Ephesians ~ Present Perfect

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Apr 27 19:32:51 EDT 1999


At 5:32 PM -0500 4/27/99, Bill Ross wrote:
>{Bill}
>I *really* want to put this thing to bed, but it is so interesting and
>instructive that I can't seem to do it. (This is how the book of Job got
>so long).
> 
>{Carl}
>And that is that this is a PRESENT PERFECT tense form;  
> 
>{Bill}
>Is this to be distinguished from the PERFECT?

No, they're the same thing--but properly speaking "perfect" is an aspect,
and there is a Present Perfect, a Past Perfect (or pluperfect), and a rare
but nevertheless real Future Perfect.

>{Carl}
>That's my point: you cannot isolate the ESTE from SESWiSMENOI and deem it
>to have a meaning in the Greek here all by itself. It just doesn't have
>that meaning by itself; it has it only in conjunction with the participle. 
> 
>{Bill} 
>SESWiSMENOI without ESTE is grammatically incorrect because the proper
>form includes EIMI, because of the awkward morphology of conjugating it
>without it?

That's right on target.

>SESWiSMENOI without ESTE is sort of like saying "you saved"  when you mean
>"you are saved" (but in Greek should be "you are been saved")?

But in English we'd use "have" where Greek uses "are": "You have been saved."

>I  think I'm getting it. 

I'm reminded of the old Danny Kaye movie, "The Court Jester," that had a
recurrent sequence of lessons and responses that went:

--"Get it?"
--"Got it!"
--"Good!"

And I think that's a good place to call a halt to this.

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
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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