wished to narrate a fact, or to convey a meaning, there is good ground for holding that they employed the tense appropriate for the purpose, and that they employed it just because of such appropriateness." That is well said. The explanation is chiefly psychological, not mere analogy, which is true of only a few tenses, especially in late Greek...” (Rob. 847)
As a side point, Robertson’s use of psychological contrasted with analogy caused me to wonder if this is an early awareness of what is called “psycholinguistics?”
In speaking about the aorist, Robertson on page 846, makes this comment about ἔρχομαι (πάλιν preceding it) at John 14:3 which to me seems similar to ἀποστέλλει πάλιν at Mark 11:3 :
“It is a vivid transference of the action to the future (like the present ἔρχομαι, Jo. 14:3) by the timeless aorist.”
I’m still trying to divine what Robertson means by “vivid.” He uses the term in other places as well such as pg 866 where under the heading The Historical Present he says, “This vivid idiom is popular in all languages, particularly in the vernacular.” And on page 896 under the heading The Dramatic Historical Present Perfect, “Here an action completed in the past is conceived in terms of the present time for the sake of vividness.” He goes on to speak about vividness, connecting it with emphasis, drama and imagination. So, I wonder if it isn’t for this reason that Mark uses ἀποστέλλει.
I would certainly appreciate comments on my observations. Thanks!
Scott Lawson
τίς γὰρ ἔγνω νοῦν κυρίου, ὃς συμβιβάσει αὐτόν; ἡμεῖς δὲ νοῦν Χριστοῦ ἔχομεν. Εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.