THEOS HGAPHSEN

Steven Craig Miller scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Sat Dec 25 11:33:55 EST 1999


To: Mark Taylor,

<< I have noticed that quite often when the NT is speaking of Christ's 
sacrifice at the same time it speaks of His love, it places AGAPAW in the 
aorist, instead of the present or imperfect. For instance, in John 3:16... 
hOUTWS GAR HGAPHSEN hO THEOS TON KOSMON... Is this intended to speak of the 
crucifixion as a loving-act? >>

In my third semester of Greek, we were reading John's Gospel. And each 
student was given a chance to translate a verse as we went around the 
table. It came my turn to translate a verse, and I was struggling to make 
sense out of the Greek, and I wasn't doing a very good job. My professor 
had to step in and help me out, it was then that I finally realized that I 
was translating John 3:16, a passage I had memorized as a child. Was I ever 
red faced! <grin>

Commenting on John 3:16, Father Raymond E. Brown writes: "The aorist 
implies a supreme 'act' of love" (AB 29:133). Although Father Brown was IMO 
one of our truly great scholars, I think his statement here is simply 
pseudo-grammatical nonsense. There is nothing about putting the verb AGAPAW 
into the aorist which could imply some sort of superlative force. This 
verse might refer to a "supreme act of love," but putting the verb in the 
aorist tense doesn't tell us that.

For many verbs (but not AGAPAW), the aorist form is closer to the stem of 
the verb. I sometimes wonder if we have learned things backwards. For many 
verbs it seems it would make more sense to learn the aorist form first, and 
only later learn the present. In addition, the aorist indicative tense is 
used more often than any of the other tenses. The present indicative tense 
comes in a close second place. And all other tenses are much rarer than 
these two. Finally, it appears that the aorist is the normal tense for 
narrative, while the present tense is the normal one for non-narrative 
discourse.

Instead of think of the aorist tense as a special tense, one might be 
better off thinking of the aorist as the plain vanilla of tenses. It is the 
change from the aorist to some other tense which should make one set up and 
take some notice.

As to whether or not John 3:16 refers to Jesus' crucifixion, although most 
commentators which I've consulted would tend to support such a notion, I 
would note that this verse purports to be a saying of Jesus which he made 
before his crucifixion, and undoubtedly if one thinks of this passage as 
historical, it is impossible for his audience to have understood his words 
in such a light.

-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Disclaimer: "I'm just a simple house-husband (with no post-grad degree), 
what do I know?"




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