Present tense copulative verbs

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Aug 20 09:16:03 EDT 1998


At 12:57 AM -0700 8/20/98, Kyle Dillon wrote:
>Are present tense copulative verbs (EIMI verbs) known to take on a perfect
>meaning when in a past tense context (e.g., John 8:58)?

EIMI is here existential (asserting existence) rather than copulative
(linking a subject to a predicate word). In this instance, many scholars
believe that the intent of the expression is to allude to the Ex 3
explanation of God's name as "I am" (EHYEH ASHER EHYEH) and so to declare
Jesus' identity with the Father. Others dispute that interpretation.
There's been extensive discussion of this on-list; unfortunately much of it
has been heated and sectarian in nature--and I earnestly hope we shall see
none of that in any responses to this query, which really concerns itself
with Greek usage only.

On the grammatical question let me say two things in particular:

(1) Verbs in the present tense often have a perfective sense; some have it
built in (hHKW, for instance, means "I have arrived"; in the NT era PAREIMI
often has this same sense, "I have arrived" rather than "I am
present"--hence PAROUSIA gets translated into Latin as ADVENTUS and into
English as "advent" or "coming"--in the sense of "arrival"). Also, a verb
may acquire a perfective sense when certain adverbs accompany them: e.g.
HDH or PALAI.

(2) EIMI is no ordinary verb (I'm always reminded of the title of a book on
blood rituals; "Blut is ein ganz besonderes Saft".). It has only present,
imperfect, and future tense forms; forms of GINOMAI seem to serve in its
stead in the aorist and perfect tenses (as in the Johannine prologue). The
philosopher Parmenides relied upon these facts about the verb EIMI to argue
that if anything exists (ESTI) at all, it can never have come into
existence or NOT EXISTED nor can it ever pass out of existence or NOT EXIST
hereafter. In fact Parmenides went on to deny any meaning to notions of
space and time as a consequence of what he held to be the meaninglessness
of the negative phrase OUK ESTI, thereby becoming the first in the history
of Western philosophy to recognize consciously the "law of contradiction."
It is on the basis of this very distinctive character of the Greek verb
EIMI that many would argue that EIMI in this passage  (Jn 8:58) means "I
exist eternally." But, as I've already noted, others are likely to dispute
this. You may very well find a majority on one side of a question like
this, but you are not likely to find any universal consensus, and it's
perhaps worth noting that majority vote may elect officials or determine
popularity, and, as Aristotle repeatedly emphasized, majority opinion is
not negligible, but neither is it determinative of truth.


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad at yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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