Imperative Mood: Present vs. Aorist

Ed Gorham aekalm at a-znet.com
Sat Oct 24 00:00:24 EDT 1998


April,
You've already received some excellent answers. Perhaps another clue could 
be provided by Porter's "Idioms of the Greek NT".
He cites several instances of the omnitemporal presnt tense (the present 
being used for any time), or for timeless action. Likewise, he cites cases 
where the aorist is employed for present action (e.g. Matt. 23:23, Lk. 
16:4, etc.) and for omnitemporal and timeless actions.
Then there is his argument for what he refers to as "planes of discourse". 
In sum, he says that often the aorist will be used for historical narrative 
and background information, regarless of time, and the present will be used 
to highlight or emphasize an action or concept, in order to have it stand 
out in bold relief from the background info.
I don't throw this out as the solution, but simply an an element for 
consideration.
Cheers,
-Ed Gorham
aekalm at a-znet.com



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